Here is my letter to Providian: Allen xxxx xxxx st ATTN: Legal Department - Providian 201 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94105 December 5, 2002 To Whom It May Concern: I am writing about two issues. The first issue is your permissible purpose for pulling my credit report. The second issue is the inaccurate reporting of my Providian/Compucredit/Emerge account. As per Experian, you obtained my credit report on September 5, 2002. As per Transunion, you obtained my credit report twice on August 13 and August 16, 2001. See attachments for the printouts. While the Transunion inquiry was for a permissible purpose as I did in fact apply for credit, the second inquiry had no permissible purpose. From the FCRA § 616. Civil liability for willful noncompliance [15 U.S.C. § 1681n]: "(b) Civil liability for knowing noncompliance. Any person who obtains a consumer report from a consumer reporting agency under false pretenses or knowingly without a permissible purpose shall be liable to the consumer reporting agency for actual damages sustained by the consumer reporting agency or $1,000, whichever is greater." In addition, my account was closed on August 14, 2002. See attachment for the printout of both accounts showing their closed state. Section 604(a)(3)(A) of the FCRA provides a consumer reporting agency ("CRA," usually a credit bureau) with a permissible purpose to provide a report on a consumer to a person who "intends to use the information in connection with a credit transaction involving the consumer on whom the information is to be furnished and involving the extension of credit to, or review or collection of an account of, the consumer."(1) Once an account is closed because the consumer has paid the debt in full (and also, in the case of an open-end account such as a credit card account, notified the creditor to close the account), it is our view that no permissible purpose exists for a CRA to provide file information on a consumer to the creditor. Because there no longer exists any account to "review" and the consumer is not applying for credit, the FCRA provides no permissible purpose for the creditor to receive a consumer report from a CRA. Please explain your permissible purpose for obtaining my credit reports. Should you not have a permissible purpose, please arrange for deletion of the inquiry from my Experian credit report and payment of $1,000 by December 30, 2002. The second issue is regarding the reporting of my CLOSED/FULLY PAID Providian credit card account. I closed my account on August 14, 2002 and paid the entire balance. I was in complete shock when (for absolutely no reason) my interest rate was raised to 29.99%. Then, to my surprise, in late October I received a letter from Emerge stating my account was sold to them. I called multiple times but could not understand a word of what the representatives were saying (possibly due to outsourcing the call center overseas). I was told that the Emerge account would NEVER appear on any credit report. My Experian credit report, it shows 2 accounts, one for Emerge (shows as open), and one for Providian (shows as Paid/Closed). My Equifax credit report shows one for Compucredit (shows as open). My Transunion credit report shows one account for Emerge (shows as open). All of the sections of my credit reports that pertain to this matter have been enclosed. Please remove all tradelines associated with Providian/Emerge/Compucredit. I am in the process of purchasing my first home and the additional tradelines and inquiries have negatively affected my credit reporting and FICO scores. I hope we can resolve these issues swiftly so as not to affect my actual mortgage. Please respond via e-mail to the address listed above, or by mail. Sincerely, Allen
here is the wfnnb letter: ATTN: MARION BECK Legal Department / Account Control Department World Financial Network National Bank 220 W. Schrock Road Westerville, OH 43801 December 5, 2002 To Whom It May Concern: As per Experian, you obtained my credit report twice on August 15, 2002. See attachment for the printout from my credit report. I don't recall applying for credit or employment with you. From the FCRA § 616. Civil liability for willful noncompliance [15 U.S.C. § 1681n]: "(b) Civil liability for knowing noncompliance. Any person who obtains a consumer report from a consumer reporting agency under false pretenses or knowingly without a permissible purpose shall be liable to the consumer reporting agency for actual damages sustained by the consumer reporting agency or $1,000, whichever is greater." In addition, both accounts were closed prior to year 2000. See attachment for the printout of both accounts showing their closed state. Section 604(a)(3)(A) of the FCRA provides a consumer reporting agency ("CRA," usually a credit bureau) with a permissible purpose to provide a report on a consumer to a person who "intends to use the information in connection with a credit transaction involving the consumer on whom the information is to be furnished and involving the extension of credit to, or review or collection of an account of, the consumer."(1) Once an account is closed because the consumer has paid the debt in full (and also, in the case of an open-end account such as a credit card account, notified the creditor to close the account), it is our view that no permissible purpose exists for a CRA to provide file information on a consumer to the creditor. Because there no longer exists any account to "review" and the consumer is not applying for credit, the FCRA provides no permissible purpose for the creditor to receive a consumer report from a CRA. Please explain your permissible purpose for obtaining my credit report. Should you not have a permissible purpose, please arrange for deletion of the inquiry from my Experian credit report and payment of $2,000 ($1,000 per violation) by December 30, 2002. Please respond via e-mail to the address listed above, or by mail. Sincerely,
This is an aside... I also have a significant number of AR/Promo inqs on my CR from WFNNB. I don't even have a credit account with any of the companies pulling them either. What can be done about this? opt-out?
Great letter Allen!!!! I just got Providian to get rid of a paid charge off. I sent it to the Executive offices and received a letter from Lydia Kam. You should have alot of success with both letters. It looks like you will have "spending money" for Xmas!!! Keep us posted ...
Thanks for all of the positive feedback!!! the letters went out crrr on friday... i hope they respond this week
of course you haven't Time for the intent to sue letter. Give them a few more days to respond (I gave 10), and then sue. You can add the extra step in there of faxing the filled-out small claims paperwork the night before their deadline is up. That's what finally got things started with Sears, in my case. I got a message on my answering machine with SIX, count 'em, SIX pleases. ;-)
here is the letter from providian... looks like they took off the tradelines but not the inquiries... http://www.htmlcenter.com/jetta/emergeletter.gif
they pulled again on 3/13 and still havent responded to my letter - what shall i do when i speak to marion beck - she says they are investigating blah