I have a Chapter 7 BK that was discharged in Jan of 2003. Just recently pulled my credit report and two credit cards that were included in the BK appear to be reporting incorrectly. Bank One (who I believe was First USA) is showing the Balance with a past due amount and listed as "Charged Off as Bad Debt" Citibank is listed the same with a balance and a past due amount and listed as a "Collection Account" Any thoughts on the quickets was to get these removed? Should I contact the original creditors and try to get them to send me a bill? It appears that I actually disputed these back in 2004 because they both are listed as Account Information disputed by consumer. Any other thoughts on getting these to report correctly?
Dispute them with the CRAs. Send them a copy of your discharge letter. I had the same problem with, guess who, Bank One. Once I sent the dispute letter and a copy of the discharge letter to the CRAs and they promptly changed the information to reflect that it was discharged in bankruptcy.
Thanks for the reply. I thought I was always told was that the worst thing you could do was to send (or admit) a BK to the credit bueraus. I believe that's why I held off on doing so. At this point though it might be the easiest way to resolve this.
Just remember that once you send your discharge papers to a CRA, you can NEVER dispute those accounts down the road and have them removed from your report. You might try some other options, first.
That's what I thought. What other options would you suggest? I was thinking of calling the original creditor and then asking them to send me a bill (which obviously they can't or if they do - easy lawsuit) or just seeing if they would report it correctly? I've already disputed them a couple of years ago and they came back as verified. Keep disputing with the bureaus?
When I started credit repair I had a few accounts not showing correctly as IIB (included in bankruptcy) I did a vague dispute (no knowledge of this acct) and the CRA's verified. I had to call the OC's directly to have them updated correctly. Turns out they had not received a notice when I filed. They now report correctly as IIB. I did ask for the TL to be removed due to false reporting but all they would do is update it to IIB. Which in my opinion is better than a CO, my Chap 7 was in 2002 so since they are so old I don't think the IIB tradelines are hurting me so badly now. Of course the Chap 7 is damaging to my credit although it is over 5 years old now but I haven't tried to get rid of mine, it's an ethic thing for me, a personal decision, but I do know of some people who have had the bk's totally removed and the associated TL's & vice versa. These tradelines of yours prob never received notice from your bk, if you just want them reporting factually then a call to the OC may help. But if your wanting the tradeline's & the Bk removed you prob need to take a different approach. Good luck! Tegleg
If you want them to just report correctly, and don't want to send the CRA's your BK papers, then send a FACTA dispute (a letter directly to the OC), along with a copy of your discharge papers. That might do the trick, and leave the CRAs out of the loop for now.
