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)
Two enclosures that should be mailed with your FCRA dispute letter to a credit bureau
There are two things you should include in any dispute letter a credit bureau (TransUnion, Equifax, etc.)
Driver’s license or another form of government ID.
Recent bill or statement that shows your name, address, and the company name.
Why should you include these items if they aren’t required?
Credit bureaus hate investigating claims. They don’t make any money from investigating claims.
So, we are trying… (Read more)
My frustration with disputes people make to credit reporting agencies
I have been suing credit bureaus and furnishers (companies that provide your information to credit reporting agencies) for about 20 years.
During these twenty years, I encounter a frustrating mistake which is made far too often.
I want to share this frustration with you so that you can avoid the same mistake.
Here’s the situation:
I am contacted by a credit repair place, the client of a credit repair place,… (Read more)
Is it legal for an original creditor to pull my credit reports after settling with them?
Let’s say you’re being sued by an original creditor, Capital One, for $10,000. You settle for $5,000.
Once this has been settled, Capital One should show the balance as $0. You no longer owe them anything.
If they leave it at $10k, that’s false credit reporting.
If they listed the balance as $5,000 (the difference between the original amount and the amount of the… (Read more)
Charge off: How to get one removed from your credit reports by looking for factual errors
We’ve talked about charge off debts in the past:
What is a charge off?
Can I be sued for a charge off debt?
3 things a creditor can do with a charge off
Now, let’s talk about how to remove a charge off from your credit report.
A charge off is the same as any other negative information on your credit report. You want… (Read more)
Credit reports: The original creditor and debt collector are both on my report – is this legal?
How is your debt showing up on your credit reports?
Let’s say I owe Discover $5,000 and this debt shows on my credit reports as $5,000 owed to Discover.
Since my credit reports are accurate, I don’t need to worry about it.
Discover may send the $5,000 debt to a debt collector.
Sometimes, we will see both the original creditor (Discover, Capital One,… (Read more)