5 years ago, I get a letter from a collection agency in the mail saying I owe a couple of hundred bucks for some hospital bill. I sent a letter saying it wasn't mine and I'd like to see their documentation. So, they send me a statement from the doctor's office listing a very old address (which was probably why I hadn't heard anything about it until the collection letter). But the bill says "Patient amt due: $.00" so I figure it's been solved by the health insurance (they paid 100% for almost everything) and never hear back from the CA. Fast forward to the present, I'm trying to clean up the old credit report for a refinance application and see this entry still on my reports. So I dispute and ask them for validation. The CRAs report it as valid (with a higher balance thanks to 5 years of interest) and the CA sends me the same bill. I send them another letter but I think, "maybe I should just go straight to the source" and write the doctor's office saying that this bill isn't mine, I have no recollection of going to the hospital, let alone signing anything and the patient on the bill is not someone for whom I am responsible. Two weeks later, I call up the Dr's office and ask "what's up with this, anyway?" They say, "Oops. Sorry." and off it comes from all credit reports just like that. (Duh, why didn't I think of that sooner?)
Sometimes it's so easy to overlook the obvious! The key to all credit repair is getting to the person who can do something about it. This incident is a great example of that.
Update...good news/bad news! I just checked last night and found that one of my credit cards that had been reported as having some 30-day-late payments, apparently did not! Out of curiosity, I disputed a BofA card that reported a couple of late payments a few years ago just to see what would happen. I must have disputed it a while ago, because I forgot about it. When I pulled my credit last night to see if some of my "aliases" had been removed, the report listed one fewer "derogatory" account. Looking a little further, the BofA account was now clean! ("Pays as agreed, never late") OK, if you say so! My guess is that the information was old-enough (3 years) to not be worth the effort to retrieve. Ok, now let's try that again with another account... The bad news (well, not really that bad) is that I filed my first small claims suit for FDCPA violations this week. The bad news isn't that I filed suit, but that the mitigation hearing is in September (5 months from now). I'm going to mail the summons sooner (rather than later) so that, with any luck, we can negotiate something to our mutual satisfaction before we need to go to the judge. inch by inch...
Same thing here, Ambulance ride for 500.00 called Amb co. they said "we filed wrong" apologized, CA entry gone. Now if crap1 would do this..LOL
Oops again. I disputed a couple of notices of late payments to my Discover card, the other day and I got another pleasant surprise in last night's Credit Report download. My Discover card is now "clean" (pays as agreed/never late). That caused a positive bump in my Experian score! Previously, it had listed a couple of 30-day lates that occured about the time I sold my house about three years ago. Everything was caught up once the dust settled and has remained current. So I disputed them saying that these occurred during a change of address and "poof!" now they're gone. I'm going into month four of my credit-report clean up (which came after a couple of years of cleaning up my personal and financial lives...a necessary prerequisite, IMO) and so far I've knocked off a collection TL, a closed account w/ 60-day lates, and removed late-payments from three open accounts. I still have two or three open accounts (in dispute) and a collection (going to court) to go but, it's getting there. Note to those just starting...be patient
Obtw I should add that, so far, I've spent about $200-$300 on the process between CMRRR letters, Credit report services, FICO score requests, etc. Not to mention the late nights spent researching court cases, legal procedure, reading, and re-reading (and re-re-reading) the FCRA, FDCPA, and all the related legal precedents. I'd estimate that I have another $100-300 left to spend if things go to court. That's not exactly chump-change, but it's cheaper than a couple of lawyer hours and, now that I know how much a PITA it is to clean up, I'm doubly motivated to stay on the "straight and narrow." OTOH, if spending even $1,000 get's me a lower interest rate on a mortgage, I'll make it up in just a couple of months.
The various sources of information that ends up on your credit reports tend to produce a reporting error rate such that if you are sloppy in your financial affairs, your own errors probably dominate your scores, but if you are meticulous in your bill paying, most damaging credit report information will be due to other people's mistakes. You can either pay for this in higher rates, probably without even knowing it, or it may be more economical to spend the time and money to demand that all errors be corrected, even if that involves some court costs. You might also reach the conclusion that you only want credit relationships with a limited number of companies, and that you should dump those that are unreliable. They screw up, you request they fix it, and push till they do. They show a pattern of screwing up, you find an alternative and phase them out. About like how you would handle vendor selection if you had a job as a purchasing agent or buyer.
What's also interesting What is also interesting, now that I'm scrutinizing everything with a microscope, is how the data propogates between the bureaus. Changes that result from a validation with one bureau magically appear in another. At the same time so do the errors.
Those changes are probably resulting from the changes in DF reporting produced by their response to your CRA disputes. Other than fraud alerts which the CRAs are required by law to notify eachother of, as far as I know, the CRAs do not en-mass transfer account information between eachother. If they did, it would quickly become difficult to correct errors in one CR file caused by information transferred from other CR files, since the corrections might be "repaired" and undone by such transfers. There is no mechanism to globally fix errors across all CRAs, other than thru corrections to the information maintained and updated to CRAs by the DFs.
Which is one of the reasons that I always dispute to all of the above. There is no telling when someone could update a piece of PII and previously hidden tradelines which were disputed and nuked on other CRAs suddenly appears on one of the others.
Jam, You are saying you dispute to all of the above... is that all three CRA's and the data furnisher?
I think he's saying dispute all the data in order to reconfirm everything. You can dispute all the CRAs, as well, but I'd rather do them a little bit at a time just to see how things shake out.
Well, things are steadily improving...Boy, does this process take patience and perseverence... After four months, I've got my credit reports from 7 derogatory tradelines (late payments) down to just 2. I'll double check in a month or so to see, but so far the three reports seem to be aligning themselves for the better. I still have a CA reporting on one, but it looks like we're going to court in Sept. because they don't seem to want to answer any of my letters. I'm currently in the process of refinancing my outstanding credit card debt and after that I'll see if I can leverage the remaining two derogatory accounts to clean-up or I'll just close them out and wait for them to dry up and blow away. Keeping the paid-off credit card accounts open would boost the score, but I'm not sure which is worth more: the improved FICO for the annual fee(s) or the satisfaction in knowing they'll never see any more of my money. (I'm still holding a grudge against AmEx after almost 20 years and that as just over a couple of hundred bucks, but I know they're holding one against me so I suppose that makes us even). Since I don't really need more credit than I currently have, a maximized FICO doesn't have much more value to me than simpy a score that is sufficient (e.g. 700-750). I still have to ponder that strategy so I pursue the correct goal. In any case, the biggest change is that, from now on, I'll be scrutinizing the terms and conditions of each account much more closely and for any credit card companies who might be listening, if you have a default rate clause in your offer, you can bet I'll be feeding that offer to my shredder. (As a result, my shredder has been eating quite well, lately While the battle continues, I do want to thank the members of this and the other boards that have helped me "ramp up" on my education of this whole credit game. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that after using credit and credit cards for over 30 years, I'm only now getting it "figured out." Better late, than never. Thanks, again!
As your scores improve, you can be picky. They review, you review. They blacklist, you blacklist. They change terms, you request better terms. Terms can include: 1) Higher limits. Whether or not you use it, that helps you get better terms with other lenders thru impact of debt to available credit on scores. 2) No fees, if you are still paying any. 3) Extended due dates. Although 20 days grace period is common, and some are now due in 14, which is the minimum under FCBA, you can ask for longer. What do they expect, as you become wealthy, and use their card more, you are going to sit around home waiting for their bill, and not go on extended vacations? 4) The current fad appears to be "rewards". Trinkets and beads for the masses. If they are selling it, they must make money doing it. Give me the cash to my bottom line. Most offers don't rise to the best terms, when you are only looking at accepting 1 or 2 a year. However, knowing how the scoring system works, you maintain old accounts open, phase out inadequate accounts over time, and build the credit picture you intend to create, deliberately. Most lenders assume if you are doing business on some terms, they don't have to offer better to keep you, and in fact they can even raise your rates and you won't leave. Most consumers are passive, not active, purchasers of credit. They are the supplier, you are the customer, and the money flows to them based on your decision. You can play it like a purchasing agent might, pick one or two cards for negotiating, shift your purchase business to them to show what volume you could send them, then negotiate terms, knowing that if they don't pony up enough, you can take what minor improvement in terms they offer, and move to the next lender you want to pressure, to ratchet up your terms one by one across the board. Above all, insist on correction of all errors, and compliance with all laws, and all offered terms. No promise or offer is worth what is claimed if your lender does not have the integrity to deliver as promised.
