Hello all first timer here with a confusing question 2 collections one bank one cellphone as original creditors 2 yrs from what says to be debt owed a hundred or a few hundred a piece not a big deal really... but on one of my reports (equifax) date of last activity for both accounts has been set to n/a! also the date assigned to date of last reported balance as of now has been 2 yrs (then to the exact date now) for the bank....seems ok.. however, date of assigned to date of last reported for the cellphone has only been 3 months!!! (where the 1st delinquincy was in 2005 the date assigned was 06/2006 and the date reported was 09/2006!) Now does this mean that both companies are illegally witholding information (last active date) or they just dont have the information on file?? and seeing how the last report date of the cellphone CA hasnt reported to the CRA's in Half a year do they even care? I was applying for some credit cards (to help pay for my families new addition to pop out in a few more months =) ) when I was bombarded with denials... viewing my credit report I seen these and had the Write Letter/Pay as quickly as possible feeling(for only being a few hundred dollars), to get the marks off my CR, but now looking at this new bit of information thinking about just Validating the integrity of these claims (in which they dont have any real evidence which I've been reading all over these boards) to prevail with no response and contact the CRA's to have them remove them... any thoughts?
Hi Johnd0e, I'm new myself but thought maybye I'd throw some stuff out. I'm sure someone more experienced as I will correct me if I am wrong. First of all have you pulled all 3 reports? Transunion, Experian & Equifax? Not just a triple merged report but the actual reports from each agency. When you start disputes they want the actual report number from a actual report. If so have you submitted a dispute to remove old/incorrect names and addys? It will take a couple of weeks for those to be processed. Theres a reason for this step, it's harder for a CRA (credit reporting agency) to verify an account when disputed if the name and/or addy has been deleted. I was concerned that my old/incorrect names and old addys could serve as a possible entry for identity theft. After all if you have a common name and someone prob lives at your old address that could happen. If you have done these steps then have you generally disputed these accts with the CRA's that are reporting them? Are you positive they are yours by looking at how they are reporting? Mistakes happen all the time and you have a right to have all your accounts reporting correctly. I did mine simple like I stated "Please verify that this account is mine and reporting correctly". You may be lucky enough to have one or more dropped. It does work I have had 2 dropped so far. How old are these debts? Are they in SOL (statue of limitations) for your state? If you don't know what that is (like me) do a search. If an item is out of SOL you are less likely to possibly get sued by the agency who owns the account if you dispute it. If the items are verified by the CRA then you have to decide your next plan of action. It also depends on whether these are original creditors reporting or a collection agency who has bought the account. Do some research and figure out what violations/inaccuracies may be reporting on these accounts. Then decide what is your best course of action, debt validation? dispute again with CRA, PFD? It appears you are prepared to pay these debts off if necessary. Don't just send money to them, otherwise they will just update the balance to 0 & still leave you with a bad entry on your report. You want these deleted from your reports if possible. If you dispute these (see above) and they come back verified by the CRA and appear to be correctly reporting then you may want to consider a PFD (pay for delete) do a search to learn about this, it involves sending a letter first to the creditor asking them to agree to delete the item in return for full payment. The letter is signed and sent back to you if accepted. Then you send the payment to them, again with the stipulation that it will be deleted in return for payment. Do this carefully and make sure you know what you are doing. Knowledge is your power, don't jump into this without knowing what you are doing and why you are doing it. Don't be dishonest, thats againest the law. Know your rights and defend them. Good luck from one newb to another, Tegleg
Hey thanks fellow newb, you raise alot of good key sarting elements and I appreciate it I've been investigating for about a month, just really getting in depth about a couple of days ago... So far I've only pulled my equifax (i've done the free tu and experian but forgot to print like the newbie i am) and seen that my current address was not up to par everything else has nothing to report other than several inquiries when I tried applying for numerous credit cards.. than i tried for the 3 in 1 + scores package for $12.95 that my g/f used, but couldnt go thru with it for some reason it told me it couldnt verify my identity with the debit card that was used (probably because my g/f used the same one!) so i'm stuck trying to find another deal... since then I've been reading up about validating and such like in one of Marie's famous posts and LHK (I think thats right) and was intrigued to find out all these actions taken and how submissive things can be just by validating information! The debts seem to be less than half a year to almost 2 years old being though that the 1st alleged delinquencies are both almost 2 years old, they were slowly reported and where as my SOL is 6 yrs I believe, but the Last activity listed is as Not Available!? so I dont know if its supposed to be judged off that or the date it was reported/assigned to CA and CRA's. Im not sure whether or not the information being presented to me by equifax is the same on the other CR's but I see I will have to find out before I take anymore action or ask more questions, thanks for the speedy help Tegleg and good luck on your own further pusuits, i'll try to find more information as it comes to me about it.
