Totally new! Need help with experian credit report

Discussion in 'Credit Talk' started by bsmith, Jun 1, 2016.

  1. bsmith

    bsmith Member

    Hey Everyone! My name is Ben! I have been a reader of this forum for about a week now and decided to make an account and start asking some questions myself! It seems the more I read the more questions I have!

    The first question that I have is that according to my research, you can still attempt to dispute something on your credit report even it is true in order to try and get it taken off. If I'm not mistaken, you can ask them to investigate a piece of you credit report such as the open date and if they don't complete the investigation within 30 it will get taken off. Is this true? Has anyone done this before successfully? How often does this actually work?

    Ben
     
  2. JoshuaHeckathorn

    JoshuaHeckathorn Administrator

    Welcome to CreditNet Ben!

    Frankly, you can dispute anything you want on your credit reports, although I would caution against filing all sorts of frivolous disputes. If you think something might be inaccurate, incorrect or missing information, dispute it and the CRAs have 30 days to investigate and respond. If they don't respond by 30 days, they need to remove the disputed account or they are in violation of the FCRA.

    I assume you have some negative tradelines you're wanting to clean up? Where do your FICO credit scores currently stand?
     
  3. bsmith

    bsmith Member

    Ya I had my FICO score drop from a 725 down to a 625 because of a cancellation fee for Verizon wireless. I called into Experian trying to dispute the open date on the account because it claims that the open date was for March 1, 2014 when in reality it was opened March 25, 2104.

    The problem is when I called in to Experian to dispute it. They claimed that it is suppose to be the first because of the way they monetary system works. All my accounts on this report say that they were opened on the 1st of each month. Can they do this?
     
  4. jam237

    jam237 Well-Known Member

    Some don't even show a specific day of month, just the month and year, so I wouldn't stake too much on the exact day to the day. (What if you filled out the application at a time, their server would happen to be on a different day of the month from you, would the time-zone difference causing an inaccuracy be something that you think a court would uphold?)

    That said, there can be plenty of things in a trade line which may be incorrect, or even appear incorrect when taken into account with other pieces of data. For example, if a loan would show that (TOTAL BALANCE) was due in (NUMBER OF PAYMENTS) of (TOTAL BALANCE) where (NUMBER OF PAYMENTS) is greater than 1. In that case, although the (TOTAL BALANCE) is technically correct; the (NUMBER OF PAYMENTS) of (TOTAL BALANCE) makes the apparent (TOTAL BALANCE) to be an exponentially higher amount than the true (TOTAL BALANCE).
     
  5. JoshuaHeckathorn

    JoshuaHeckathorn Administrator

    I agree with jam that you shouldn't stake too much on the open date being the first of the month instead of the 25th.

    Was this an account cancellation fee that just didn't get paid or something and then went into collections? Cell phone providers can be a big pain in the butt to deal with in my experience, especially when you try to close accounts with them. Have they transferred the debt to a collection agency already and have you heard from them as well?
     
  6. bsmith

    bsmith Member

    Hey guys!

    I had opened an account with Verizon Wireless on March 25, 2014 and switched over to sprint as of September 2014. I was under the impression from the sales guy that the account would cancel automatically with verizon because we were using the same phone number. So I paid my last bill online and just left it from there! It wasn't until October of 2015 when my mother, who lives in another state, started getting phone calls from a collection agency asking for me! I immediately called them back and owed $365! I was able to negotiate down to $259 which I paid immediately.

    It is bringing my credit score down a lot. I am looking through every possible solution to try and get it off.
     
  7. JoshuaHeckathorn

    JoshuaHeckathorn Administrator

    Sorry you've had to deal with this. I've dealt with this exact same situation, only I was fortunate enough to take care of it directly with AT&T before my account was sent to collections. Salespeople are notorious for misleading consumers about cancellation fees, and customer service agents often don't know what they're talking about as well. I've called to get information on cancellation fees and have gotten different answers almost every time. It's all a racket and I wish the US would just ditch cell phone contracts and catch up with the rest of the world. Rant over.

    Anyway, the key issue for you right now is that you already paid off the collection agency. The time to negotiate a removal was before you paid, when you actually had some kind of leverage. Verizon won't be willing to do anything for you at this point and the collection agency already got their money so they have no incentive to help you out.

    With that said, it sounds like this CA was contacting your mother and revealing the status of your debt, which is in clear violation of the FDCPA. How long was that going on and did they ever try to contact you first regarding the debt?
     
  8. jam237

    jam237 Well-Known Member

    So, here would be my approach.

    The CA isn't in a position to get a penny more than they negotiated, but if they called your mother more than once asking for you, then they violated the FDCPA, and the penalty for that is $1,000.00.

    If they called your mother once, asked for you, then she said "he doesn't live here", and they hung up and never called her again, it would be permissible, but from the sound of it, they at least disclosed that they are a CA and calling you to collect a debt, that would be a violation.

    I would send them a letter telling them that you intend to file a suit against them in your local federal court, seeking the $1,000.00 in damages for violating the FDCPA in contacting your mother and revealing the debt collection purpose to an impermissible third-party; but I would make it very obvious that if they deleted the tradeline from your credit report immediately, that you would consider that a reasonable settlement, with no admission of liability.
     
  9. JoshuaHeckathorn

    JoshuaHeckathorn Administrator

    I like jam's approach too. Try it out Ben and let us know how it goes!
     

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