ITS letter for CRA re: bk reporting

While all 3 CRA's agreed to settle, the judge has not yet accepted the settlement. A settlement conference is scheduled for this month {not sure of the day} and the judge will likely formally accept the settlement and at that point all the CRA's should agree to a timetable. Bookmark the business section of www.ajc.com for updates. Equifax is a huge employer in Atlanta and they've followed this lawsuit closely.

 

Why not sue both the OC and the CRA? That's what happened in Nelson vs Chase Manhattan.
Were you listed as joint on the account or, as a co-signer? It's my understanding the settlement is in reference to co-signers.

 

While specifics of a case are often very important when reference to a case is made, I have serious doubts that the fact of joint account who never filed bankruptcy but was falsely accused of having done so is the central issue in Nelson. It seems likely that the central core issue was false reporting and thereby ruining the credit of an innocent party be he a joint account holder or primary account holder.

 

What I am saying is that your case seems to be exactly the same as the Nelson case for all practical purposes and what you need to do is print out a copy of the Nelson case and go see an attorney. Nelson got $2 million for exactly the same thing and the real reason he got that 2 million is because he got mad and went to see a lawyer who sued them.

So do the same thing he did. Get mad and go see a lawyer smart enough to see it the same way.
That should not be real hard to do.

 

Just curious Bill but, how do you know he got $2 million? The appeals court opinion gave him the right to sue but awarded no damages. I've asked several times on different sites what actually happened after the court ruled he could sue but this is the first time I've heard a result. Do you have a link to the case?

 

I've got a reference to the case in the resources forum on my message board but it may only be to an article in some newspaper or it may be to the actual case itself.

Don't remember which it is.

 

Well, you just have to play it by ear lots of times when it comes to telling them you plan on sueing them. Let me give you an illustration. I had one situation where a student of mine sent off a CHOD dispute back in Nov. and finally heard something back, not from the CRAs but rather from the collector in which they wanted him to file a dispute and tell them what it was he didn't agree with and was disputing. The only reason I had him dispute was because he could not find out what their mailing address was from his credit reports as they had never contacted him. And their demand for information carried the full miranda and had all the information he really cared about anyway.

So I just told him to ignore all of that and send them a demand for validation instead of giving them any information at all except the name of the creditor which was not listed on the credit report either if I recall correctly.

So what they did was to give him just about all the information he wanted to start off with and then asked him for more information. Now they got a new problem. They have to properly validate the debt which was not originally demanded of them by the CRA. And of course they have to first of all figure out how they got themselves into this mess which shouldn't take them more than a minute or two and then instead of pulling another dumb stunt and sending him a letter hollering about they asked him for information first or whatever they will get their running shoes on and go get the demanded validation from the OC and send it to him.

Since he already sent a complaint to the credit bureau which was complete with a fully made out lawsuit against them and completed intent to sue letter as soon as he got the collector's demand for more info and could prove that (A) The report was still on his CR long after the 30 day time for investigation to have been completed (B) Collector had failed to respond to CRA within 30 days and (C) it was illegally still on his CR.

It also stated that the copy of the suit which he intends to file was only a rough draft and that more violations were easily proveable and would be included in the actual suit which would be filed in 15 days if they didn't get busy and get their act together and do what the law requires them to do.

The "suit" they got was all made out to go directly to US Federal District Court in the Western District of Oklahoma. And there were some other papers as well which would also be filed in the event they failed to comply in a timely manner.

That should have nearly the effect of holding a loaded pistol to their corporate foreheads and cocking the hammer and asking them if they are going to comply or not.

So you see, two entirely different strategies were used. In the first instance, the strategy was somewhat comparable to sending them a time bomb set to go off in 30 days in the event they failed to validate and do it right and the second was the "loaded pistol" in the second half of the scenario.

Of course, the student knows full well that he can't take the "lawsuit" to court because it isn't actually a lawsuit but rather is pretty similiar to what he would need in the event he did have to file a lawsuit and it is plainly stated in the cover letter that it is not what would actually be filed against them in the event that they failed to comply. In otherwords its a bluff, pure plain and simple. On the other hand, anybody with half a brain ought to draw the obvious conclusion that if the sender knew enough about the law to do that then he probably knows enough to finish the job up and do it right. Since it isn't going to cost them anything to comply they would have little reason not to and lots of incentive to do so before something bad happens to them.

One just has to know how to play his cards and when to play them and when to fold them. And that is also why I try to keep on telling people just how unimportant what a validation letter says really is.

Knowing what the law on validation is important and timely demand for validation is highly important. No question about that. But most of the time they have to be specifically tailored to the situation at hand so just jumping up there in the resources section of any message board and grabbing up that free one and spitting them out like machine gun bullets just isn't going to get the job done most of the time. There can be a lot more to it than that.

And above all, one must stop and think the situation through before he jumps up and does the wrong thing. I learned that many years ago when I had a tree trimming business. That is a very dangerous occupation. One wrong move in that business can put you in the hospital with a body full of broken bones. bad flesh wounds or even in the morgue dead as a doornail. Something that looks like it ought to be simple can turn deadly in a heartbeat. I personally know of many cases where it has done just exactly that.

This isn't really much different except that while you might get "killed" you aren't going to die from it.

 

Bill, anyone ever tell you that you are very, very loquacious?

Buckets

 

That and worse.