Are orginal creditors required to report a charge-off as disputed under the FCRA if you send them a dispute letter and they do not respond with any proof within 30 days? I know that collection agencies are, but I am not sure about original creditors.
I believe so-I think that the section that describes original creditor in the FCRA is 623-they are required to complete their investigation within 30 days and are required to report the account as in dispute during that time.
They are also still bound by the FCRA with respect to "furnishers of information," whereas what they report to CRA must be accurate. The validation directed toward the original creditor can be used effectively for deletion if they do not respond or respond that they can not find information. The former is sometimes enough to remove from the CRA, and the latter should always work, because it is an admission that the CRA has no way of verifying. Sometimes you may trigger an "internal investigation" from the original creditor which may be risky if they find everything or can be rewarding because if they fail to notify the bureau that it is dispute, they are in trouble. Or sometimes you can dispute it off at that point, because an â??unratedâ? account is easier to come off than a negative account. We have seen this here, where the CRA is more than happy to erase a positive account, but break every law known to man to retain a negative account to trash your credit
