My wife and I were going through our Experian credit reports a couple months ago and noticed something not quite right. An old credit card account which she had defaulted on back in 2004 was now appearing on my credit report. My name was never on this account, however I was an authorized user. I used Experian's online dispute process, however it came back as verified. I never received any validation in the mail. "This item was verified and updated on Jul 2008." Responsibility for the account is shown as "Joint" on my credit report, but is shown as "Individual" on hers. My wife then disputed the account on her credit report through their online system. Again, it came back as verified, but this time we received a validation packet from the collection agency in the mail. It shows the account holder's name, address, balance, seller of the account, and date the CA purchased the account. It also had an affidavit of sale from when the CA purchased the account from the original creditor. This information clearly shows her as the only account holder. The only piece of paper with my name on it is on a copy of a check when I made a payment on the account back in April 2003. The OC was never on my credit report; it only showed up on my credit report after it was sold off to the CA. Clearly there is a FCRA violation here - I have not yet checked my TransUnion or Equifax reports because I'm having trouble accessing them online for some reason, so I'm waiting for hard copies. I'm assuming that this account is probably on those reports as well, and if so, I'll be disputing. I've never actually had to deal with a situation quite like this, so I wanted to see if anyone had some input on how I should proceed from this point. Thanks!
Yes - sorry, I forgot to put that in my original post, will edit now. From what I have read I should be able to get this off my credit report - I'm a little confused as to why it stayed on after I disputed it with Experian though. Do they not require more in-depth validation?
I've been looking for a reason as to why this account would be on my credit report listed as a "joint" account. I thought that perhaps it was due to the community property laws in our state, but I'm pretty sure that they do not apply in our case. This is an account that was opened prior to marriage. There were very few (if any) charges on the card after marriage. If I'm understanding community law properly, debts or assets acquired prior to marriage are not considered part of the marital community. Here's what I'm not quite clear on: Since the account was opened prior to marriage, in her name only, do community property laws dictate that this account is separate even if there were charges on the account after marriage? I've run a search and dug through the threads on community property, but unless I missed it there isn't anything touching on this specific issue. Does anyone have any input on this or know if there's another thread that has info? I just want to be sure before I continue the dispute process...
From the way I understand the community property states' issue, both husband and wife are equally responsible for a credit card even though they might not have applied jointly. This would pertain to credit cards issued after they were married. Any card(s) that were obtained individually before marriage are not covered by this.
