Clearing Bad Credit From A Report Is Illegal?
I tried to settle with the Sterling Bank people on my car loan and tried to get them to erase my bad credit if I paid it off an agreed amount, and they said "If your reading this crap on the internet their wrong and it's illegal" has anyone really got them to do this, and if so can anyone prove its legal to do so?
Gyva
you can dispute anything anything thats on your credit report you do this with equafax not the place who says you did not they no nothing do not talk to them do not talk to them at all they first have to the account is truely yours with orignal documents if they can prove its yours you have other things you can do that is totaly legal dispute all negative info first(its not mine)let me know.
could you re post all that information, it's not making sense to me? could you re word it? Thanks
Gyva....
If the lates on your car loan are legitimate lates, they cannot be removed from your report. But if the lates are showing up and you have proof that you've been making the payments, you can dispute those derogatory remarks with the credit bureaus and have them remove them.
Just because you settle on an amount re: the car loan, you can not remove the derogatories if the derogatories are true.
Asking them to remove something that is valid in return for you paying them is something like a courtesy that some companies will allow.
First, call and ask if they will remove the negative credit.
If they won't, dispute it with Equifax, Trans Union AND Experian.
When the dispute comes back, in 30 days, if it is still on there, you have the opportunity to add a comment to your credit report explaining the item. This is better than nothing.
Having some leverage (i.e. still owing the company money) works in some cases, but not all.
depends where you are in terms of that loan.
If you are just late and the loan is still alive they may be able to work with you on payments, but may not be motivated to send a letter to the credit agencies.
If the loan has been "charged off," meaning the loan is seriously delinquent and the lender assumes they aren't getting their money, they have written this into their column as a loss and handed it over to collection. If that is the case, it is harder for them to settle becuase they have already written the expense off.
Be careful of judgements agains you. They can capitalize interest. If you owe money, make an effort to pay it back, even if it's only a few dollars at a time. That can be noted on the reports also.
You may have to get someone personally invested to help you out.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is a set of federal laws that debit collectors and credit bureaus must follow. Search google and read the real version of the FCRA.
MANY if not ALL companies fail to provide true "validation" of the debt because of various problems in their filing systems. Basically, if the law says that you have the right to request a copy of all sorts of documents and they cannot or will not provide you with a copy of them, they MUST delete the entire tradeline from your credit report.
Example 1
You have a home phone with Sprint. You move and change to a different company. Sprint hassles you for a few months then sells or consigns the debt to a debt collector. The debt collector comes after you will letters and phone calls. You know you truly owe Sprint the money, but you chose to use the law to FORCE the debt collector to furnish a stack of documentation before you will agree that the debt is truly yours. The debt collector will spend several hours gathering all of the requested documentation for a small $50 or $100 dollar debt? Dont think so.
They say fine, and delete the tradeline and you go about your merry way.
Example 2
Same deal as number one, but the debt collector is a bit more organized and has a few files on the account that they can print out and stuff in an envelope back to you. Great, partial validation. The law says that they MUST provide a copy of the contract between the debt collector and Sprint. Do you think that they will show you a legal contract that has Sprint authorizing them to collect 20%(or whatever) on the debts? Anyway, they don't provide full "validation" documentation and then you can force them to delete.
But what if the debt collector says that you have all of the information you need and won't back down??
Send you frendly debt collector a certified mail return reciept requested envelope with a filled out law suite ready to be filed; for various violations of the FCRA.
Their lawyers will contact you very soon. I faxed a complaint to be filed in district court to one company and recieved a phone call in about an hour. It is NOT against the law to threaten to sue when you have legal grounds to.
If you, or anyone need help with these matters, I recommend this website:
Go to google and search for
"straight talk creditnet"
Also "faircreditmovement" dot org
Click on discussions and read for yourself.
Q
[ Edited by Qutec on Date 07/22/2003 ][ Edited by Qutec on Date 07/22/2003 ]
When you are disputeing things on your credit can you dispute the number of inquiries that have been made? I just found out that every time someone runs your credit you lose 4 points, since I was looking for a place last year and was having financial probs I see that creditors were runing inquiries sometimes 2 days apart, I don't understand why they would my info would not have changed??? Is there anything I can do about that?
thnx for your help
Rosa
I think you are talking about "hard" inquiries, and not the soft ones. (soft=promo or consumer)
(hard=lender inquiry)
There are some general rules for inquiries, but they are different with each credit bureau.
If you are shopping for a mortgage and have several lenders run your credit within 30 days it SHOULD only count for a few points. But I would dispute all of them just to see if they will remove them.
If you are shopping for a new car at the same time, you will loose some more points because the lender will identify it as an auto and not mortgage.
I tell everyone to dispute all of their inquiries, because all they can say is no.
Most credit reporting agencies, wont waste their time verifying that the inquiry was authorized, it is just too easy to hit the delete key.
Q
In reply to the credit report question:
I have personally done the following while fixing my credit to buy my first home:
Had signed written agreements with creditors for removal of negative credit info upon payment of money owed
(one did remove the info, another did not)
Had written agreements with creditors to not verify credit account when I sent the dispute to Equifax and TU, if I paid in full
I also settled several accounts for as little as 50%.
It works, it works best with the small collection agencies. ( In other words, Washington Mutual is a bit less responsive than Joe's collections)
end result, +100 on my beacon, took 4 months and a lot of certified mail to send payments.
In addition to what's written above, you can get some more insight by reading US Code, Title 15, Chapter 41, Sub chapter III, section 1681i. This deals with "Procedure in case of disputed accuracy". To find this you can go to Cornell's Law website where they have all USCode online.
If you search "15 U.S.C. § 1681i" in a search engine you should be able to find it.
oooo this is priceless info. I just got my scores from the big 3, average 640. With this info I'm gonna add 100 to that, yessiree. Thank you all very much!
Quote:
On 2003-07-22 22:56, Qutec wrote:
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is a set of federal laws that debit collectors and credit bureaus must follow. Search google and read the real version of the FCRA.
MANY if not ALL companies fail to provide true "validation" of the debt because of various problems in their filing systems. Basically, if the law says that you have the right to request a copy of all sorts of documents and they cannot or will not provide you with a copy of them, they MUST delete the entire tradeline from your credit report.
Example 2
Same deal as number one, but the debt collector is a bit more organized and has a few files on the account that they can print out and stuff in an envelope back to you. Great, partial validation. The law says that they MUST provide a copy of the contract between the debt collector and Sprint.We can sure tell you have been paying close attention to the dumb information to be found on Creditnet . although I must admit that Kimberly's board is bunches better than Creditnet. There is no requirement to produce a contract in either FCRA or FDCPA and if we pay close attention to your posting it would seem that you don't even know the difference between the two although I seriously doubt you really are that ignorant. A contract does not prove a debt. All it does is to show that a meeting of the minds did occur at a given point in time and that you received something of value and maybe paid a certain sum of money in consideration. It does not prove that you owe money or how much you owe at the time colleciton is in progress. Get away from Creditnet and you might start to learn something worthwhile instead of the garbage they put out. Quote: Do you think that they will show you a legal contract that has Sprint authorizing them to collect 20%(or whatever) on the debts?Are you so
ignorant that you don't realize that you don't sign a contract for telephone service nor for most credit cards? Those are what are known as unilateral contracts. They send you a contract which you are supposed to read and if you use their services or credit cards then you have agreed to the contract and no signature is required. That is very diffferent from a contract which is signed by both parties. Quote: Anyway, they don't provide full "validation" documentation and then you can force them to delete. Maybe you can and maybe you have to sue them to get it done. And just because they fail to validate the debt don't mean you are going to win the lawsuit because you won't. That much I can guarantee you. One violation is not anywhere near enough to win a lawsuit in most cases. You have to have at least 3 or 4 or more violations to win a lawsuit against them. Quote:
But what if the debt collector says that you have all of the information you need and won't back down??
Send you frendly debt collector a certified mail return reciept requested envelope with a filled out law suite ready to be filed; for various violations of the FCRA.
That might scare them and sometimes it does but what if they just ignore you and force you to sue them before they even pay any attention to you? Lots of them do that too because they figure you are just bluffing and won't actually file a lawsuit because you can't find an attorney to file it or don't have the persistance to follow through with your bluff? Creditnet don't tell you what to do then or how to do it and neither does Kimberly. Collection agencies aren't as dumb as some would like to believe. If you are going to threaten them then you had best be ready, willing and able to carry out that threat or you are basically just wasting time. If a bluff works, that's fine but when it don't you had better be getting your help and advice from somebody who does know how to file suit on them and make it work and can teach you how to do it. Creditnet isn't anywhere near ready or able to do that for you. So quit sending people off to dumb wild goose message boards that will only get them in more trouble than they can handle. Quote:
Their lawyers will contact you very soon. I faxed a complaint to be filed in district court to one company and recieved a phone call in about an hour. You were darn lucky to say the least. That isn't going to happen in most of the cases. So quit trying to make one stroke of luck sound like it makes all of them a pushover. Simply isn't so. Quote:
If you, or anyone need help with these matters, I recommend this website:
Go to google and search for
straight talk creditnet
Also "faircreditmovement" dot org
Click on discussions and read for yourself.
[ Edited by Qutec on Date 07/22/2003 ]
[ Edited by Qutec on Date 07/22/2003 ]
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Creditwrench
[ Edited by Creditwrench on Date 08/21/2003 ]
[ Edited by Creditwrench on Date 08/21/2003 ][ Edited by Creditwrench on Date 08/21/2003 ]