Hello everyone. I've been reading through the boards for the last couple of weeks trying to find some solution to my problem and haven't had much luck. So I thought I would go ahead and post to see what happens. Way back when I made a mistake and went into CCCS. I was young and didn't know the ramifications of what it was going to do. I've long since left the program and have had all but 1 negative tradeline on my credit reports removed. (I started with about 10). My last negative is a serious one, as it is reporting as 90+ days late three or more times. Payments were made, but because of CCCS everything was considered delinquent. I should add it never went into collection or a charge-off or anything of the sort. I've heard lots of similar stories about CCCS, but that's another issue. I've tried numerous "goodwill letters" with the original creditor and have disputed with all the bureaus several times also. Each time it comes back verified. The deliquent marks are from April of 2000 with it scheduled to continue until February of 2007. The account was paid in full in November 2000 and I closed it in December of 2000. Right now, this rating is killing me. And what really gets under my skin is I only owed them about $275, not a large amount and it was a department store credit card account. I'm getting ready to send another letter since it's been almost three months since my last dispute, but wanted to check for any other ideas before I did. A few of the things I thought about: 1. Request the procedure of the investigation and hope to catch them that way. I was not aware of this prior and I think it's been too long since my last disputes to request this now. 2. Had some confusion with getting an address deleted. The original creditor does not have my current address because I've moved. However, I don't think I would be able to get the address they do have deleted because it hasn't been that long. (I've moved within the past 2 months.) So how old does an address need to be before you dispute with "outdated, etc."? 3. I'm a bit hesitate about claiming it's not mine since I do not know what kind of records the creditor keeps about past correspondence. So I don't want to suddenly start claiming its not mine. The letters they wrote back to me were very similar, but not a form letter because it referred to my particular situation. So that makes me a bit suspicious about what they have. I'm not sure what else to do at this point, except wait it out for awhile and go at it again. My hope is that the OC will not have my records for very much longer. Any advice or thoughts would be very much appreciated. meredith
No, actually it was Famous Barr, part of The May company. I was a bit hesitate to give too many details because I had read other posts about creditors coming here. But I'm probably being paranoid. ha ha. Never ventured into the Sears fiasco.
who are you addressing the letters to? I would go as high up the food chain as possible. Second, if the account was not late and was never charged off, have you requested an accounting from the oc? asking them for records of you delinquent status and seeing if they can prove it will assist with your documentation. I don't see how they can report you late if you were not, regardless of the cccs entry, but cccs isn't an area that i am entirely familar with. You can still send the procedure request in to the cra's ... there is no time limit listed in the fcra for making these requests. If they did investigate properly, then they should be able to respond. I don't think the address thing really works that well with cc. I think it is most effective with public records.
How do you get specific names of people to address it to? I don't want to send letters to the people who have already replied, they were somewhat rude. And I do not want to do a phone call because I want all correspondance in writing. The payments were considered late because the "minimum payment due" kept increasing, even though they had agreed upon amounts for me to pay while I was in the "program". So my minimum payment due was something like $75 when I entered, and I payed $20 per CCCS. So the next month my min. payment went up to $100, I payed $20, the next month was $125, I payed $20, and on and on. I had called Famous about it and they said don't worry about it, just pay the regularly agreed upon amount. Like, I said, I was young and stupid. I didn't realize how evil creditors are. ha ha. The whole thing gets pretty confusing. At one point, the min payment due suddenly went to $20 from $175. Can I send a letter to OC requesting the accounting records and also to the credit bureaus at the same time? I don't want to stir up too much with OC at once. I just want to be some random name and not someone who continously writes in. I appreciate the feedback!