Inquiries? Who to complain to -FTC?

"This is your problem Mr./Mrs. Comsumer. Contact the lender in question and take care of it yourself. We the CRA, are not violating the FCRA rules at all" ----------------------------What is the complaint? The CRA are not violating the FCRA rules. If the inquires are bogus,then like CRA says: contact the lender that did inquiry and ask it to be deleted.Then,if you don't get any satisfaction,contact the FTC and complain about the lender,not the CRA.

 

They are telling you the truth, and you have no reason to complain to anyone.

Let me explain. The CRAs are not the source of your problem, they are merely the reporter of your problem. That is exactly what they are telling you, nothing more and nothing less.

It is not their problem that you have negative reports on your file unless they are somehow inaccurate or false. Then it does become their problem and you do have a right to complain in that instance.

So it becomes a problem of what to do next.
They suggest that you contact your creditor or the collection agency and clear up the problem. It is to be presumed that they are saying that in order to resolve your problem, you need to pay off your debts and do better in the future. That is, if they leave you any future during the next 7 to 10 or more years.

I am quite sure that you already know that paying off the debts will not improve your credit ratings by any measureable amount, and in fact may very well increase the length of time that you must suffer the bad reports. Some would probably dispute my statement on that saying that it is not true that making payments on your indebtedness will not increase the length of time you must suffer. Whether or not it does is quite irrelevent for the simple reason that you really do not want to suffer another day of it, let alone the 7 or more years the credit bureaus think should be your punishment for having failed to pay your bills.

So what I think you need to do is to start with your creditors and collection agencies and do something (constructive or destructive) about them. I do not recommend that you pay them anything at all nor even offer any settlements at all.

Your problem is that you have been passive in addressing your problems and you need to become agressive as soon as possible.

There are many ways to do that and a goodly number of them are posted on this forum for your study.

It isn't going to be real easy to get your problems resolved , but it can be done. All you need to do is to either hire a good firm to do your credit repair for you or learn how to do it yourself. Which path you choose to follow should depend upon whether or not you can afford the hundreds of dollars that the credit repair firm you choose may charge you in the event you have a large number of adverse entries and whether or not you would rather do it yourself.

You can do everything yourself that a paid credit repair company can do for you and much more.

You just need to decide what you want to do and go from there.

 

If you look at it from the CRA's point of view, it doesnt matter what the inquiry is for. Someone requested you're credit report, and that is what they are reporting. They will report it as an Account Review, Promotional, or Hard Inquiry, as requested by whoever is doing the inquiry. If they aren't supposed to be accessing you're CR, then you need to contact them and settle it with the CA, Insurance, Bank, etc...

 

And I still feel the same way this morning Jim.Why haven't you taken the matter up with the company that put the hard inquiry on your report or have you already? This will be the first question asked whereever you take your complaint too.At this time if anyone other me should have any experience with this matter ,please,please contribute to this post and give this man some better advice,if there is any.At this pont there has been 78 viewers of this post and only 3 responses and he feels he hasn't gotten the response that he's looking for.Guess he's looking for advice from a "big name" poster.

 

Well, I will be glad to contribute my experience. I am currently attemptin to have 3 unauthorized inquiries removed and getting absolutely nowhere.

I have contacted the Co.'s responsible. One insists it is a "soft" inquiry - Equifax says it's a "hard" inquiry. It's showing as hard on my copiy of the report. The other 2 Co's have ignored my letter so far (3 weeks, all letters were written at the same time.

So, I don't have any advice, I have the same question. It seems, they answer to no one. Especially not the consumer.

Maybe Greg has some advice, if he hasn't been chased off the board, yet.

breeze

 

Re: Inquiries? Who to complain to -

In case of an unauthorized inquiry, you do not "have to take it w/ the creditor" any more than you would have to w/ an account that's not yours.

The FCRA provides that each and every item on your credit report that affects your credit rating is subject to a consumer dispute, and, unless "frivolous or irrelevant", must be investigated.

The CRA's blatant disregard of the law in this matter, stems from their notion that people are not likely to sue them or file FTC complaints over inquiries. Unfortunately, in practical terms, history has not proven them wrong.

Jim, the main regulator of the CRA's is indeed the FTC. They won't investigate individual complaints, but when they have enough of them against a single source for the same reason, it might finally get their attention and interest to seek a systematic solution to the problem presented. To file an online complaint, go to https://rn.ftc.gov/dod/wsolcq$.startup
and when they prompt you for the subject of your complaint, choose "credit reports" from the menu. Hope this helps,


Saar

 

Well, I went back and read the original post again and I see where I mis-led myself.

He was talking about bogus inquiries and I read into it what I wanted to read into it, not what he actually said.

That's a common occurance for lots of people, and I see examples of it just about every day.

Sorry about that.

However, the basic statements still hold true.
The credit bureaus are not the source of his problem, those who pulled the bogus reports are.

Yes, the FTC does have rules/laws regarding this, but the FTC isn't usually much help in these matters. They don't like to help the individual consumer. They like to wait until they get a large number of complaints from consumers and then they may or may not choose to file actions against the company in question. Individuals complaining may help the process a bit, or maybe not depending on if or when they finally decide to do something.

Maybe his best line of approach would be to consult an attorney and see about filing a small claims lawsuit against them. And if an attorney can't be found that wants to sue them, maybe he can find a law student that would give him some advice. Attorneys often don't want to do anything in these kinds of situations unless they can be guaranteed to make an excellent profit out of it. One can hardly blame them for that since they have to make a living too.

 

I know that I had an unauthorized hard inquiry (one that I deliberately denied permission to pull) and I contacted everybody...and their mother...

the company, the AG, the FTC, the BBB, and the CRA...it was removed. As a note, this was Allstate, and I ended up in the corporate headquarters office (by phone, of course) talking to the Pres' secretary. As a note, I have found that the secretary to the head of the place (any place) can do far more than the actual person can..anyone else experience this?

 

Jim,sorry my second post wasn't to your liking,but it got you the answer you were looking for.
Glad to have been able to assist you with your hypothtical question.Best regards!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Yes Nana speaking with the higher ups certainly did the trick for me a while back. I had a 30 day late from Providian, never used or acticated the card. I disputed this items several times, wrote letters to providian, spoke on the telephone. It was only after I called the Vice President of Providians office that this magically disappeared and they sent me a letter of apology.

As far as the FTC goes, that is virutally pointless, they just file your complaint and send you a file that gives you information you ALREADY know about the rules, they are NO help regarding these issues.

 

Mom, you are so right about the FTC..I felt the only reason to send them something was because it looked good on my long list of cc: at the bottom of the letter! LOL

Here's my cc in order of their usefulness: (hehehehee)

Creditnet Friends
Attorney General
Better Business Bureau
Experian
Trans Union
Equifax
Planet Feedback
Governor
Mayor
Police Chief
Local Bail Bondsman
Next Door Neighbor
Every Family Member I Have
Colorado Avalanche Team Members
Bugs Bunny c/o Elmer Fudd
Federal Trade Commission

 

Nana!!! that was toooooooo funnyyyyyy.

Hey why not write the FTC from Planet Feedback????

ROFLOL

breeze

 

Hiya River, loved your last line that cracked me up lol

 

You are right, no need to for me to reply to explain myself.

 

Momof3/River:

You are right on target with this matter;it appears here that we have the usual blatant case of "not mine".

Contradiction came when this person mentioned that he was rebuilding his credit from a prior BANKRUPTCY & now wants the company that pulled the bureaus to appear as though they did not "authorize" a request for credit?

Get real...

So,for you & miss trick to come here to incite rivalry WILL NOT going to be tolerated.

My comments will continue to come WHENEVER deemed necessary to make certain that ALL opinions are expressed.

SisterGirl