I've been cleaning my credit file since December and have had some effect, but I have a question regarding a specific item. On December 19th I received a letter from TransUnion stating that they would begin an investigation regarding three items I had questioned in a certified letter I sent to them. The items are: Security Svc Fcu $4,010 Montgomery Wards/MWCC $632 Midland Credit Mgt $632 By mid January I hadn't heard anything back from them, so I sent another letter asking what was up. They then sent me a second letter dated January 29th (41 days after the first letter they sent me indicating they were beginning an investigation). This second letter was identical (word for word) to the first letter, indicating that they were once again beginning an investigation, eventhough 41 days had already passed. I then sent them another letter showing them that they had sent me two identical letters, and it was then 56 days since the December 15th date that they received my certified letter requesting an inquiry on the three items. Today, 75 days since they received the initial certified letter, they sent me a letter indicating that the two lesser items had been removed from my file, but the $4,010 item had been verified. Here's my question-- Since they did not complete the investigation within 30 days (it should have been completed by January 15th), can they be forced to remove the $4,010 item from my file? And if I get an attorney to write a letter (or write one myself) are they going to flag me as a "credit-repair" attempter? I received one piece of advice stating that CRAs thumb their nose at the law and the 30-day limit set by Congress is basically worthless. Is a lawsuit the only thing that will get their attention? And does anyone know how effective it is to send a "litigious nutcase" letter claiming identity theft and request removal of numerous negatives at one time? PsychDoc indicated that he actually filed three lawsuits against the CRAs when he created the nutcase letter and those lawsuits enhanced the effectiveness of the letters. All three settled out of court. Any advice?
BurnaDebt, You would be doing a better service to those helping you by not posting "Full names" here. People go by their screen names, because we are certain that employees of creditors, collectors, etc. are reading the same posts here that we are. It kind of blows the effectiveness if they know what your really up to because they know your name.
Let the church say, "Amen" Smitty Won't rest until credit reports are as clean as the Board of Health
BurnaDebt, just for the record, the lawsuits had nothing to do with the nutcase letter. The lawsuits were filed because I collected a papertrail of FCRA violations against the CRAs. The nutcase letter, on the other hand, was created to combat FULLY PAID BUT PREVIOUSLY VERY LATE tradelines. In my case, that letter was successful with two student loan providers as well as MBNA (credit card). Others have seen both success and the lack thereof, although I think the letter is worth trying with former creditors who are truly paid-in-full but with whom you had a late payment history. In my case, the only place the nutcase letter and a CRA suit crossed paths was this happy circumstance: after receiving the nutcase letter, one of the student loan providers actually wrote me a letter apologizing for the incorrect reporting history. Needless to say, I used their response as evidence when negotiating settlement. Other than that, the two strategies are really separate and are designed to combat different problems. Doc
Thanks for the explanation Doc. (Sorry for the posting of the name. I saw it in another posting and thought nothing of using it. My mistake.) Incidentally, I just received a response from a credit-repair attorney I emailed a number of days ago, requesting if TU could be forced to remove the $4,010 item. He indicated the CRAs are big and powerful, continuously ignore the 30-day limits, and all we can do is bend over and take it. He indicated a letter from an attorney would probably do little, and it would be best to simply keep after them with the dispute letters.
