Greetings I was looking over my credit report online and noticed that I have a debt of $350 to the local Electric Utility Company (PPL) from over 5 years ago. It appears to have been passed on to a CA (noted on Experian and Equifax reports) but PPL (OC) is listed on my Transunion report under the same debt See here for a better idea of what i am talking about Now, I have just recently sent out a DV to the CA and will have to wait 30 days to see what's going on. But I am not sure if I should (or am required to) DV the OC as well? How does this work? Thanks Drimmie
They are a data furnisher reporting to a CRA, so you can dispute directly with them, and you can also dispute thru the CRA reporting. The FCRA secion is here: http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/031224fcra.pdf "§ 623. Responsibilities of furnishers of information to consumer reporting agencies [15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2]" Note that the data furnisher (even if an OC) is prohibited from reporting erroneous information once notified by the consumer that it is erroneous, if it is in fact erroneous. Also note that they have a duty to report the information as disputed if the consumer is disputing it.
Would it be totally impossible to work this debt out with the OC and get it removed from my credit report? If the original debt is payed back to the OC, would the collection agencies have to remove the TL's on my report? Bare with me, I'm still learning here. Thank you for the insight Jason
You would probably want to try that. Why did it go to collection? Did you provide a forwarding address for the final bill on moving? Did you move and have a new account with the utility, but they couldn't get their act together enough to handle their last old bill even though they were sending you bills on a new account at your new address?
the collection is from 2001. i was broke and couldn't pay the bill (roomates weren't paying their end which didn't help). I eventually moved and the bills were never forwarded to my new address. About 3 months ago I opened another account with the same utility company and have been paying on time
If an account is assigned to a collection agency, the account is legitimately able to be listed as being owed to both the original creditor, and to the collection agency. It appears in this case that the OC only has a personal relationship with TU, so they've negotiated with the CAs to report to the other CRAs. The accounts should be cross-referenced with a variable which doesn't appear on the credit report. If you've obtained a tri-merge report, and noticed that the accounts were all showing as one then you've seen the variable in action. The tri-merge company sees the variable and places them together as being for the same account. This is one of the reasons why tri-merge's aren't evidence in FCRA cases; you need to have the three individual CRs from the actual agencies so that you have proof as to who is actually reporting what information...
