So I called them to see if they were going to appeal the judgment against them. To my surprise they said no; they won't be appealing. Cool. Right? What they are going to do is report exactly what the Court directed them to report, BUT, they will report it that way indefinitely. In other words, even though I will continue to make payments on a charged off account, they will keep the balance as it is and the "as of" date as it is. That's not going to be pleasing to the Court. What Experian did offer was to report the account at a "0" balance. I can't quite figure out the logic in this. It definitely benefits me if its a $0 balance, but I feel like I'm being Jedi mind-tricked into something. Any thoughts?
Not sure if you're asking why or how much... The "why" is for failure to assure max. poss. accuracy and failure to add, correct or delete after receiving dispute and documentation by consumer. The "how much" was half-day's pay, plus costs of suit. There was also injunctive relief, ordering them to report the tradeline as "$xxxx due as of [current date]".
As I posed this question with an attorney colleague, the thought occured to both of us at the same time: unclean hands. If I were to accept their most recent offer to report a "$0" balance, when in fact it really isn't, I could very well lose good standing in court in the event I had to sue them again. I would be just as dishonest as I accuse them of being. I would also be complicit in reporting inaccurate and/or incorrect information. The upshot is that if I have to sue them again, I will. Next time, for punitive damages (and with clean hands).
Unfortunatly if they report $xxxx due as of [current date] and continue to keep it that entry, assuming that the amount due was correct for that particular date, they are reporting correct information. The thing is, you will need the company holding the charge off account to update your tradeline, then you can sue them for not updating the tradeline when the creditor gave updated information. I agree, do not go into any unclean hands type of deal. If they intend to update the tradeline as per the requirements of the injunctive relief allow them to do so, and then after 3-6 months of paying on it, once the balance owed is significantly less than that which is being reported, you can dispute the balance with Experian (and here I would be extremely specific "The current balance is $yyyy but you show $xxxx. You are reporting an old balance. Per my dispute, you must validate with the creditor as to if the balance you are reporting is the correct balance and update the tradeline" You can also try and get a nice "CSR" with the creditor to agree to code in to submit an update to your credit report. Sounds to me like you will probably be winning a $1-5K lawsuit against them in the coming months if you play your cards right. Might be enough to pay down the balance to $0. If you do take them to court again, and they've kept reporting the balance as of the court date, be sure to bring that up. I'm sure that judges would frown upon such unethical behavior. Keep us updated, and keep the faith! ChrisB
Re: Re: (Shaking Head) Experian I think the wildcard, though, is that Exp is now on notice that this account is being paid down on a monthly basis by prior agreement--an agreement that they themselves possess. They can't, with any honesty or reasonableness, report the TL the same way in 2 months based on the premise that it's a one-time reporting. Certainly they can try to be cute and report it verbatim, but the judge wouldn't be too pleased if I had to bring Exp. back so that he can spoon feed them.
