I have a sad story, like many of you, death, divorce, job loss, etc. After 20 + years marriage I was left with 4 kids and no income. I had decent credit at the time of moving into a transitional housing program to help single mothers. As a reward for successully completing the program you would be able to buy one of their brand new homes. On the negative side you had to sign over all income to a case manager to be managed as they saw fit. My case manager told me that other bills were more important than my credit cards and me being as devastated by all that I had went through did not put up a fight. I completely trusted them and she promised I would recover and have a brand new home once I completed the program. After being in the program for one year and following all of the uneducated and misguided rules, the program went bankrupt, leaving me worse off than when we came. Fast forward to today, I am currently working and supporting my family and I would like to undo some of the damage that was done. I have very little income and I will devote whatever time and energy to repairing my credit. If you have any advice on what I should do first please chime in. CA have not been able to contact me because I moved early on. My first plan of attack is to correct the addresses and personal information, beyond that I need help. Here is what my report looks like: 19 NEGATIVE ACCOUNTS WITH EQUIFAX | 15 NEGATIVE ACCOUNTS WITH TRANSUNION >>>MEDICAL ACCOUNTS<< 7 TOTAL - 3 COPAY AMOUNTS ($75 EACH) 3 THAT I AM SURE SHOULD HAVE BEEN PAID BY THE INSURANCE COMPANY IN 2008, 2011, AND 1 HOSPITAL BILL FROM FEBRUARY 2013 >>>CREDIT CARD ACCOUNTS<<< 5 CARDS, BEING SOLD AND DUPLICATED CAPITAL ONE - $300/$525 CHARGED OFF, NOT SOLD - OPENED MAY 2008, LAST PAYMENT OCT. 2011 -THIS IS SHOWING ON MY REPORT TWICE HSBC -ORCHARD BANK - $300/$534 SOLD TO CALVARY PORTFOLIO SERVICES - OPENED MAY 2011 - LAST PAYMENT AUGUST 2011 CREDIT ONE - SOLD $350/$751/$0 - MIDLAND CREDIT MGMT - LAST PAYMENT JUNE 2011 FIRST PREMIER - $700/$830 CHARGED OFF - NOT SOLD- OPENED 5/2010 LAST PAYMENT OCTOBER 2011 FINGERHUT - $150 THIS IS SHOWING ON MY REPORT 3 TIMES AS CITIBANK FINGERHUT. FINGERHUT METABANK, AND FINGERHUT WEBBANK. I PURCHASED AND GAME AND RETURNED IT IN 2008 UNAWARE THAT THEY WERE REPORTING. >>>>CELL PHONE<<<< TMOBILE --- $2,400.00 -THIS IS A NIGHTMARE MOST OF THE FEES ARE FROM EARLY CANCELLATION FOR A FAMILY LINE - SOLD TO MIDLAND CREDIT MGMT-LAST PAYMENT JULY 2011 Thank you sincerely for taking the time in advance!
First off, welcome to the board! I'm sorry to read about your situation, and hope that things are looking better for you and will continue to do so. For the medical collections, I suggest this: http://whychat.5u.com/hipltr.htm I realize the website looks amateur, however if you do some googling, you will see many have found success with whychat's method. He know's what he's talking about, and it *does* work. What is the SOL (statute of limitations) in your state? Check here: State Statutes Of Limitations For Old Debts | Bankrate.com Chances are you are not past the SOL, but it's good to know either way. When you say this account is reporting twice, do you mean that C1 is reporting the exact account two times or that a collection agency (CA) is reporting the account as well? Calvary LLC was recently sued...I don't have all the info on it case and who it will benefit, but now could be the time to go after them for debt validation. However, as I said above, check your state's SOL. Unfortunately, you will still be within it regardless of your state, but some are as short as 3 years. Are you saying there is truly no debt here? Thank you sincerely for taking the time in advance![/QUOTE] If your states SOL happens to be 3 years, I would lay low till then, you'd only be around 6 months away and it is a whole-lot safer to start the DV process when the statute of limitations has passed. If it's longer, you will want to look for errors in reporting, read the http://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/fcra.pdf and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act | Federal Trade Commission. It'll take a while, but you need to understand the laws before you start charging too far ahead. Also, do you have copies of your reports from Transunion as well? And are they actual copies and not a tri-merged report?
Mindcraft, thank you for your response! I have been pouring over Why chat's methods and surprisingly I contacted a hospital regarding a 6 month old bill and they agreed to delete the balance saying there was an error. >>> That Capital One card is actually showing up twice on the Equifax report as 2 charge offs, now that I have taken a look at this I will definitely dispute that. >>SOL for Kansas is 3 years. I was hoping to clean up what I could and negotiate a settlement on the credit cards. Do you still think if I am willing to settle for delete with Calvary and Midland I should wait until after SOL. I just keep reading horrible things about them. >>On the Fingerhut account there should not be any debt the item that I received I returned due to it being defective. I was unaware that they were reporting this to the bureau's. >> I do have my Transunion report, separately, is there something that I should know regarding Transunion?
Is the Fingerhut account on under them, or under a CA? If it's under Fingerhut themselves (whether Citibank/Metabank/Webbank), the FDCPA doesn't apply, but the FCRA would. The dispute itself would be the same, just important to know which law. Dear DSDA. I received a copy of my credit report which is showing an incorrect entry under your company. The trade line listed is for merchandise that was returned as being defective, as such there is no valid debt for your company to be reporting. Failure to not immediately delete this incomplete, inaccurate, and unverifiable information will result in legal action. POed. Then you would send to all the CRAs that any of the accounts are reporting to a similar letter, disputing the same trade lines as incomplete, inaccurate, and unverifiable, because the order in question was returned as being defective. IF they (any one of the three) verifies the information, you will need to sue in Federal Court for violating the FCRA for not performing a proper dispute as required under the FCRA. The CRA letters are the most important here. The OC letters are under a non-enforceable section of the FCRA, meaning you don't have a cause of action to pursue (the reason for sending that letter is to overcome their defense that we only got a 2 digit code from the CRA, how did we know what the specific nature of the dispute was; you knew because on xx/xx/xxxx, your company signed for a certified letter which stated what the specific dispute was.) The CRA letters are under an ENFORCEABLE section of the FCRA, meaning you do have a cause of action to pursue.
Hi Jam, Thanks for answering and causing me to take another look. So I checked this credit report and Fingerhut has it as being "sold" to Metabank and then "sold" to Webbank, but all 3 of them are listed at the same address. Apprarently, all of them are just another name for Fingerhut. I will get started on that letter immediately. I am so thrilled. I just read my FCRA rights and I thank you!
Wonderful! Yes, as long as it's the same creditor reporting the same account, then you can dispute as duplicate. The idea of waiting till the SOL has expired is that the debt is no longer legally enforceable. So therefore you can charge at them full steam ahead and not worry about the CA being able to sue you successfully.....and since you're so close to this time frame, I suggest laying low till then. THEN the ball is your court and you're in a greater negotiating position to get them off your reports. My mistake, I meant Experian, not Transunion.
Mindcraft I ordered my Experian report last night and it says that my Experian score is 574. What's the deal with Experian?
Don't worry about your score for now. That's not even a FICO....and at this stage, you want to concentrate on accounts, your scores won't move much in the beginning. Not sure what you mean though about "what's the deal with experian?" If you're referring to your score....well, likely your FAKOs at EQ and TU are similar. Oh, one other thing, LOL....it's mindcrime. Mindcraft is a game my son plays
LOL! My son plays Mindcraft, I am so sorry for making that mistake. When you asked if I had gotten a report from Experian I thought it may be something special about them that I needed to know. Again, your feedback is greatly appreciated.
Nothing special, just that in your original post: You only listed EQ and TU, and I thought you did not have a copy of your Experian report, and it is a good idea to have copies of all 3 to be sure of what is reporting. It's okay, LOL. The first time you wrote it I figured it was just a slip of the fingers, but after the second I thought I'd just say something Also, do not bother paying for your credit reports anymore, there are backdoors.
