So in 2000 my then fiance and I had an apartment rented from this landlord. We had 2 car accidents in a 2 week period (not our fault) and I subsequently lost my job. As a result, we had to move across the state so I could start my new job. So, obviously, we had to break a lease. We agreed to pay the remaining amount and did so, albeit we were late several times since we had no money to start with and were robbing peter to pay paul at the time. Eventually they served us a summons and thankfully we got our tax return at the same time, so we paid it in full and avoided a judgement. Apparently immediately upon us moving out, they charged off the debt on our credit reports. Since then I have disputed twice and both times it came back verified. After the last try I wrote them a goodwill letter requesting that they delete the charge off. The response I got was that their records did not show it as charged off, where they also included a copy of the dispute form from Equifax with the O9 status and their certified signature. I responded back saying that O9 = charge off and that they need to fix it. After no response for awhile I called them today to find out what the deal is. The woman claims to have submitted a UDF form to Equifax on August 6th or 9th, she can't remember, updating it from paid charge off to paid collection, since supposedly that's what is 'accurate'. It never went to a collection agency, just their internal collection department. Obviously that wasn't the point of this exercise and she obviously knew that as well since she was really evasive about telling me what she put on the UDF form until I asked her several times straight out, what would be the result of this change? She also stated that she couldn't simply not report it because that would be a lie by omission and so on and so forth. She even went so far as to try and claim to me that they report positive rental histories too and they can't 'not report' something. Right now I'm so frustrated I am having a hard time even concentrating. How would you experts handle something like this?
You should NOT be dealing with them directly on this, other than to get "evidence" against them, which it appears you have. DISPUTE the account DIRECTLY with the reporting agencies, including all relevent information. IT IS NOT AN ACTIONABLE VIOLATION TO REPORT INACURATELY! -BEFORE YOU FLAME ME, look at the laws. There is NO LAW ACTIONABLE BY THE CONSUMER for inaccurate reporting by a furnisher. -It is HOW they conduct their INVESTIGATION into the inaccurate reporting once notified of a dispute FROM THE REPORTING AGENCY (state law aside by the way) -If you send the reporting agencies your info and a dispute, THEN THEY REPORT INACCURACIES AGAIN, THEN you have actionable violations Good Luck!
Right, your point about there being no law allowing me to collect damages for this is true. So I guess the only option is to dispute this again as soon as the new info is posted.
