Can I really beat a credit reporting agency?

“Can I really beat a credit reporting agency?”

Your credit report should be accurate

Sometimes credit reporting companies like Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion will put false credit reporting information on your account.

Then, they refuse to take it off of your report even when you dispute it.

When this happens, you may wonder, “Am I stuck with this on my report? Is there anything that can be done to fix this?”

As a Consumer Protection Attorney, I’m here to tell you that yes, you can beat a credit reporting agency.

Usually you send the company a dispute letter with evidence that there’s false information on your account.

However, these companies act like they don’t care about keeping your report accurate.

It seems this way.

Because it is true — they don’t care about you — they only care about keeping their paying customers happy.

Their paying customers are the companies that report to them and that is not you.

So what do you do if you dispute a false account and the reporting agencies won’t help you?

You should sue them in Federal Court.

These huge companies have plenty of lawyers and money in their pocket.

However, when you sue them in Federal Court, you are on a level playing field.

If they do something wrong, they have to pay you money damages.

If they intentionally do something wrong against you, or act reckless, they may have to pay punitive damages.

This punishes the company for harming you.

Many times, people will come to us with a bogus account on their account.

They’ve sent a dispute letter to the company, along with proof that the information is false.

Yet these companies refuse to take action is getting this off of their report.

Sure, you can send them dispute letters again, but after some time they will respond and say, “This is frivolous. We’re not going to investigate this. Stop writing dispute letters to us.”

Our response to that is,”Okay. We’ll stop writing dispute letters to you.”

Instead, we sue them in Federal Court.

Then they can explain to the court why they refused to remove this false information in the first place, even though they were given proof.

These companies don’t take responsibility for their actions.

They’ll say, “Look, we outsource this stuff. The people we send your report to barely speak English most of the time, and we pay their company 25 cents to handle your dispute. Do you really expect us to be accountable for it being right? So what if it’s wrong, anyway?”

It makes a difference whether or not the report is right.

People have lost their homes or been unable to buy a house because of false information on their credit reports.

Consumers have lost jobs because of false credit reporting.

People have been turned down for security clearance because of this false information.

People have even been forced out of the military over false information on their credit report.

It’s a big deal if they refuse to fix your credit reports.

In Federal Court, the judge and jury understand your frustration.

Juries tend to be sympathetic, because the thought will cross their mind, “What if this was me,” “What if they did that to me,” or “What if they put something false on my report?”

Judges will understand, because they’re people too.

Some judges will even understand how frustrating it is to deal with a credit reporting agency because of personal experience.

Can you really beat a credit reporting agency?

Sometimes in our minds, we see these companies as huge dragons that are intimidating.

You can slay this dragon.

If you have a valid case, and a lawyer who knows what they’re doing, you can sue them in Federal Court.

You may wonder, “Will it really get their attention if I do this?”

Yes, you will definitely get their attention.

They like to say that they didn’t do anything wrong, and that it isn’t that big of a deal.  They tell us this before they write us a 6 figure check.

(Not all cases are that big but I mention this to make a point — the lawyers for the reporting agencies have “never” seen a legitimate case, or so they tell us!)

They would say this even if we had a video of the top management saying they will intentionally put and keep false information on everyone in Alabama.

Be persistent when fighting back against these guys and sue them to get their attention.

Contact us

If you live in the state of Alabama and you have any questions about what we’ve talked about in this article, feel free to get in touch with us.  We can talk about suing a credit reporting agency or helping you send the right types of dispute letters if you are still in the dispute process.

You can reach us by phone at 1-205-879-2447, or fill out a contact form and we will happily get in touch with us.

I look forward to chatting with you.

Have a great day!

-John G. Watts