September 17, 2002 Kimberly Painter, Assistant to the President Kaufmanns 300 Sheffield Center Lorain, OH 44055 Re: Account Number xyz Dear Kimberly: I have been in, what seems, constant contact with your company for the past 2+ years. My letters have been ignored. My account was well used and in good standing until February 1999. I lost my job and of course valuable income needed to repay my debts. I was quite prompt in letting your customer service department know my dilemma. They promptly informed me I could make â??smallerâ? payments until I got back on my feet. Foremost in my request was to protect my credit rating. Not once did any of the dozens of customer service representatives (John, Deena, Denise Yaria, etc) inform me that my smaller payments were a complete waste of time. To shorten this dissertation, I have 21 â??90 day latesâ? in my Equifax, Experian and Trans Union credit reports from Kaufmanns. I am thoroughly exhausted calling and writing asking why your company offered a payment plan that did not address what was clearly askedâ?¦to protect my credit rating. Had any one of the people in your company informed me that my small payments wouldnâ??t help a thing, I would have definitely sought other alternatives to pay the balance in the beginning. Fortunately, I was able to pay this account in full in March of 2001. Very unfortunately however, is the debilitated state my (and my husbandâ??s) credit report is in. This next section is pretty much from PsychDoc's nutcase letter but I'm not sure if I should go that far in this case. It's obviously too much to ask for a goodwill adjustment based on the lates which is why I thought some nutcase might work...thoughts??? In your communications with me you told me that you would update my credit reports as soon as I had paid the debt to you. Quite naturally, I assumed and relied upon your statement to that effect to mean that you would mark the account as "paid as agreed". It preposterous that I would have let my account be that late for virtually 2 years. I have asked for correction, both directly and through the Credit Reporting Agencies. Each time it has merely been re-verified. I should point out, though I have no doubt you are aware, that each of these instances constitutes a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and is separately actionable. Applicable sections of the FCRA violated by Chevron include (but is not limited to) Sections 605 (c)(1), 623 (a)(1)(A), 623 (a)(1)(B), 623 (a)(2), and 623 (a)(3), with multiple documented violations of each section. I am quite confident that both you and a court of law will agree that my assumption was a perfectly reasonable assumption for an average debtor to make. And so, based on that assumption I agreed to pay the debt and in fact did so in March 2001 whereupon you actually worsened my credit bureau scores and that was most definitely to my detriment and prejudice and provided me with grounds to sue you for the full amount paid plus attorney fees, court costs and whatever additional punitive damages a jury might award. I have provably asked for your organization to correct the erroneous information in my credit reports, yet the false derogatory information still persists in my credit report on numerous occasions. Rest assured that I have kept ample records, consisting of (but not limited to) Certified Mail Return Receipts, phone logs, periodic copies of my credit reports, and letters of rejection for new lines of credit that directly attribute their refusal to extend credit to the presence of such gross late marks on my account seen on all 3 credit bureau reports. These would constitute provable damages, would they not? I do think they would, particularly in light of Nelson v Chase Manhattan. Therefore, unless you move to cure your error and completely remove your derogatory tradelines from my public records, as well as those of my wife, Mrs Learnmore, also listed on the account, within 15 days of your receipt of this letter and provide proof of your cooperation with my demand in the form of mailing, faxing, or e-mailing me a copy of your UDF which you transmitted to the credit bureaus demanding the removal I shall immediately move to file against you in a court of law with jury trial demanded. I am quite well aware that you have a contractual agreement with the credit bureaus which covers this problem and supposedly prevents you from compliance with my demands, but a contract which is in violation of the law is null and void and of no force and effect whatsoever and therefore cannot be enforced either by you or upon you. Your so-called contract with the credit bureaus will not protect you for your willful violation of my rights which are protected by the Doctrine of Estoppel. Your failure to cure and provide me with proof of your having cured the problem within 15 days after your provable receipt of this letter will be considered sufficient reason to refer this matter to the courts for their resolution. While you may think that I have no right of private action due to the way FCRA is worded, let me hasten to assure you that such beliefs are quite ungrounded and false. That point has been vividly illustrated by the ruling of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Nelson v Chase Manhattan, March 3, 2002 in which the court pointed out that Section 1681s-2(b) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act creates a cause of action for a consumer against a furnisher of erroneous credit information. But my pending suit against you will not be about FDCPA nor FCRA but about how you have damaged me after I acted in good faith in dealing with you. Thank you and I look forward to resolving this most expeditiously. Sincerely, learnmore cc: Gregory Sheffer, esq and Cliff Chanler, esq Federal Trade Commission Ohio Attorney General
