I requested my full credit reports from all three major bureaus. The loan appeared on all three. I requested a complete transaction history from the lender’s dispute department — the documentation that laid out, in writing, what the account showed.
I also did something that I am still not entirely sure how I feel about, but that I think was the right thing: I called the lender back and asked, very carefully, whether there was anything in the application documentation they could share with me as part of the dispute process. The representative I spoke with the second time was different from the first — equally professional, equally specific about what she could and couldn’t share. She told me that certain documentation, including information about how the application had been submitted and what identifying information had been provided, would be part of what the investigative team reviewed, and that I would receive a response that addressed my dispute in writing.
She could not tell me who had opened the account. That was not how it worked. What she could tell me was that the dispute was formally logged, that I had been given a case number, and that the process would take time — weeks, possibly longer.
I noted the case number. I kept every email.
I also contacted the FTC’s identity theft reporting system, which is a federal resource for this exact situation. I filed a report there, which created a record of the dispute that I understood might be useful in the lender’s investigation. The FTC representative was clear that the report did not automatically resolve anything — it was documentation, a formal record, the beginning of a process — and I understood that.