I just received my fifth round with equifax and they are not going to do any more verifications. the message said: several times in the recent past, at your request, we have verified & re-verified the items you are in despute of. each time, the creditors have verified the accounts belonging to you and/or reporting correctly. therefore re, if you still feel there is an error , then you will need to contact the creditors directly & file the dispute w/their office. as the bureaus can neither change nor remove items from your file that have been reported correctly. signet bank prior paying history deleted first deposit deleted due to no response. where do go from here? one last collection to go.
Dispute it again and send validation.. it's an on going effort to get your credit report clean. if that doesn't work, play hard ball and sue them.
Ender's right...say these words when reading the letter you received "yada,yada, yada"..it will make you feel better!
QN: Is this collection paid ? When Junum disputes do they threaten the CRA with a lawsuit if the items are not corrected and do they request the name of the person and the creditor and address who verifies. Call their bluff, sometimes these agencies don't verify and they just say have verified and you are entitle to know who is verfiying the information. I have done it several times and both times the item was deleted when I pressed them on who continues to verify this incorrect account. Just my 2 cents Cyprigirl
What do you mean "who is verifying?" Are you referring to the employee of say Equifax, or the employee of the original creditor?
I would definately tell them that this is in no way a frivilous dispute. You may even want to take legal action as Ender has reccomended. I would like to know more about how JUNUM writes there letters. The CRA is probably on to the fact that you are either using a credit repar company or that you are attempting to repair your credit......
By the way, for anyone that doesnt all ready know this. You are much better off if the CRA's are not made aware that you are trying to repair your credit or that you are using a credit repair company. This is one of the main reasons that I am against using credit repair companies. THere is no way that they are capable of writing genuine and original letters that will come off as your own every time. I would imagine that the CRAs get pretty used to seeing their form letters from these companies. They may put up with for a couple of rounds, but sooner or later you are going to draw unwanted attention to yourself. When writing your own letters, make sure that they are customized for your situation. You can still use the form letters technique and style, but just change it around a little bit. Make it look like it was writtten from joe blow consumer, not some high and mighty law firm up on the hill. If you have the time I would even neatly hand write the letters. When asked why you are disputing remember that you can just give a generic Please verify or validate this debt. You dont really need to give a reason. Or you could give a reason and there are about a couple hundred of them. The problem with giving them a reason is that this could complicate for you. Good Luck!!
So what's wrong with doing what they suggest? Forget the credit bureau until you go get rid of the original creditor or the collection agency. They are telling you flat out that it isn't their fault and they are right. They are the reporters, not the creditor nor the collector. Why not listen to what they are telling you?
Bill, You have made a good point also. Why not do what they want. Stop drawing attention to yourself with repetitive disputes to the CRA's. I was reading that Lexingtion would like you to sign up for at least one year. I can imagine many reasons why they like there customers to commit for such a period of time. One would be that they are getting your money for one whole year. But another reason is that they need a year to do all that disputing. It shouldnt take round after round after round after round of disputing with the CRA. The majority of our attention should be focused on the CA or the Creditor who is reporting this stuff. The same people who do this stuff over and over again probably think that guns are the enemy in our evil world not those who pull the trigger on innocent victims. Go to the source people....
Hmm...political comment in there, eh?? I'll hold back on that one... However, since I just had 2 things removed after repeated disputes...there is some grounds to persistence but I certainly think you want to keep your attention focused on the CA as well (or the original creditor)..
Its not very complicated But I will here is a sample of what I use. Date RE: Report # CERTIFIED MAIL Credit Reporting agency Address Dear Sir or Madam: Subject: Disputed Items I am writing to dispute the following items: Creditor.- Account #xxxx -Original Creditor- dated xxxxx This item is outdated and you continue to report this item. (Or whatever your reason is for disputed) I disputed this item in late 2000 and it was verified. The information is flat out wrong. This is the second problem of this nature with your agency. I want the name, address and phone number of the person that continues to provide incorrect information because they are in blatant violation of credit laws. Again, the other two Credit Reporting Agencies, Equifax and Transunion have investigated the item and promptly removed the information. Experian continues to fail to verify this item properly. Since your organization is continuing to report inaccurate information about an account, Experian is also subject to liability under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. By law, if you are put on notice that information is incorrect or inaccurate, and you continue to report disputed or inaccurate information from a creditor, your agency is subject to FCRA violations and liability damages in a court of law. I do not wish to initiate legal action for this matter. But if this item continues to be erroneously reported, I will have no choice but to undertake legal alternatives. Please give prompt attention to this matter. If you should have any questions please address all correspondence to: Your name Address Thank you very much for your time. Yours truly, Your name Enclosures () BEWARE: This letter was particular to my situation. You have make the letter relevant to your situation. Don't just copy something. What I have posted should give you an idea of how to get started. I got a lot of letters off the internet but in the end I wrote my own that was more particular to my situation. Good Luck! Cyprigirl
Well, Nana (godaddyo too), As you know, I'm getting pretty dogmatic about going to the source of the problem instead of the reporter of the problem. Yet, in a sense, I make exactly the same mistake when I advocate attacking the collection agency. And one of my clients just got his head handed to him by a collection agency. Them suckers sent him proper validation in just about 7 days time!!!!!!! WOW! So his only next hope is that the original creditor will be a bit more stupid. There is, however fairly good reason to hope that they will because they just might choose to ignore him on the grounds that they hired the collection agency to take care of their problems, so why bother with it. But if they also reply in something like warp speed, then the problem is really going to get tough to solve. Naturally , I'm betting we will end up winning the day one way or another, and I'm not nearly out of tricks yet. I just like to diddle with the collection agencies best of all because they usually make at least one or more stupid mistakes and often end up either forgiving the debt or paying it themselves. When they do, they almost always say they aren't admitting any guilt but rather are doing it as a matter of courtesy and then apologize for having caused you a problem. Yeah! Right! Further more, even if I don't get that result, I at least get them off the case and then the creditor has to go find himself another fool to fight his battles for him. On the other hand, the creditor isn't the one doing the reporting either, so it's kinda like a mixed bag of oats and corn. But getting to the source of the problem is what gets the job done.
Good point, caprigirl. Just grabbing something off the internet and slapping them up side the head with it isn't the way to go. You need to adapt it to fit your situation and each situation can and oftentimes is different in some way, shape or form. Good post.
NanaC You caught me red handed. I saw the juxtopostition and I took the liberty of pointing it out. Our second amendment rights are perishing right berfore our eyes. I will try to resist and post such comments on the General talk forum in the future ;-)ya right lol
Godaddyo, Obviously you were not around when someone got ahold of their Junum letter (or lexington) and posted it here for all to read. The letter sounded like a 5th grader wrote it. The letter do not sound law firm high and mighty. They are more like.... "you are screwing up my credit. Who the heck are you to put this stuff on my report. Get it off right NOW, or we will end up in court!" Anyone who was here remember how shocked people were to read the letter? I couldn't have been anymore Joe Blow if it tried!
I thought that was the lex letter ...wasn't the junum letter that was put out just the form that is provided filled out?
I dont know what the firms do, but I was complaining more about some of these letters you see posted on credit repair sites that sound all high and mighty. I wouldnt want to make any assumption what the credit repair firms write.
