I know they don't have to remove it but I might as well ask. it was paid off long ago so it's just sitting there as a negative. anyone have a sample letter I can follow? I looked in the other forum but nothing for this situation.
it was actually an old electric bill that I didn't pay until after moving and getting a collection notice. so the first late would be 4/01-5/01 timeframe.
try disputing with the cra as "not mine." i had an old paid gas bill collection i got off experian that way.
It depends on whether or not the account is there under the OC, or the CA... You want to try to avoid using "NOT MINE" for any disputes. To understand why, look up Johnson v. MBNA. "NOT MINE" only requires that they know two of four items, NAME, ADDRESS, SSN, DOB... Gee, if they mailed anything to the consumer at his current address, they could successfully complete a "NOT MINE" dispute. You need to do a dispute of some factual information, to ensure that you have more protection. An example of a 'not mine' which really isn't a 'not mine' could sound like. (You didn't open an account with them on that date.) You can include more facts than just one, and if you do include more, you have more protection in the case of an erroneous verification. One of my favorites was a dispute of "false and/or inaccurate opening, closing, and last activity dates", when the tradeline was verified, it was verified with no closing date... OOPS... The follow-up letter innocuously asked for them to clarify that that was in fact the response from the data furnisher. Instant deletion... Ok, maybe the question wasn't really as innocuous as it appeared on the surface...
tkennedy: I don't post examples of the actual letters, so that they don't get targeted as being 'form letters' when they are used. It was more than one letter though... The first letter is a dispute sent to the DF, which asked quoting Johnson v. MBNA for a conclusive verification of the account. With OCs they aren't required to provide validation, however with a nicely designed dispute downplaying that MBNA had to pay Ms. Johnson $93,000.00 for not being able to validate the account when she sued them, you can provide a nice little carrot for them to validate now. In this case, the OC was nice enough to provide a cover-letter which went over the account information, and the applications, etc... But when they verified with the CRA, they made a glaring omission of the date closed... The follow-up to the CRA wasn't that remarkable... It was only a little bit more than...
