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A Good Name Dragged Down
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When an OFAC representative called back, he was told that he should contact the three major credit bureaus and request they remove his name from the list. The documents do not reveal whether he succeeded in removing it.
"I am not a criminal," he wrote in an e-mail aimed at the director of OFAC compliance, according to the documents obtained by the Lawyers Committee. "I spent my entire career as a police officer fighting crime."
Stuart Pratt, president and chief executive of a credit-reporting trade group, the Consumer Data Industry Association, said OFAC does not give adequate guidance on how to determine a watchlist match. "Do you match just on the last name, on the first name, on the first name and middle initial?" Pratt said. "OFAC doesn't really give much guidance."
He also said he thinks the biggest problem is lenders who do not know how to respond to an alert. "Clearly OFAC would say, you don't stop the transaction," he said. "You just look for a way to validate the consumer's identity."
Rankin said people with concerns could call the OFAC hot line at 800-540-6322. Many callers have their issues immediately resolved, he said.
"The Treasury Department takes this problem seriously and recognizes the frustration of law-abiding citizens whose names and identities have been confused with names on the OFAC list," he said.
