<prompt> Human: My girlfriend and I were searching for a property to rent a couple of weeks ago. We filled out applications for places we were interested in and signed forms to allow the landlords to run a credit check on us. This all went fine.A couple of weeks later, I receive a large packet in the mail from a major bank that has loan papers mentioning me, my girlfriend, and two people that I didnt know all listed as the borrowers. It had lots of my personal information on it and an address I did not recognize. The loan was a mortgage for 350,000. The packet was requesting signatures from all parties and to be returned. It also included HUD forms. Naturally, I freaked out and assumed that my identity had been stolen and someone was applying for a loan with me and my girlfriend as co-signers. I contacted the mortgage consultant listed on the forms and explained the situation. He said that he worked with one of the landlords that we had applied to and had run his credit checks for him. He said that he ran these checks in bulk and he meant to check a box that said not to mail disclosures but forgot. I know very little about loans and mortgages. I have been fortunate enough to avoid such things thus far. My question is, is it normal for a mortgage consultant at a major bank to put your personal information into a mortgage form in order to run your credit without your permission? Furthermore, is it normal to put multiple peoples names on an application such as this when the persons involved do not know each other? If not, what do I do to protect myself? How screwed can I potentially be? Thanks for the help.  <response>: No this is NOT normal and your agent or potential landlord is playing games to lower the cost of a credit check. Whoever did this is trying to cheat the system, which doesnt seem promising for any future business dealing with them. Unless you are already renting from them, you should look for new people to do business with. 