Not entirely related, but...
I have an uncommon last name. It’s Polish, but doesn’t end with “ski”.
So there’s another guy up in Illinois with the same name (first and last). He’s younger than I am, and has less-than-perfect credit.
Despite the fact that our paths have never crossed, nor have we had the same employers or lived in the same places, the credit reporting agencies keep comingling our records. About 10 years ago, I had to dispute multiple items from his report that had bled onto mine.
Recently I went to check my credit and one of the agency’s questions to gain access to my report had obviously been drawing from his report. When I answered the questions accurately, I couldn’t get access to my credit report. Now I’m locked out of it.
Now I have to make a paper request, which involves sending in copies of identity documents and related details. I affectionately refer to that as an “identity theft kit in an envelope”. God help us if anyone intercepts envelopes from consumers going to credit reporting agencies.
It’s easy for me to believe this gentleman’s medical records got mixed up. I’d even bet that the original source was already corrected but the erroneous info continues to spread through the various organizations who “manage” data.
Be glad that other guy doesn’t have a criminal record.
I had a client who moved to MO recently and couldn’t land a job, even though he had an excellent work history. Someone at one of the employers who rejected him hinted that there was an issue with his criminal history, so he paid a service to run a criminal records search. Turns out there’s a man in Indiana with the same first, middle, and last names, and the same date of birth. The guy in Indiana has done prison time, and his convictions show up on my client’s record. My client has never lived in Indiana.
Thankfully, the two men’s Social Security numbers have not gotten mixed up, but that’s cold comfort for my client when the background checking services don’t pay attention to these things.