Laura Rowley Money & Happiness

American Express called my husband with an unusual inquiry a few weeks ago. They wanted to know if he was dead.

Actually, they read him his first and last name -- which is identical to his father's -- and asked if that person was dead. Yes, my husband replied, his father had died more than eight years ago. Then Amex read him the Social Security number of the deceased. It was my husband's. Experian, the credit bureau, had apparently reported him dead.

We ordered my husband's credit scores from all three of the big credit bureaus -- Experian, Transunion, and Equifax -- and sure enough, none of them would give us his score, each citing "subject is deceased." Looking at his credit report, we found his father's Citi/Shell gas card (opened in 1967, when my husband was 10 years old) had shown up on his report. In addition, his parents' address -- a place they moved to after they retired, where my husband never lived -- was listed as a former residence.

Trapped in Experian's Phone Maze

This got me worried, because I'm a worst-case-scenario kind of gal. If a storm blew our oak tree into the roof, I told him, no one would give a home-equity loan to a dead man. (We have an emergency fund, but not a roof-sized one.)

He waived off my concerns, too busy multitasking: Watching the Mets in the garage, reading the New York Post, and drinking a Miller Lite. I thought maybe I should just videotape him in his natural habitat and send the footage to Experian to prove he's alive.

Instead, I called Experian's 800 number and got trapped in its automated phone system: "To get a credit report, press 1; to get a credit score, press 2; if you believe your credit information is being used fraudulently, press 3; to remove a security freeze press 4." There was no option: "To prove you're alive and well and watching the Mets in the garage, press 5." There was also no live operator to be found at the end of any of the prompts.

Hands Off Policy

Clearly, my husband had failed to follow the cardinal rule of checking his credit report once a year to catch mistakes and ensure no one has absconded with his identity. Nearly 80 percent of people have at least some negative information on their credit reports, and one in four reports contain errors significant enough to cause consumers to be denied credit, a loan, an apartment, a mortgage, or even a job, according to a survey by the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group.

I look at my credit report monthly -- not because I'm fastidious or paranoid, but because I was one of the thousands of former Time Warner employees whose personal information was lost on a computer disk. The company gave me the Equifax credit-monitoring service for a year. I get an e-mail when my balance changes on an account, which basically amounts to a head's up that my credit-card bill will be in the mailbox shortly.

Rod Griffin, Experian's manager of public education, insists credit bureaus don't report people dead (or to borrow a line from the gun lobby: Credit bureaus don't kill people, creditors do.)

Experian just parrots what creditors tell them, and it's the consumer's job to check the facts, he says. "Let's say we have a variation of multiple Social Security numbers," he explains. "If we start guessing which is right and we're wrong, we've done significant harm, not good."

Killed by a Bank

In my husband's case, he needs to tell Experian the credit-card account doesn't belong to him, and the information will be removed, Griffin says. He recommends filing the dispute by phone, which may be faster than snail mail. (When you order your credit report, it sports a different 800 number with a real person at the end of the line, he notes.) You can also file a dispute on the company's Web site, Experian.com.

Experian periodically communicates with the Social Security Administration, which shares its dead file to prevent fraud and identity theft. Griffin says my husband's case is unique -- it's more common to have a "mixed account issue." In that case, one person on a joint account passes away, and a creditor reports the entire account as being related to the deceased. The information subsequently appears on both credit histories.

That's what happened a few years ago to David Jokinen, a Texas businessman. "Mom had a couple credit cards when she was in the nursing home, and I was buying groceries and prescriptions, so I was a signatory," he says. "I wrote to all the companies when she passed and said I would honor all the obligations. Two of the three companies sent me a card in my own name within four weeks."

Chase Bank, however, requested a death certificate, which Jokinen sent several times. Then the bank sent a card that combined his name with his mother's information, making him deceased. He was subsequently listed as deceased with the three credit bureaus and even the Social Security Administration.

Can't Do Anything Without FICO Scores

A media-savvy guy, Jokinen had the local television station do a story on him (complete with a stroll through the cemetery.) It didn't help. For more than two years, he was unable to refinance his mortgage, get a car loan, or a loan for his business.

"When you don't have FICO scores, you can't do anything in America," Jokinen says, still bristling from his descent into the dead.

Jokinen's quest to be reinstated among the living became so Kafkaesque he ended up testifying before the Senate in 2003 about his experience. (There were five deceased people ready to speak, Jokinen says, but he was chosen because -- at two-and-a-half years running -- he was "the deadest.")

Even after his Senate testimony, Jokinen couldn't regain his place among the living. He ultimately sued Chase and the three credit bureaus in federal court, winning a "substantial" settlement that, under the terms of the deal, he says he can't disclose.

Finding a Way Back

You're entitled to a free copy of your credit report once a year (and under certain other conditions). Order the report at AnnualCreditReport.com. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the credit bureaus must investigate a mistake you report within 30 days and send the information you provide to the firm reporting the inaccuracies. If it turns out to be inaccurate, the credit bureau has to notify all the other bureaus.

For more information on disputing mistakes, see the Federal Trade Commission's Web site.

We'll know in 30 days if my husband will lose his dead man walking status. In the meantime, I hope a tree doesn't fall on the roof -- and it's a tremendous relief to see him in the garage watching the Mets, firmly among the living.