One of the credit bureaus has listed several "alerts" of some hospital debts that are not mine. This has been going on for about two years now. It seems that there is another person with same name as mine and her hospital bills are always posted on my account even though I have not used that facility for about 20 years. Her address and her social security number has been attached to my CR. I have had both written and verbal communications with the hospital billing dept. time and they have apologized, but not before I had to provide them with all sorts of evidence to prove myself (all that they lacked was my DNA) . Well it seemed that all had been cleared up, but when I recently checked my credit report, the items were listed again. I have never received bills for the debts from either a collection agency or the hospital. They simply report it to the credit agency as bad debt and it is listed on my report as "potentially negative". What recourse do I have? I would like to file a lawsuit against the hospital and/or whoever did the actual reporting to the agency and also the Credit Bureau but I'm not sure how to go about doing that. I'd appreciate any help or advice.
Yes. In the past two years, every one of them, and they were removed from my CRA report. That is why I was so shocked to see them up again.
What a pain in the butt! Clearly the hospital has not fixed whatever it is that's causing the debt to be reported to the CRAs in your name. You could certainly file a lawsuit against both the creditor and the bureaus if you're up for it. Each violation you catch them on could be $1,000 fine - money in your pocket.
Oh yes, a definite pain. And if the lawsuits would put an end to it once and for all, I am definitely up to it. But don't have a clue where to start. Do I obtain an attorney? Would it be a consumer law attorney? Again would appreciate you pointing the way. Thanks
There are others here who have taken this path with success, so hopefully they will chime in and give you some good advice. But personally, if I were taking the lawsuit route, I would want to find a good consumer law attorney to at least walk through the entire process first.
Great idea. I think I will go the route of gertting an attorney; at least at the beginning. But I would definitely like to hear from some of those that have gone at it alone. Thanks again
The hospital has not fixed whatever it is that's causing the debt to be reported to the CRAs in your name. You could certainly file a lawsuit against both the creditor and the bureaus if you're up for it.
Your problem may not be with the Hospital. Some bureaus use a system called "Hawks Eye". This system is designed to detect similar names and associate information which sometimes results in mixed files. The best thing for you to do is to contact the Bureaus and ask for the Special Consumer Disputes Department or whatever name they have for that particular bureau which handles mixed files. Make sure you speak with members of managment. After you have a point of contact, send a letter via Certified Mail detailing what has happened with your file and how long this has been going on. Let the bureau know that they will be held liable for the mix-up should it happen again. Then hold them to it, you need to get familiar with the Federal Trade Commission and utilizing various complaint systems.
