Woman sues credit reporting firms for declaring her dead

ST. LOUIS – A 40-year-old St. Louis woman isn’t dead, but she said she spent months trying to convince credit reporting agencies that she’s alive.

Alexandria Goree is suing Experian, TransUnion and Equifax over the glitch, contending that it was difficult to get loans or a new home, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Her suit, filed last month in federal court, said Goree found a “deceased” notation on her credit files in the summer of 2013. Such a notice can appear when a creditor informs a reporting agency that one of its customers has died.

“Wow. Words can’t really explain how I felt,” she said. “It was just emotional.”

She said she had to deal with numerous rejections from credit card companies and local businesses because the credit reporting firms said that she was dead.

“Anything that would require monthly payments,” she said, “I was only able to purchase with cash.”

Representatives of TransUnion and Experian told the newspaper that they couldn’t comment on pending litigation. A spokesman for Equifax said the company’s attorneys were just notified about the lawsuit and needed more time to research it.

Goree said it took months of phone calls, letters and emails to convince Experian and TransUnion to return her to the land of the living. It’s unclear if Equifax also has done so.