First some long winded background - After following some threads on CW for a few months, I looked at a copy of my credit report in early Feb. and found that a mortgage insurance company had accessed my CR. I had PMI with this company and had it cancelled in Dec â??02. The accesses were made in Feb â??03 and May â??03. I asked TU if the company had the rights to perform these accesses, even after terminating my relationship with them and was told that if I were a customer at any time, the company had the right to access my information. Also, TU could not take it off my report unless asked to do so by the insurance company. I then sent a letter (CMRR) to the company asking them the reason (pp) for the pull. I received no reply for about 6 weeks. I then spoke with a customer rep. at the company and he was supposed to look into this matter. After a few remainders, he said that their â??investigationâ? showed no accesses were made. I then faxed him a copy of the relevant portions of my CR. Again, no response for a period of 6 weeks. As a last resort, I left a voice mail saying that I was filing a complaint with BBB & the FTC. That same week I received a letter from their legal department saying that the items were being investigated. A week later I had a letter from their senior council (?) stating that it was perfectly legal for them to access the CR. I replied that according to FTC opinion letter (Gowen) http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra/gowen.htm to the effect that the when the creditor has no business relationship, accesses are not permitted. A month later I receive a reply from their same legal expert now claiming that a secondary insurance was issued and that this secondary company had not told them that the coverage had been discontinued. They had discontinued the accesses as soon as they were informed. AFAIK, I paid premiums only to the mortgage insurance company and I receive an insurance termination notice and a refund of excess premiums paid in Jan 2003. Along with the letter was a form that they expect me to sign and send over to TU to have the accesses erased. Note that they also accessed my wifeâ??s CR but only once â?? Feb 2003 Now my question â?? This has not hurt me in any fashion â?? I have not applied for credit in the last 2 years and do not know if my score has changed. Also, the last â??unauthorizedâ? access was made in May 2003, which is no longer visible to anyone. I also do not have any derogs on my report. Should I pursue this further in small claims court â?? I think I have them on three violations â?? and be a bit vindictive for the hassle I endured from Feb to June or just let sleeping dogs lie? Also, am I jumping to conclusions in assuming that there have been 3 violations? Thanks for any replies.
BTW: It sounds like they've chosen to carefully phrase their response to set up a Bona Fide error defense. We were not notified that the relationship was terminated, and as soon as we were notified that the relationship was terminated we stopped accessing. The issue for the court is whether or not the company had a reasonable procedure in place to ensure that as soon as a relationship was terminated, they were notified; and that they would stop accessing your credit report, and that some how, in some strange way, in your specific case, despite following these reasonable procedures, an error still occurred.
Thanks for the reply Jam. I will try to get some more information from the company before calling it quits.
