A few years back I was a second cardholder on my friends credit card. She filed bankruptcy and included that account. My credit report now shows a bankruptcy on it and I didn't even file bankruptcy. Any suggestions?? I feel that Bank of America should have given me the chance to pay it off I didn't know it would go on my credit it was my friends credit card with me as an authorized user. HELP
RE: Bankruptcy on my credit NO It depends on if you were a cosigner, or merely an authorized user. Crditors are quite fond of trying to suck authorized users into the situation when collections and bankruptcy are involved. If in fact you were just an authorized user, you have no legal obligation on the account. Dispute the matter with the CRA. No doubt BofA will 'verify' it. Then you will have to dispute it with BofA and demand that they produce some kind of documentation (such as the original credit card application) whereby you agreed to be responsible for the charges should the primary account holder fail to fulfill their obligations. Once they fail to do that, demand that BofA contact the CRAs and remove the dergoatory information from your credit files. You should cite the FCRA section (which I don't have at my fingertips) regarding willfully reporting false information. In addition demand that they remove the information from their records as it will just get re-reported the next time they transmit to the CRAs. If they still fail to do that, you are unfortunately left with no option but to sue. It should become clear in the discovery process that they don't have any evidence whatsoever (other than perhaps charge slips that you signed, but you were permitted to do that by the owner of the account) and will probably back off.
RE: Bankruptcy on my credit NO My experience with Experian is that they will remove it over the phone if it's just an Authorized User account.