Summary of initial strategy ideas, order of disputes I. Current credit card, misreported as negative I have already contacted the company and they are sending me a letter stating that the items will be cleared from my report, though they say it may take up to 90 days before I will see the change on my reports II. Challenge tickets first These consist of just over ½ the reported negative items and removing them should have a significant positive effect on my rating. The difficulty might be that they are in fact all paid, so it could be harder to gain leverage with the CA. Furthermore, the same CA has been assigned several additional traffic tickets from the same time period, which are unpaid, though each is past the statute for active collection. Hopefully, the CA will not respond by reporting these to the CRAâ??s as well. III. Simultaneously challenge the two recent accts reporting as unpaid Since the recent accounts, which are also marked as unpaid will have a significant negative effect on my credit rating, I plan to challenge them in the initial round as well. IV. Follow up initial success by challenging all remaining items Worst-case scenario is that the remaining items all will surpass the seven-year statute over the course of the next year. But my guess is that most CAâ??s wonâ??t fight to hard on the downhill side of that statute, especially since they have all already been paid. V. Finally, challenge inquiries (numerous) Given this basic strategy, I will simultaneously be challenging 4 items with one CRA, 11 items another CRA, and 8 items with the third CRA. However, All but two of these are with one CA and pertain to one specific type of account, the Parking Ticket. My first questions then areâ?¦ Does this seem like a sound general plan of attack? I have heard that you should dispute a maximum of 3-4 items at one time. Does anyone have any specific knowledge or experience in that regard? I think this case might be different given the circumstances and the single CA involved Does anyone have any general or specific advice given all of the above? I am also considering consulting with an attorney who specializes in credit related issues prior to taking action, but I havenâ??t decided yet. Has anyone else had experience to share in this regard? I hope this proves an interesting experiment, and I appreciate any constructive input. -monk
You are saying that these are unpaid traffic tickets? I didnt know that they ever turned those over to CAs, I was always under the impression that they would put a warrant out for your arrest. That said, your first strategy with the credit card seems to be working, but you wont know for 90 days, try to get something in writing in the mean time. Tell the creditor, that if you dont send you something, you will have to name them in your lawsuit against the CRA. Its a bluff, but this may work if all else fails. You will have problems with parking tickets and statutes of limitations, I promise you. Many sols dont run out if the defendant doesnt appear in court. Messing with unpaid tickets could land one in jail. I guess it depends on where you live and if they pursue such matters. You are dealing with two different Sols or maybe just one. A traffic offense would fall under a different SOL than a regular judgment. For example if you lived in Ohio and you fled the state after commiting a crime, the SOL would not start until after you were brought to justice. I am certain that many states have similiar laws. I could be wrong and I am sure one of the resident legal minds might have a different perspective. If so I will learn something to. In your situation an attorney may be just what you need.
Thanks for your reply godaddyo, These parking tickets are not actually judgements, nor are they the same as breaking the law, nor are they even traffic tickets. In fact, in the law suit against the city, it was determined that parking at a meter is effectively entering into a contract with the city. At anyrate, if a parking ticket is not paid on time there is a major fee added to it and then, in some cases, it is sent to a collection agency. It appears on my credit report just exactly as any other collection item, and it is impossible to tell that it was from a parking ticket. It simply looks as though multiple debts have gone to collections, giving the impression that I am a serious dead-beat. Personally, I don't believe that parking tickets ought to be allowed to ruin ones credit, especially after the meters were proven defective, but that is another matter. My initial guess is that fighting these will be very similar to fighting any other collection item, and that is how I currently plan to approach it. -monk
Well, I guess where you are from things are a little different. I would handle them just like any other collector if what you said is true It would be to see what this contract is between you and the city. Do you have any details on this? It will be interesting to see how they respond to a validation letter. I would imagine that they may have documents such as a copy of your parking ticket and a signature of an officer. I guess that would be some type of contract in the local courts eyes. That said, I would have to agree that it is ridiculous to put this on someones credit report. I remember seeing a special one time, where they mailed people a notice telling them that they were owed or had won some money. They got them all in the same room and arrested them. Back to your problem, I dont know where to go with this. Have you communicated with the courts and asked them if you could pay them for removal? This is a different situation. I am going to think about it....Anyone?
By the way, what kind of benefit is derived in the contract if the parking meters are known to be faulty from time to time? After all wouldn't it be analogous to saying that a person is responsible for circumstances beyond their control . These anomalies could cause you to not hold up your end of the bargain, due to no fault of your own. A foreseen breach in a contract as far as I can see....You cant tell people to park at these things at their own risk and the city not take responsibity for any malfunctions of the services that they provide...What if they tow your car? What a mess...
It seems like Roni had some experiences with parking tickets being turned over to collections. You may want to do a search for that.
Roni's situation was worse - parking tickets had turned into tax liens!!! Wierd municipalities!! Where I lived, they will send you a summons to traffic court, don't show up, and you get a bench warrant for failing to appear - they can put you in jail, but I don't think they report it to the CRA's. breeze
Yeah, what happened is that after the initial case was won and the city was ordered to replace all of the parking meters, the lawyers for the class asked the court to force the city to repay erroneous parking tickets. The judge's answer was that when someone parks at a meter, they are basically entering into a contract with the city, and that contract allows for the citizen to challenge the ticket within 2 weeks. So anyone over the course of years that did not complain within 2 weeks that the meter had short-changed them had effectively given up their rights under the contract, so the city was not held liable for the erroneous tickets. That's a real crock if you ask me, but anyway...
I'm thinking that what I will do is use an agressive validation letter to the CA, and then a couple days later send one to the CRA's. The question is will the validation letter be worth anything since the CA has allready been paid and can not legally actively collect any of the unpaid ones due to SOL. Has anyone had experience demanding validation from a CA on a paid debt, or on debts that are past the collections statute? I'm hoping that my acct at the CA gets sent to legal and when the CRA validation request comes in it gets ignored for that reason, or for the reason that the accts are not worth the bother anyomore. -monk
*** Roni's situation if I remember correctly...SHE LIKE PAID THE PARKING TICKETS...BUT THEY FORGOT TO CHARGE HER FOR THE EXTRAS....LIKE SOME PENALTY OR EXTRA FEE...SO HE GOT BIT IN THE BUTT...LIKE SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO KNOW ABOUT THE EXTRAS THAT THEY FORGOT!!!!
Depending on who the collector is and what time of year it is, disputing the debt with the CRA, may be your best bet first. Maybe they wont respond, many times they wont. Now if this doesnt work, you do have every right to have the debt validated. If they are going to report negative information, they must be able to prove it. In this situatiion I would try some simple disputes with the bureaus first. At least twice. I would only dispute a few at a time. I wouldnt attack the collector first, because the main reason for attacking a collector is to get them to screw up somehow. They are not going to screw up because they allready have your money. Save the validation for last...
Why not dispute the entire batch of parking tickets at once? We are talking about 3 with one CRA, 8 with another and 10 with the third. It seems as though, since they are all with the same CA and they are all with the same original creditor, it would not be unreasonable to dispute them all at once. It almost would seem more strange to dispute say 3 0r 4 of them and then when they disappear suddenly decide the next 3 or 4 are being mis-reported. No?
