A month ago I disputed a Seventh Avenue account on my Experian report - I have never had an account with them and they listed a $10.00 paid charge off on my report. The initial response I received was : "We have received notice of your dispute from the credit reporting agency.Please send us a signed letter of dispute so we can proceed with our investigation." I sent this letter in response via PFB (Sort of a modified validation letter): August 16, 2001 Seventh Avenue PO Box 8994 Madison, WI 53794-0122 To Whom It May Concern: I'm writing with this complaint because of a problem I recently encountered with your company. I thought someone should know about it. I'm quite furious about this. Recently I obtained copies of my credit report in order to verify accuracy before applying for a home loan. I discovered your company listed on my report, as a "paid charge off" account. Under my Fair Credit Reporting Act rights I submitted a request to the credit reporting agency to verify this information. Approximately two weeks later I received a letter from you asking I provide a written authorization for you to investigate this. The Fair Credit Reporting Act does not require that I provide you a signed request in order to dispute the validity of the debt with a credit reporting agency. I have no knowledge of ever doing business with your company and until I noted the information on my credit profile I had never heard of your company. Now I have received notice from the credit reporting agency that the information was verified by your organization. HOW can the information be verified if: 1. It is not correct. 2. I have a notice on YOUR LETTERHEAD advising the investigation into the accuracy of the report cannot proceed without my signed authorization. No matter what the outcome, I definitely won't be a repeat customer. Will I recommend your company to people I know? Definitely not. Here's what I'd like Seventh Avenue to do: Either provide me with copies of a signed agreement which obligated me for this debt, proving its validity or delete this erroneous entry from my credit profile with all three major credit reporting agencies. If this item continues to be reported, and you are not able to provide me with evidence of its validity, I will consider my legal options for infractions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. I do not have an account number as I have no knowledge of this account. However as reported on Experian: SEVENTH AVENUE 1112 7TH AVE MONROE, WI 53566 Account Number: 646607787... Status: Paid/Account charged off. $10 written off. Status Details: This account is scheduled to continue on record until 5-2004. This item was verified on 8-2001 and remained unchanged. Date Opened: 10/1996 Type: Revolving Reported Since: 05/1997 Terms: NA Date of Status: 05/1997 Monthly Payment: $0 Last Reported: 05/1997 Responsibility: Individual Credit Limit/Original Amount: $10 High Balance: NA Recent Balance: NA Recent Payment: NA Account History: Charge Off as of 5-1997 I hope you can settle this problem in a timely and professional manner. I look forward to a personal response in 10 business days. Sincerely, Hal Today I received a letter from Seventh Avenue: "Please be advised we have notified the 3 credit reporting agencies to delete all references of this account from your consumer credit report. (Dtd 8/22). I think I have Experian on this one - Per their "investigation results" dated today - Verified - Account remains! Thanks PFB. I am slowly climbing out of subprime. Should I fax a copy of this to Experian???
I can't help but wonder if there isn't more leverage to be gained here by holding back and letting them hang themselves. Maybe ask for their method of verification to be sent to you within two weeks, as you have the right to do? When/ if they give you some poor excuse for their methodology you pull a LK and sue them blind for reporting demonstrably false info and then lying about how or whether they verfied it. I wonder if they might be willing to make a few deletions in exhange for a dropped lawsuit that they will lose? I wonder... Maybe someone with a bit more experience at this than I would lke to comment?
Why wait for them to hang themselves? They already have if they have admitted that the adverse reports were erroneous. If they have admitted in writing it'a a mistake, It's already good for big bucks in court.
This is a written admission that they did you wrong. That's enough to hang them for big bucks indeed. I'd be looking at anywhere from maybe $10,000 to as much as maybe $100,000. You got the fish on the line, now set the hook and haul the sucker in. Now you need to make them tell you the name of the person, the company address and the company phone number who verified the report. Once you have that info then you may get to hang the credit bureau too, maybe not. Depends on what comes back. Why would you want to do that? Make them hang themselves then you can sue the heck out of them too, (MAYBE)
Well, as I have said often enough before, why fight with the credit bureaus when you can make the collection agency take it off for you once and for all. here is the proof of the pudding. Just click on the link below for yet another proof of what I say. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE RESULTS FOR YOURSELF Funny part is that these slimeballs think they are being real cute by not admitting any guilt, just showing they are doing what they agreed to do. If they think they are going to get away with it, they had best think again because I'm going after them in District court and I'm going to walk out of it with a bare minimum of $25,000, maybe as much as $100,000 and I hope it puts them completely out of the collection agency business. I full well intend to break them if I can. Only time will tell
