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)
Re-Aging: One of Debt Collectors Dirty Tricks on Your Credit Report
We previously described 5 of the more common dirty tricks that debt collectors commit against your credit reports.
“Re-Aging” is where the collector lies so that the account (or “tradeline”) will stay on your report longer than it should.
Negative accounts generally stay on for about 7 years after you default.
But sometimes debt collectors will say the account just went into default to get the 7 years to… (Read more)
Time Limit For A Debt Collector To Collect Against Me.
We have talked about the time periods for a collector to sue you and to credit report.
However, in this article, we will discuss how long the debt collector has to do any other type of collection activities.
The short answer is there is no time period or limit on how long a collector can collect against you.
Except.
And this is a big exception to remember.
The debt collector… (Read more)
What To Do When A Collector Shows Up On Your Credit Report
You get an alert from a credit monitoring service that Asset Acceptance or IC Systems or LVNV or some other debt collector or debt buyer is on your credit report now.
What do you do?
Take a look at your credit reports.
Is the information correct or false or do you not know?
If you know it is right — and I don’t know how you would know… (Read more)
Does It Make Sense To File Bankruptcy Because Of Identity Theft?
You are the victim of Identity Theft and now you have multiple accounts and debts that are not yours. Friends and family tell you to file bankruptcy. Should you?
Let’s think this through.
Filing bankruptcy can get rid of the bogus debts if you qualify for Chapter 7.
But bankruptcy is for debts that you owe.
You don’t owe ID theft debts.
So why would you file bankruptcy —… (Read more)
Why Should I Look At My Credit Reports Once A Year?
Let’s talk about this.
Credit reports are adult report cards
These reports are like report cards for adults.
People and companies judge us by our credit reports — fairly or unfairly.
So we need to make sure that our credit reports are accurate and truthful.
Must pull your reports to see if they are accurate
The only way to do this is to pull our credit reports at least… (Read more)