I recently disputed 3 TL's on my CR as not mine. They came back updated, and after 3 requests for procedures, 2 TL's were magically deleted, but 1 remained. Heres the interesting part. I received the results from my re-investigation and the CA added a new address(very similar to mine, but different city and zip) to my CR. I called EX and they said the CA added it during the re-investigation. Someone please tell me how EX used every possible precaution to maintain accuracy in this instance!!! They updated a TL when the CA submitted the wrong address. What would you do now?
call the cRA and tell them they are reporting inaccurate info dispute the address as not yours and if they say a creditor reported it say I dont see how they have my current address must be an error or typo on your part request that they correct or delete it they mut under the FCRA.as it is inaccurate info. lately I have found ex to be a real stick in the mud with their procedures and refusing to fix inaccurate things. they do not maintain adequate procedures so file a complaint with the FTC so they will look into the matter, I filed one today in fact as they claimed they investigated a few disputed accts on my BF crdit report that remained. and guess what they actually left a duplicated acct on there and claim they verified it electronically sure they did they are begging to get sued. good luck
Just to clarify that in most cases, the FTC will not do anything about individual complaints. They do have a new program where they will send some of the complaints to the offending party, but I wouldn't count on the FTC doing much other than that.
LKH: The new policy is a part of FACTA. They act as a complaint broker. Here is my level of dispute resolution, you may see a logical progression in this... * CRA (CRA until they refuse to re-investigate, or they give some indication that it won't be productive, like when the presidents office of the CRA tells me something so far off the wall like 'FTC settlements only affect customers in the states which had their own settlements with the company.' -- hmmm, what part of the FEDERAL in the Federal Trade Commission don't they get.) * BBB (Send the dispute & documentation through the BBB, in the one case I did this, they actually read all approx 70 pages of the dispute personally, before they forwarded it to the CRA, and that was after fighting the CRA for 10 months on the same account; miraculously, the day after I received the letter from the BBB saying that they forwarded the information to the company on that day, I got the deletion letter from the CRA.) If the response through the BBB isn't satisfactory, you can tell the BBB why their response wasn't satisfactory, and that may get you yet another dispute process. * The CRA's state AGs office. * The Federal Trade Commission Through their new FACTA complaint resolution program. They forward the complaint to the CRA, and the CRA reports the results back to the FTC (and possibly the consumer directly.) The FTC randomly audits a sample of the complaints, and will also be able to take administrative enforcement action if they see any blatent violations. Each step in its own time, one by one. The goal is to ensure that it gets to someone who can effectively respond to it, not to abuse them by overloading them. So I only use this when I have by any stretch a MAJOR dispute with a data furnisher, or the CRA.
LKH: The new policy is a part of FACTA. They act as a complaint broker. Here is my level of dispute resolution, you may see a logical progression in this... * CRA (CRA until they refuse to re-investigate, or they give some indication that it won't be productive, like when the presidents office of the CRA tells me something so far off the wall like 'FTC settlements only affect customers in the states which had their own settlements with the company.' -- hmmm, what part of the FEDERAL in the Federal Trade Commission don't they get.) * BBB (Send the dispute & documentation through the BBB, in the one case I did this, they actually read all approx 70 pages of the dispute personally, before they forwarded it to the CRA, and that was after fighting the CRA for 10 months on the same account; miraculously, the day after I received the letter from the BBB saying that they forwarded the information to the company on that day, I got the deletion letter from the CRA.) If the response through the BBB isn't satisfactory, you can tell the BBB why their response wasn't satisfactory, and that may get you yet another dispute process. * The CRA's state AGs office. * The Federal Trade Commission Through their new FACTA complaint resolution program. They forward the complaint to the CRA, and the CRA reports the results back to the FTC (and possibly the consumer directly.) The FTC randomly audits a sample of the complaints, and will also be able to take administrative enforcement action if they see any blatent violations. Each step in its own time, one by one. The goal is to ensure that it gets to someone who can effectively respond to it, not to abuse them by overloading them. So I only use this when I have by any stretch a MAJOR dispute with a data furnisher, or the CRA.
BBB I have had great success with the Better Business Bureau and CSC (an Equifax affiliate). CSC flat refused to honor my request for procedures, instead taking the request as a new dispute, twice! After a few back and forth letters with the BBB in the middle, the disputed accounts disappeared. Imagine that. (Not that they *ever* sent their procedures, but the goal was accomplished.) I don't know that I ever tried the BBB with Experian. They have certainly never honored a procedure request. I probably just assumed that a company with such a bad BBB record would ignore my complaint. (If you can tell, I'm rather apathetic about Experian, they really are a pain to deal with.)
BBB jambe: Did CSC's investigation report include the standard disclaimers that sound like "When we receive your dispute, we look over the information you submit, and then contact the data furnisher." That's the procedural request response (well, as good as you get without suing them, and forcing everyone who touched your dispute to depose).
BBB jambe: Believe it or not, _______ is a BBB member, so they are required to respond, or ELSE they CAN LOSE their BBB MEMBERSHIP... Talk about hitting them with a big stick. Most of the major CRA's are at least members of the BBB through their major headquarters. BTW: I am sending out a 70+ page dispute to _______'s BBB office as soon as its done printing...
BBB ya know I have used the BBB process with a few CA but I never actually thought of using them against the CRA as well. 70+ pages WOW what are you including you should publish a book and make money do they really send it over to the CRA or do they ignore you. I was wondering who would take the time to actually read all that? awesome ideas btw
BBB fun they can't ignore you - look up a few lines, if the CRA ignores you through the BBB, they can lose their BBB membership. the proof is in the pudding... the first account that i used that tactic on, the CRA wouldn't budge, even when provided with proof that the data furnisher had settled with the FTC for fraud. i had a 10 month go round of continual disputes with the CRA. i was even told by the executive offices of same CRA that 'FTC settlements only affect customers who live in the states which reached their own settlements with the company.' sent the same dispute, with all the previous disputes, the cover letter that the data furnisher was required to send under the settlement, the ftc press release about the settlement, the ftc complaint, the ftc settlement, the ftc q&a about the settlement, etc. it may have also helped that it was only days after Johnson v. MBNA, and i had already integrated Johnson v. MBNA into my dispute letter. (As well as the CASS Opinion - since the settlement barred collection activity, verification is prohibited, they were only allowed to do one 623(a) update to show that they were no longer owed any money. isn't it nice when the consumer knows more about the law then the same lawyers who designed their scam.) it took the bbb about two weeks to read over all of the documentation, the day after i received the we've forwarded your dispute to the company for a response, i received the deletion report. a complete about face, from the 10 months of haggling... (and the company even verified it right after the BBB told the CRA that I was disputing it.) like i said, in other posts, this is a tactic only when you have a landslide of documentation to bury the CRA in.
BBB btw: if you can tell, from the response i got the first time; i didn't have to use the next two steps, yet. the goal is to have the plan at hand so you can be prepared before the time comes. so if you know, i am going to do xyz, as soon as you get the verification report, you can move on to the next step of your plan. i even had the response to the dispute that i knew was going to be PI'ed, ready to go in the mail the same day that i received the PI response, all i needed to do was print out the letter, the documentation, and mail.
Re: BBB Really had to dig to find anything (this was in late 2002). In my BBB complaint I said that I had twice requested reinvestigation procedures. The response to my second request was "YOUR CONCERN REGARDING THIS ITEM HAS BEEN NOTED ON THE CREDIT FILE." I called them then and found out they had added the notation due to the number of disputes, leading me to understand they had taken the procedures requests as disputes. In the meantime, one of the two accounts had the status changed, from I5 to I9 I think. The first response from CSC was to send my credit report to the Houston BBB, for them to forward to me! It took one or two more replies, through the BBB, before they responded with a deletion of the two items, and a fresh report for the BBB's files. Of course, I also got a copy. I don't know when their legal department got involved, but I guess it was easier to just delete the lines. I tried to get one put back with no luck. (It had finally been updated to the correct status.) Fortunately that was pretty much the last of the baddies, so I haven't really had to deal with them anymore.
Re: BBB Yeah, sure they are, but I don't think they care so much that it would make a difference. They don't have "unsatisfactory" status for nothing. Besides, I got the mortgage I was after. The hassle of dealing with Experian just hasn't been worth tackling again. We'll see what happens when I start helping my wife on her credit 'repair' journey.
Re: BBB I looked at the BBB website. Should I send a letter and complaint through the mail? Is there a form? I am such a lost soul right now....
