BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – A Liberty, Texas woman is fighting to clear her name after discovering fraudulent student loans tied to a Baton Rouge college appeared on her credit report without her knowledge.
Shelby Lacefield, who lives three and a half hours away from Baton Rouge, said she discovered the unauthorized loans in October 2024 through a Capital One alert. The loans totaled nearly $5,000.
“I believe I am very competent in the tech space. I use strong passwords, you know, it’s kind of like hang on, wait what?” Lacefield said.
Baton Rouge police say they have seen an uptick in similar cases recently.
Lacefield said the fraudulent loans appeared without any credit checks being performed.
“What’s crazy is there were no credit checks for the student loans, just all of a sudden these almost $5,000 in accounts popped up,” she said.
She suspects her personal information may have been compromised in a data breach, though she cannot confirm the source.
Year-long dispute process
Lacefield has taken multiple steps to resolve the issue, including tracking down the loan servicer, submitting a report with the Federal Trade Commission, filing disputes with credit bureaus, and filing a police report in her hometown. A year later, the identity fraud case remains unresolved.
“Unfortunately, technology is wonderful, but it does allow these things to occur most often now,” said Carmen Million with the Better Business Bureau.
Million warned that when fraudsters obtain personal information, family members can also become targets.
“It does affect your family, it affects everyone involved because if they have your information, they can then get your family’s information, and it affects them in the long run,” Million said.
Enhanced security measures
While her case is being processed, Lacefield has signed up for specialized alerts that call her phone to verify credit checks and monitor her family’s private information.
“I have faith it’ll get resolved, and that’s just because I’m very persistent. Because you know I don’t want to pay for loans that aren’t mine,” Lacefield said.
The loan servicer did not respond to requests for comment.
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