My Mobil/Cavalry Problems continued

As a bit of background, I had a credit card with Mobil from about 1996 to 1999. I defaulted on the card and settled with Mobil in 2000. Unfortunatly, I no longer have any paperwork from the settlement. On Experian and Equifax the Mobil tradeline is listed as a settlement with the note "Account legally paid in full for less than full balance". Apparently when Mobil and Exxon merged Cavalary Investements bought a lot of their bad debts, including mine (despite the fact that it had been settled). Now, I'm attempting to apply for a mortgage and I have a $524 open collection sitting on my credit reports and this is not good, so I'm trying to take care of it.

Today I called Mobil and asked if they could provide any documentation from the settlement for me. The person I spoke with said that when they sold the debts to Cavalry they transferred all of the information they had to Cavalry. I said, if that's the case, then if I dispute the Mobil tradeline with the credit bureau's, then you won't be able to validate it and it will go away. Without hesitation he said that was true. As an aside, I mentioned above that my Experian and Equifax reports listed Mobil as a settlement. TransUnion, on the other hand, is listing it as a Charge Off. Because of this, I disputed it with Transunion almost two weeks ago. Hopefully this way I'll be able to see if the Tradeline drops off or if it gets verified. I would be overjoyed if it drops off, because then I should be able to dispute it on the other two with the same results and get that settlement off of my report.

So far, what I have done is the following: About two weeks ago I disputed the Cavalry Investments tradeline with all three bureaus. I also sent a validation letter to Cavalry Investments. (Apparently I did this in the wrong order, but it's too late to change it now).

Since we're actively looking for a house I want to be able to get preapproved for a mortgage as soon as possible, so I want to do everything possible to get these tradelines off right away. My questions are the following:

1. Is a copy of my credit report with the Mobil tradeline listed with the note "Account legally paid in full for less than full balance" legally binding in any way. In other words, can I use this as proof that the account was paid in full, since it seems that I won't be able to get any information out of Mobil. If this is, in fact, binding, then it seems prudent not to dispute the Mobil tradeline until the Cavalry Investments one is gone, as that would also get rid of my only proof.

2. If the above is not legally binding and Cavalry does validate the debt then what is my next step? I'm thinking that because I *did* have a Mobil card they may very well have a signed contract and they may 'convienently' forget about the settlement agreement. It's only $524, which in the grand scheme of things isn't a whole lot, so I suppose I could pay it off with the condition that they delete their tradeline, but since the debt really isn't valid I would hate to do that. Do I have any other options?

Thanks again,
Brett

 

Does anyone have any idea? If this is not legally binding, then I think I'll dispute the Mobil TL on all my reports to (hopefully) get it off as soon as possible.

Thanks again,
Brett

 

Re: Re: My Mobil/Cavalry Problems continued

By legally binding I mean can I use this as proof that the mobil debt was satisfied? Preferably prove this to Cavalry Investments. I have no paperwork from the settlement and mobil claims not to have any information. Short of this I'm afraid that I won't have any proof that this debt was satisfied.

My scores range from 535 to 599. The mobil card was open from 1996-1999 and showing the settlement in 2000. The Cavalry Investments tradeline is from late 2000.

Thanks again,
Brett