60 Minutes Report Reveals The Broken Credit Report System In America
60 Minutes had an excellent expose of the credit reporting industry and how Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion are not concerned with fixing credit report errors.
The journalist on the story was Steve Kroft who really captured the frustration felt by so many consumers who cannot get the attention of the credit bureaus to fix a credit report with errors.
40 million Americans have errors — there are about 200… (Read more)
There are times where it is appropriate to sue companies under the FCRA, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, for false credit reporting.
We may wonder, “If I can do this, what’s the statute of limitations for an FCRA lawsuit?” (The statute of limitations being the time you have to sue).
In general, the statute of limitations is 2 years to sue from when the company violates the law.
Of course, there are exceptions to this rule.
The second the company… (Read more)
Great news — you’ve settled your debt collection lawsuit with an original creditor.
You may wonder, “What should I be do with my credit reports now?”
Generally, consumers think that since they’ve settle with the original creditor, the company will remove the debt from your credit report.
Unfortunately, this is not correct.
But often creditors don’t accurately report on our credit reports. For example, since we now owe the creditor nothing or $0.00, then our credit report should state that.… (Read more)
The main reason debt collectors are sued is the fact that they lie to consumers.
Let’s say that a debt collector sends us a letter, and it says we owe $3,000, but they’ll cut us a deal and we will only have to pay a $1,500 to settle the deb.
That may be a good deal.
But we tell the debt collector, “Hey, this needs to come off of my credit report too.”
They’ll either call us on the phone,… (Read more)
In Alabama, there’s a problem with debt collectors who knowingly put false information on to consumers’ credit reports which violates Section 1692e8 (sometimes written as 1692e(8)) of the FDCPA (Fair Debt Collection Practices Act).
There are also debt collectors who may claim to not know that they’re reporting falsely, but if they had common sense they would know that what they’re reporting isn’t accurate. Section 1692e(8) also prohibits this type of bad conduct.
A 1692e(8) violation under the FDCPA allows… (Read more)
If you have a judgment against you from a long time ago, you may wonder, “Is there any way I can settle this old judgment?”
It’s really a 3 step process to settle an old judgment in Alabama.
Step 1: Negotiate a settlement.
You can either hire a lawyer or you can do this on your own.
Normally, it will be a lump sum settlement that you will pay. And you should get a discount off of what you currently… (Read more)