Over at the Boston Globe, in a story yesterday Credit agencies lag on errors, fraud (reg. may be required),reporter Beth Healy has followed up with a number of victims of identity theft and credit bureau mistakes who'd contacted her after a major Globe series -- Debtor's Hell-- she'd co-written last summer. Healy asked, as they say, "How's that going for you, anyway?"

Answers: Badly. Not well. From the Globe:

Nearly five years later, collectors are still hounding the wrong Eric Carroll....Many felt victimized by the power and ruthless tactics of debt collectors. But Carroll and others complained of another maddening aspect of the system: The glacial and ineffectual response of the three giant keepers of consumer credit records -- Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion...The local, state, and federal law enforcement response to complaints of identity fraud is similarly passive, despite the huge volume of complaints -- 255,000 last year to the Federal Trade Commission alone. Consumers are left to fend for themselves...