getting electric bill in foreigner's name

[no name 1]

We tried to turn on the power in our new apt today (California). He got his SSN in November (his GC in Feb) but they say his name & number are too new to verify. Therefore, we need to go to the SSA & get a printout form them that says that is indeed his name & SSN.

Seems crazy to me & a bit disturbing. They gave no name for this 'proof paper' we need from the SSA.

Anyone else had this experience?

Edited April 25, 2007 by devilette

[MaryandMian 1]

I know in my state they would not allow my husband to be added to our utilities without us paying a huge deposit and I have had the accounts in mine and my deceased husband's name, then in mine. So they are still in my name and we got a T-mobile account in his name alone. I also know when we went to buy a car earlier this year they would not accept his social security number since it was too newthey said --- but take caution too. If they have run his name and social security card they could of done so with errors. It happened to us with Toyota they ran his name backwards and mistyped his social security card. Took me over three months to get all this cleared with the three main credit bureaus.

Mary

[maryandatif 0]

What we did was log onto our power company's website where I/ we pay bills and clicked on "CONTACT US" and sent them a mesage that my husband was "MR XXX and my SS# is 123-45-6789 and I would like to be added to my wife's account as responsible party" He was added on the next bill that arrived. As for the Phone bill--we get it sent to both of us, but I am still the responsible party for paying.

Hope this helps!

Mary K.

[no name 1]

What we did was log onto our power company's website where I/ we pay bills and clicked on "CONTACT US" and sent them a mesage that my husband was "MR XXX and my SS# is 123-45-6789 and I would like to be added to my wife's account as responsible party" He was added on the next bill that arrived. As for the Phone bill--we get it sent to both of us, but I am still the responsible party for paying.

Hope this helps!

Mary K.

I did that for the Gas co., I suppose I will do it for the Electric. Does it help him establish credit?

[tom&tata 2]

We tried to turn on the power in our new apt today (California). He got his SSN in November (his GC in Feb) but they say his name & number are too new to verify. Therefore, we need to go to the SSA & get a printout form them that says that is indeed his name & SSN.

Seems crazy to me & a bit disturbing. They gave no name for this 'proof paper' we need from the SSA.

Anyone else had this experience?

Yes, last year at DMV and last month for employment background check - both says SSN unverified and asked for manual verification statement from SSA. Went to SSA office, had a print out from SS office stating my name & my SS# - It was signed by the person on that booth/window that day. That's it.

And no matter how stupid the letter looks (easiness to fake), it works.

[no name 1]

We tried to turn on the power in our new apt today (California). He got his SSN in November (his GC in Feb) but they say his name & number are too new to verify. Therefore, we need to go to the SSA & get a printout form them that says that is indeed his name & SSN.

Seems crazy to me & a bit disturbing. They gave no name for this 'proof paper' we need from the SSA.

Anyone else had this experience?

Yes, last year at DMV and last month for employment background check - both says SSN unverified and asked for manual verification statement from SSA. Went to SSA office, had a print out from SS office stating my name & my SS# - It was signed by the person on that booth/window that day. That's it.

And no matter how stupid the letter looks (easiness to fake), it works.

Thanks for that!

[Jasman0717 9]

I wanted to add Claudeth to the electric bill and they told me that we would have to close the existing account and open up a new on. Crazy

[tom&tata 2]

What we did was log onto our power company's website where I/ we pay bills and clicked on "CONTACT US" and sent them a mesage that my husband was "MR XXX and my SS# is 123-45-6789 and I would like to be added to my wife's account as responsible party" He was added on the next bill that arrived. As for the Phone bill--we get it sent to both of us, but I am still the responsible party for paying.

Hope this helps!

Mary K.

I did that for the Gas co., I suppose I will do it for the Electric. Does it help him establish credit?

I did not see on my husband's credit report anything about his utility bills.

What works best for establish credit is being addes as authorized user on credit card with good history or apply for secured card.

[akdiver 3]

I added my wife's name to the cable/phone/internet bill (all the same provider) and they didn't even ask for her SSN. It was no problem.

The only reason why we did this at all is for AOS proof of relationship purposes. Since that phase of this process is over, I may switch it back to just my name. There isn't any real reason to put utilities and such in multiple names anyway - it doesn't do anything for YOU at any rate.

Cheers!

-sw

[Jasman0717 9]

What we did was log onto our power company's website where I/ we pay bills and clicked on "CONTACT US" and sent them a mesage that my husband was "MR XXX and my SS# is 123-45-6789 and I would like to be added to my wife's account as responsible party" He was added on the next bill that arrived. As for the Phone bill--we get it sent to both of us, but I am still the responsible party for paying.

Hope this helps!

Mary K.

I will give this a shot but have a feeling they are just going to blow me off again!

[akdiver 3]

I agree with a previous poster - an easy way to establish credit for "the other" is to add him/her to your existing account as an authorized user, or better yet, open a JOINT account with that person. In my case, what we did was this:

• I opened a new Visa account and added her as an authorized user to a Visa card before she even came to the U.S. This way, she had a credit card to use immediately upon her arrival. However, this fact never showed up on her credit report. It's like it didn't happen. I opened a new account for her exclusive use mostly for management purposes - she could easily see what she was spending and so forth and treat the account as if it were really her own.
  
• As soon as we got married (less than three months later), she opened a Roth IRA account. Doesn't affect credit issues, but it is good to do. My adviser trusted us enough to let her use her married name even though we didn't have the certificate yet.
  
• After we got married and got the certificate with name change stuff in the mail, and changed her name on her driver's license and SS card, we opened a joint bank account, and an individual bank account for her. We could have done it earlier, but we didn't want to mess with the name change issues at the bank, so we just waited until she could work with her married name from the beginning. This was almost three months after getting married (it took that long to get the certificate in the mail, etc.).
  
• At that same time, we opened joint credit card account (which only she uses, I have my own card to use). So, this is still about three months after getting married. This account shows up on her credit report.
  
• The following July (about 9 months later), she opened a Home Depot account in her own name (not a joint account), adding me as an authorized user. The limit was only a piddly $500 though, so I opened a Home Depot account in my name and added HER as an authorized user. This account had a $15K limit, which is a lot more useful if one is shopping at home depot. In any event, we made sure she used her account a few times and paid it off, to show a good history. Both of these accounts showed up on her credit report.
  
• 4 months later (November), her student loan is showing up on her credit report. It has now been one year since we opened our first joint credit card account.
  
• The same month, she opened an American Express card account in her own name (i.e not a joint account, and I do not have an AmEx card myself). It came with a $2000 limit. This is now the card she uses on a daily basis. She only uses the joint visa card at places that do not take AmEx. The AmEx card is of course on her credit report.
  
• One month later (December), we got a joint car loan account for about $32K. The bank told us that HER credit score was about 680, which is about average (mine was 730).
  
• A week or so later, she got an individual car loan, completely in her own name, for about $6K. Both of these car loans of course show up on her credit report.
  

So, there you have it. Some plan for establishing a credit history successfully. I hope it helps.

As for my wife, at this point, I think her credit history is basically established over the course of about a year. Any future credit approvals and limit approvals is just a matter of good management of her existing credit. Her credit score will naturally rise as she establishes a good payment history, her average account "age" increases, and the recent inquires for her credit report disappear (2 years). We pay off her AmEx card monthly, and of course, always pay the car loans on-time. We only owe $6K on her car, so that will be paid off reasonably quickly - and then she will have a zero balance installment loan on her credit report, which should increase her credit score.

Overall, I think she is doing well in this regard.

Cheers!

AKDiver

[KarenCee 3]

So...with all that in mind....since my husband's income can be used towards our mortgage ( I don't think his name will be on it, but reference to him will be there i.e. SSN ) will that help in establishing some credit for him? The only bill in his name alone atm is a satellite dish bill. I am going to add him as an authorised user on my AmEx so hopefully that will help.

Utilities are useless here unless I close the existing one and open a new one. *sigh*

[akdiver 3]

So...with all that in mind....since my husband's income can be used towards our mortgage ( I don't think his name will be on it, but reference to him will be there i.e. SSN ) will that help in establishing some credit for him?

I don't really follow this. Why would his SSN be referenced if his name is not on the mortgage? As I understand the world, if his income is used to secure the mortgage loan, then his name will certainly be on the mortgage and he will be considered a liable party. The good news is that this will definitely show up on his credit report.

Cheers!

AKDiver

[KarenCee 3]

So...with all that in mind....since my husband's income can be used towards our mortgage ( I don't think his name will be on it, but reference to him will be there i.e. SSN ) will that help in establishing some credit for him?

I don't really follow this. Why would his SSN be referenced if his name is not on the mortgage? As I understand the world, if his income is used to secure the mortgage loan, then his name will certainly be on the mortgage and he will be considered a liable party. The good news is that this will definitely show up on his credit report.

Cheers!

AKDiver

I really don't know...I'm sure going to ask though. I'm just repeating what WE were told. They also told us that his SSN was a "recycled" one...but I'm reading a link right now that says the SSA does NOT recycle their numbers...go figure.

[Achromatic 0]

Seems crazy to me & a bit disturbing. They gave no name for this 'proof paper' we need from the SSA.

Anyone else had this experience?

There is no name for the proof paper, you just need to ask for a 'verification letter' (well, I guess that's the name) from your local SS office.

It's just a computer printout, and they stamp it. They might hassle you about "You don't need it. You can't use it for employment."