Detour: Does Experian Really Think I Bought Pet Insurance?

So, my attempt to buy insurance was thwarted because of an error generated when it tried to Experian to verify that I am who I say I am. I remembered that "Our records indicate that you bought pet insurance in the past 2 years." It didn't say "You may have bought pet insurance". It didn't say "If you bought pet insurance". It said, "Our records indicate that you purchased pet insurance". These guys have my SSN and they said that.

Since I have no pets and certainly didn't buy pet insurance, I called 1-800-318-2596 which is the healthcare.gov phone line. Amazingly, I was talking to a human within seconds.

I told her about the pet insurance question and asked if healthcare.gov would ask trick questions like that when trying to verify my identity or should I investigate the possibility of identity theft. She said she didn't think that they would ask a trick question and said that Experian was the company to contact since they are ones doing the identity verification.

So I googled Experian and found experian.com is their site. I could create an account for $1. Sure why not. I created an account and once made, I rooted around and found nothing resembling anything resembling a purchase, let alone a pet insurance purchase.

So I called them. It turns out that I was dealing not with Experian but freecreditreport.com (like in the commercials). But after a half hour chat with the lady on the phone, we created a dispute to get some number I needed and than she had me call the real Experian. I called and soon was talking with someone from the dispute section.

I explained that I was told that Experian's records indicate that I bought pet insurance in the past 2 years and that I didn't have a pet and didn't buy insurance and that the woman at healthcare.gov said she didn't think they asked trick questions.

The Experian woman refused to acknowledge the word "trick question" but said that they ask questions designed to elicit a certain response. I made it clear that the wording of the question made it sound like I could be the victim of identity theft. She just kept repeating that elicit a certain response thing and saying that "trick question" isn't in her vocabulary.

So, I decided that it was a trick question and that Experian's records did not indicate I bought pet insurance.

Then I went back to their website where I discovered that canceling the account required a phone call. I wanted to cancel, otherwise they'd charge me $15/month for this stupid account. I called the number and allowed the woman to try to convince me to stay, but I finally got the thing canceled.

It was worth $1 to find out my credit score (798!) and waste their time.