I attended a "Free Credit Repair" Seminar recently. Among other things, the presenter said the following: 1. All negative items on your credit profile are false because of creditor abbreviations, incomplete account numbers, etc. Because of these abreviations and such, they legally do not belong to you and must be removed. Is there any truth to this? Thanx,
That's like saying, "The Police Officer spelled the brand of your car wrong on the ticket. Therefore, the ticket is invalid." In both cases, the answer is NO. If a creditor extended you credit (money/loan/mortgage/etc) under a legally binding agreement, and if you failed to fulfill the agreement, then the debt is legitimate and no amount of word-smithing (the account name is wrong, they spelled the name of the creditor with an 'e' instead of an 'i' in the third position, blah blah blah) is going to make that debt go away, nor will it keep it from being reported on your credit history.
Well, that's what I thought. However, the presenter several examples of "his" credit report showing these type negative items from collection agencies, copies of dispute letters sent to these collection agencies disputing the ownership of these accounts, and the corresponding letters from these collection agencies stating that they were notifying TU, EXP, and EFX to delete the item(s). The presenter cited the Fair Credit Reporting Act & the Fair Debt Collection Procedures Act as requiring Collection Agencies to report 100% accurate information. If the information is not accurate then it must be removed from the credit report in 30 days.
Such seminars seem to be common at the beginning of the new year, as people realize how deeply in debt they are. Keep in mind that in any "free seminar", the presenter's goal is to sell you on some paid product or service. What is likely to be promised may not match reality. In a perfect world, where all parties complied with the law, and made few mistakes, you would dispute an error, the DF would check and fix it, and you would probably be stuck with a correct, but maybe still damaging, account on your reports. In the real world, DFs not only make mistakes in reporting, they make mistakes in responding to disputes. They might correct, or make additional errors, or fail to respond, which should result in removal of the account by the CRA. The CRA's might correctly handle the dispute, or not. It's a crap shoot, but there are some odds that the account might be removed. In the end, if you have significant erroneous negative accounts damaging your credit, you cannot rule out litigation, as some DFs and CRAs may still fail to correct clearly erroneous data. Only a court can penalize either for failing to do what the law already requires them to do.
"It's a crap shoot, but there are some odds that the account might be removed." Yeah, that's what it sounds like. And that makes sense. "Only a court can penalize either for failing to do what the law already requires them to do." That was my biggest skepticism... does the law actually require them to report it accurately, and how accurate is accurate? Oh yeah, they are selling something. A $35/month legal service plan.
The courts are a crap-shoot too, but who ever said anything in life is guaranteed? The only thing guaranteed is that if you do nothing to fix a problem, you will continue to be stuck with it. You may get a judge that employs careful reasoning based on a thorough knowledge of the law, or you may get one who does not consider consumer reporting to matter. You may have to educate the judge, including providing the sections of law that even give him the authority to decide. You may also find that when you pay more for justice (federal, or state courts higher than small claims), you get better justice. You may also choose a different venue than the courts to accomplish your goal. For example, if a CA is already under a consent decree with either FTC or your state AG for past transgressions, written disputes combined with written complaints to the regulatory agency might produce a rapid correction. To some degree, you get what you pay for, or possibly less. For $35/month, they can't do a lot, just based on what it costs to pay people.
Anything is possible, yes. Some may creditors or collectors may fail or refuse to verify negative yet accurate information, resulting in a deletion. Still other disputes may very well "wake the sleeping dog", resulting in the resurrrection of a legitimate, past due account that may have aged off sooner, had you left it alone. And even if you are successful in getting a negative, accurate trade line, collection, or judgment removed from your history at a CRA, it very well could show up a week, a month, or a year later. Remember, getting it off your credit history(ies) does not equal ridding yourself of the debt itself -- meaning, you may forget about it for a brief time, but the creditor may or may not. If they have the legal right to pursue it, they can and (often) will, years after you've forgotten about it. Can (and has) it be(en) done? Absolutely. Just make sure you dot your i's, cross your t's, and know your rights and responsibilities before sending out an armful of dispute letters. Side note: Like ontrack stated: Your credit repair guru wanted to sell you a product; you get what you pay for.
I really love these snake oil salesmen. This crackpot is up there with the 'tax experts' who say that no individual has to pay or file income tax, because an individual isn't a business, and income is for businesses... Or however they try to double-talk, and triple-talk it to get it to sound right to the people who they can get to pay the price for their 'educational materials' (and the IRS penalties and interests, fines, etc. that they'll get stuck with in the end). They are citing the right laws, however they're taking them beyond the point of absurdity. YES, they are required to report 100% complete, accurate, and verifiable information. If you dispute information which is less than 100% complete, accurate, and verifiable, they are required to update or delete the incomplete, inaccurate, or unverifiable information. And if you have proof that said information is incomplete, inaccurate, or unverifiable, and they refuse to update or delete the incomplete, inaccurate, or unverifiable information, you have the right to sue them. However, they usually are reporting the full account numbers, etc to the CRAs; the CRAs however have to take reasonable safeguards to ensure that the consumer is protected should someone intercept the credit report that you order. Imagine if your neighbor obtains your credit report, and the CRA wouldn't have obfuscated a portion of the account numbers. Your neighbor would then have little (except for the angel sitting on their shoulder, arguing with the devil on the other shoulder) to prevent them from utilizing those account numbers to incur charges, and open new accounts in your name. A major part of the FCRA that the 'expert' forgot about is that under the FACTA amendments there are even MORE requirements to obfuscate account numbers and other information to prevent identity theft. He could very well have 5,000 personal examples from his own credit reports showing that his 'method' works; but that doesn't show how many thousands of more letters he may have had to have sent to get those examples. Even when you've had personal experience under your belt, and know both laws like the back of your hand, few experts have a 100% success rate; even when they are dealing with truly incomplete, inaccurate, or unverifiable information.
ontrack, ro56, jam237, Thanks for the information! This credit game appears to be very deep. jam237: Why do you call this salesman a "crackpot"? Based on your own comments, he appears to not only know his stuff, but has the personal experience of implementation to back it up. Yes, he is selling a service that I could do myself. He said that in his presentation. But he say's an attorney would add teeth. I have not bought his program yet. But that has more to do with his attitude and personality than his strategies. Also, he did not mention FACTA by name, but he did reference identity theft legislation as to why the items could not be reported 100% accurate.
First, I never said he had the personal experience to back up his information, you said that he provided examples from his own credit report, to prove that he was right. I simply said he could have thousands of examples of accounts getting deleted from his own credit files, that doesn't show how many other times that his trick didn't work... The reason is simple... He started based on the law, not CASE LAW... Then he took the interpretation of the law beyond absurdity. There is a major difference... You may get some deletions, but what happens when a company actually breaks the law, based on CASE LAW, and you have no choice but to sue to enforce your rights? There is another major problem... No CA is a single solitary island... Chances are his form letters will quickly find their way to the council of ACA's desk, and a thorough review of the letter, and the legal basis for why it isn't correct will be disbursed to their membership. The first rule is to never use a letter which you don't understand 100% the complete legal basis for it, so that you can be prepared to defend the letter in court, should it get there. It's even better to never use letters which you didn't personally write.
jam237, I still don't understand why you called the presenter a "crackpot". As a consumer with negative items on my profile, I don't care how many times the "trick" fails... I'm only concerned with how many times it works. Since the "trick" is based on law, and sometimes works, that's all that matters. You are right. In his 30 minute seminar, he did not once reference "case law". He did suggest that hiring an attorney would be beneficial to your success in the "credit game". (His words.) I would expect that the attorney would be versed in "case law". You say "he took the interpretation of the law beyond absurdity." I'm not sure what you mean by that. I understand absurd to mean "senseless, foolish, untrue, false, beyond common sense". If that is the case, then I would think the collection agency would recognize it as such and defeat the request for removal. I am very encouraged to learn that there are indeed laws that have been enacted to give consumers a fighting chance to gain control over their credit profiles. I appreciate you sharing your expertise, Thanks
The odds of removing an account by some form letter might be one thing, but if that fails, those odds might go down, as when CRAs consider repeated disputes as "frivolous". You are better off addressing the strengths of your cases on an account by account basis, so that if you have to move beyond just sending letters, you have not undermined your legal arguments for damages in court. Sometimes the level of error and damage is in a grey area, but if you present and play it right, you might be more likely to negotiate removal. To do so, you want to be able to show that your damage is a result of their error, and not due to some bogus claims you made in some dispute, so that the likelyhood of legal liability is credible. You undermine that possibility if in your earlier communications, you have taken some absurd position that would make you look like a fool in court. In law there is the concept of "equity" and fairness, and that if you are asking for fairness, you should not have "unclean" hands. Even though credit report disputes are based on statute, and not specifically on equity, nor on common law, we all have such concepts in how we think about right and wrong. Sometimes the legal decision takes such issues into account, such as by how damages are determined, even if it is justified on some other basis. Those decisions may none-the-less have a material effect on your end result other than payment of damages, since with higher perceived damages likely, it is also more likely you will reach a settlement resulting in removal of derogatory information as part of your negotiated compensation. It pays to be aware of this as you build a position either for negotiation or for litigation.
