Firstly, my thanks to everyone who replied with advice.

Update:

Ok, first off one of those witty little jokes fate like to play. Yesterday morning Equifax spammed me but I didn't find out till the evening, after posting here. Claiming I signed up for "MyEquifax" service, which I'm pretty sure I didn't.

Weird. Especially as I didn't give my email in any of my letters. And I haven't gone to their website from my own computer, at least not recently.

Anyway I decided to try the phone request for credit report again, trying with my old addresses in case they didn't have my current one.

Went around three or four times being told my address didn't match until on the third or fourth try the system sends me to an actual human being. There was no indication anywhere this was possible. My only speculation is that after several failed tries it decided I was an identity thief trying address numbers at random.

Anyway, the lady on the phone seemed nice, helpful, and competent (which may make her a rarity at Equifax, but I digress). She says that (according to their records) they have sent me out a copy of my credit report three times. But they may have messed up the address. Apparently like The Vanguard Group and Airborne Express, they are too big a company to be bothered about piddly little things like postal regulations.

(I checked at Mail Boxes, Etc. just to make sure the credit reports hadn't gotten misfiled or something, but they couldn't find anything.)

She said another copy of my credit report will be sent out within 72 hours, to the exact address I gave her over the phone. So I'll have to wait and see on that.

She also said that the reason the website and phone system wouldn't send me anything was because their machines don't like dead people, which American Express claims I am (Transunion also has been told of my tragic death by Amex, I've discovered previously). Annoying but not too unreasonable. She said she'd try and remove the Amex account which was pretty old anyway.

So I'm back in a wait state, and making a note to send her a "thank you" letter if things work out.

-CB