Revised Letter: (3 pages was really too much) To Whom It May Concern: I recently pulled my credit reports from two credit reporting agencies, Equifax and Experian, to make sure that my credit was complete and accurate. I was dismayed to find that an account that I had paid in full to your agency has been incorrectly reported as unpaid for over a year. I have enclosed a copy of the endorsed check which paid my account in full to prove this payment. Incorrect reporting is in direct violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Pursuant to Title 15 Section 1681 of the US Code I ask that you therefore immediately request the deletion of all information regarding the account in question to all consumer reporting agencies that you file with or report to. If I do not hear from you within 30 days I will have no choice but to involve the Federal Trade Commission and the Attorney General of the State of Washington. Further correspondence should be sent in writing to the address below. Your responsibilities to consumers are very clearly outlined in these codes. Under Section 617, if the FTC finds â??negligent noncomplianceâ? with the requirements of the FCRA, a violator will be responsible to the injured party for any actual damages suffered by that individual. The violator will also be charged the individual's attorneys' fees for the cost of bringing the suit against the violator. In addition, under Section 621(c)(1)(B)(iii), a defendant sued for an FCRA violation under state law may be fined up to $1,000 for each willful or negligent violation. These fines are in addition to the federal penalties. Sincerely,
Hi dancerat, Did you notify them of the errors and ask for corrections? attempt to validate? dispute verified. I can't recall from your previous postings. Am asking because the section you are quoting telling of responsibilities, under A., is specific to reporting with actual knowledge of the errors and under B., is specific to reporting after having been notifed and confirmed the errors. Reads to me like they can report as they feel like it, until asked to do otherwise, and then they get a chance to fix mistakes, before you can go further. Life would be very good if those providing information to the CRA's were held to some kind of accuracy standard before reporting.
True but - What are the chances that they will be able to accurately update the information and report it to all the bureaus - they know I will be watching for any infraction - I think they will take the easy way out and delete it. Of course I could be wrong.
hmmmmmmm, ok If they previously updated on 1 CRA and not the other 2, this is your situation, yes? You should be able to make the argument that at the time of that updating to the 1 CRA, they also had the duty to update to the other 2 CRA's. If you read down further in the same section you are quoting it says: (D) if the investigation finds that the information is incomplete or inaccurate, report those results to all other consumer reporting agencies to which the person furnished the information and that compile and maintain files on consumers on a nationwide basis. That duty is based on notification of a dispute and the subsequent investigation. The only thing I'd worry about is if they now decide to just update the other 2 CRA's entries, instead of deleting. As I understand it, paid collections showing on your report are just as bad as unpaid ones for scoring, so having all 3 reports updated wouldn't help. I guess that's the gamble. Is there a reason you are pursuing this way, instead of requesting they validate? Just seems like it would be less of a gamble, more of a papertrail, and more potential violations with the validation process. Just curious. I'm having a similar brain-basher with 2 judgements listed on my reports, truly aren't mine, LOL my maiden name was Smith. I've confirmed with the courts that none of the identifying information matches, dob - social - middle initial. Seems like you should be able to write a letter and say: Dear Brainless Buttheads: Delete this bogus entry from my credit reports, if you ever want to get paid you should have made sure it was correct before you reported it. Enclosed is a statement for a bazillion dollars, due monthly, for the next 30 years to make up for that increased interest rate on my mortgage. p.s., because you didn't do your job the first time, the SOL for collecting is now expired in your state. Perhaps if you gave a sentence to them only having updated with 1 CRA instead of all 3 when they SHOULD have, they'd be more inclined to delete instead of update. Interesting that the duties change from the agency to the agencies in this section, depending on how dispute notification is received. Just my humble opinions and being curious. I don't recall how old this is, that could make a difference. Did you say previously you intended to send a copy of your check with the letter?
