Heroes in Business - Experian Identity Report with Rod Griffin, Lifes Big Moments Divorce

Episode Date: May 7, 2023

Experian Identity Report with Rod Griffin, Lifes Big Moments Divorce. Rod Griffin is the Sr Director of Public Education for Experian. Extremely valuable information for making sure you know what to do when disolving a marriage. Listen as David Cogan, Host of the Heroes Show and Founder of Eliances entrepreneur community.

Up in the sky, look, it's captivating, it's energizing, it's Eliance's Heroes. Eliance's is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Eliance's. There's no other place in the world or anything else I would like to be doing than what I'm doing right now because I have the honor of sharing so much great, valuable information with you. Please make sure that you check out Eliance's.com, E-L-I-A-N-C-S c s dot com we still getting feedback when i interviewed the co-founder of priceline listen to that story uh let's get right in today's weekly experience identity report are

you ready for this life big moments the big d divorce because it's time for the experience identity report and we're speaking with Senior Director of Public Education for Experian, Rod Griffin. Now, Rod leads Experian's national consumer education programs and works with consumer advocates, financial educators to help consumers increase their ability to understand and manage their personal finances and protect themselves from fraud and identity theft. protect themselves from fraud and identity theft. So, Rod, we're so excited. Every time we hear from you, our audience just learns so much because there's so much to be covered. You've got to hear it.

You don't want to be reactive on this, what he's sharing. It's critical. You want to be proactive. So let's talk about divorce. All right. So, Rod, what documents need to be updated and do they need to be addressed individually? Yeah. Divorce is the hard time in life and you're hurt, you're angry, you're frustrated. And there are so many things you need to be thinking about. One of the things that we see in the credit reporting world is that a person will

max out a joint credit card because they're hurt and they want to hurt that other person and their soon-to-be ex-spouse. And what you find out is that damages your credit history and hurts you too. So don't do that. One of the things you need to try to do is work together, even though it can be tough, work together, especially in the financial aspects, to make sure that your debts continue to be paid on time. Because if you don't, you're going to have late payments on both your report and theirs. So if they're joint accounts, it shows on both. And you don't want to make things worse. So make sure you get your credit reports, know what's in them, make sure you know who's responsible and agree as to who's responsible

for which debts. And then as you go through the divorce, one of the big myths about divorce is that once you have that divorce decree from the court, it breaks the contracts that you have with your lenders and makes one or the other responsible. And that's not true. A divorce decree does not break contracts for credit. So it just says, I'm agreeing to pay this and they're agreeing to pay that. It's an agreement between the couple and the court. You have to go back to the lender and they have to agree to change that lending contract. They might not.

If it's a mortgage, for example, on a house, huge debt, you're both co-signers or joint holders on that account. They may say, we need you both on there until you sell that home. And so you're both responsible for that debt. If it's not paid, it's going to hurt both of you. So make sure you're working together on those debts. Huge issue to think about and make sure that you're managing so that you can separate your financial lives because that's what you're trying to do.

Don't make them more entangled. So that's one. Two, things like your driver's license, your insurance policies, wills, state plans, any of those kinds of relationships that you have need to be addressed as part of that divorce process. So there's a whole stack of documents that you need to think about, healthcare policies, all of those sorts of things that you need to look at. Life insurance policies, the list kind of goes on and on. Make sure that you're separating your financial life because that's the point of divorce

is to move on separately and not to be entangled even more. Yeah, I can only imagine all the documents. And again, we're watching and listening to me, David Kogan, host of the Alliances Hero Show. Make sure that you go to the only place where entrepreneurs align, alliances.com, E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. And you can also check out past Experian identity reports there. That's right, because this is the weekly segment and we've got

with us Rod Griffin. He is the Senior Director of Public Education for Experian. And we're talking about divorce. What do you do? What's some of the steps in regards to credit and that? So should people review though their credit score after getting divorced? And if so, why and how does it change? Yeah, you definitely should get your credit report and credit scores. Know what's there. The sad reality is that usually one spouse will have a, historically anyway, typically if it's a male and female, the wife would have historically very little credit history. And so getting that credit report, knowing what's there,

getting your credit scores and knowing what the risk factors are that go with it can help you begin to take steps to improve it. If you owe debts coming out of that divorce and you've separated those accounts, you'll know which accounts you need to pay on. You'll be able to contact those lenders. You'll be able to track what's happening with those accounts and make sure you're managing them well. So it will help you get control of your finances as a newly single adult. So you absolutely should get that credit report and the credit

scores and know what's there. Great. Now, what else should people do when they get a divorce in regards to relating with Experian? Yeah. When it comes to Experian, you can get your report free. You can go to annualcreditreport.com. You can enroll in a monitoring service. Again, with divorce, having a monitoring service can be helpful, especially if your ex-spouse is, for lack of a better term, vindictive. is, for lack of a better term, vindictive. You can make sure that they're not taking steps with accounts to try to max them out or hurt you financially in some way. And you can have a record of that and be alerted to it. So make sure that you're monitoring the credit history. And another kind of caution, don't request your ex-spouse's report. You may have their identity and all of it, in fact, but if you use their identity to

request their credit report, whether it's from Experian or the other bureaus, you are committing identity theft and fraud and could face consequences as a result because you do not have any legal purpose to check their report. You can check your own. We encourage you to do that. But you don't use someone else's identity to access financial information. We will be monitoring. We can usually catch that. But if we don't, you may be violating the law too. So keep that in mind. I'm sure it's good that you shared it because there's probably some people thinking that they were going to go ahead and do that. So I'm glad that you shared that.

This has just been absolutely phenomenal. Again, Rod, just the information that you've been sharing each week regarding with the Experian Identity Report and Life's Moments has just been so critical and so helpful to so many. And again, today we spoke about divorce. This has again been the Experian Identity Report with Rod Griffin, Senior Director of Public Education for Experian. Make sure that you go to Experian.com. Once again, that's Experian.com, E-X-P-E-R-I-A-N.com. They've got a phenomenal set of tools and education for to be able to help you. That's right. Our listeners and viewers.

Why? It's been an honor being your host today, David Cogan with the Alliance's Hero Show. Make sure you go to the only place where entrepreneurs align, B-L-I-A-N-C-S.com. And Rod, we hope we're able to see you next week on the Experian Identity Report. Absolutely. Hope so too. Thank you, David.