I have had a lot of success getting a bunch of negs from the 96-98 time frame removed from my reports, and have only two major ones left. This is the story of one of them -- I'd like to hear anyone's take on the situation. This is a Travellers revolving account that went neg in August 1998 when my ex stopped paying on it. By the time I found out about it three months later, they had already turned it over to a CA, Viking Collection Service out of Egan, MN. Travelers wouldn't give me any info on the account anymore, and I (stupidly, in retrospect), called VCS. They tried to get me to pay right away and even offered a 50% settlement, but I told 'em I wanted to pay in full and wanted to pay monthly. They also told me the account was in "pre charge-off" status. We agreed that I would pay a monthly amount for seven months and reevvaluate and neither they nor Travelers would take any adverse action against me or the account during that time. They asked for (and I gave them) a series of post-dated checks to get it done. In the middle of the seven months, I got a copy of my credit report and it showed the account charged off. I got mad and called 'em to find out why they hadn't lived up to their end of the deal.. They gave me some BS, I told 'em I wasn't giving 'em another dime after the 7 months, and, eventually, I sued them pursuant to the FDCPA. We settled with them paying me $1750 and agreeing to send the account back to Travellers. Shortly after the charge-off, Travellers, which had recently merged with Citibank, sent the account to another of its business units which began sending me monthly bills showing the amount on the account and saying that payment in full was due by XX date. I continued to send monthly payments to the address during the dispute and lawsuit with VCS. Even before I settled with VCS, I tried to write to Travellers to get someone to talk to about the account; no one ever responded. After VCS settled I tried again; again no response. I finally got a number out of VCS and called--I was immediately transferred to a supervisor that was utterly hostile and that told me that they were going to sue me. They did sue me, but didn''t serve me properly -- I had moved to NJ and they sued in NY and tried to serve me at my old address in NY. I moved to dismiss, the lawyer and I talked, I tried again to get on a payment schedule with them -- no dice. I then settled for 50%. It was reporting as an open, unpaid charge off. I've gone through at least two rounds of disputes with each of the CRAs, and it has come back verified but updated to properly reflect that it was settled. It is reported differently on the three reports, though: On TU, it is properly reported as "Travellers" and revolving with a last activity date of 02/97. On EQ and EX, it is reported as a Citibank account and as an installment loan, with a date of 01/00. The date that shoudl be reported on all three, as I said, is 08/98, and it was revolving, and not installment. I'd also like it to show up as the same company on all three reports, so it doesn't look like two seperate things on a tri-merge. Ideally, of course, I'd like to get it removed altogether, but they seem to constantly verify and I doubt contacting the directly would help since it wasn't paid in full. Any comments welcome -- thanks for reading such a long post.
Hey Squawk - how about disputing with the CRA's as NOT ACCURRATE (Because they aren't listed accurately), and ask them to remove them. At the same time, send validation letters to the creditor/CA to create the paper trail. Do this 2-3 times, then sue the CRA if they don't remove the negative tradelines based on what your response is from the creditor/CA. This is what Lizardking was able to do and wwas able to remove every negative entry off all his reports. I plan on doing this as well. For me, I am about to send off my round 2 validation letters and disputes (been 90 days).
