When Cindy X pulled her credit report from TransUnion recently, it was blank. “I am 48, have an active credit history, and my other credit reports were accurate,” she writes in to Kiplinger. TransUnion, however, told her that she was on her own to fix the problem and would have to contact her creditors individually.

Kiplinger was able to fix the problem with what we hope was a vaguely threatening phone call:

You were misinformed. The information missing from your report was from major banks, including Citibank and Bank of America, so it should have been included. “This was not an optimal customer-service experience,” Steven Katz of TransUnion’s TrueCredit.com, admitted to us.

They looked into the problem, saw that there was an oversight due to a change in how Cindy listed her first name about ten years ago, and prepared an accurate report. Moral of the story: if accounts are missing and the problem is only showing up on one report, escalate it—odds are it’s not a problem with your bank accounts, but with the reporting agency.

You should also be aware that name changes can cause some confusion.

If information is missing, check your statements to see whether the card issuer is using a different version of your name. If you change your name after getting married, contact all of your lenders — even issuers of old cards you may not have used in a while. And be as persistent as Cindy.

“Missing Credit Information” [Kiplinger]

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