I had my court case today and I won! The judge favored me! I was disputing about 5-6 negative items and showed the validation letters I have been sending to the CA/Creditors. I also stated the fact that I wasn't disputing whether or not the CRA's were verifying this information.. because of course all the information will match up. I was disputing the fact that it wasn't ACCURATE which was the key. I got a more sympathetic judge this time. I will provide more details once everything is closed.. but the one thing I need to do now is file the last police report, send it to Experian and they will remove those negative entries within 7 days per the court's order! I also called Equifax and they agreed to this as well. I settled with them out of court last month and am only now getting around to this. So once this has been taken care of, I will have 2 negatives remaining on my TU report. I'll update you guys with details once things are officially closed!
Way to go Ender. It is becoming quite clear that we can beat these morons any and every time. Congrats.
Please post all you can, as I have sent them an intent to sue letter and will be filling against all 3 in January. I need to know did you specify an amount? Someone has posted they had their case dismissed because they couldn't show "actual" damages received. You can even email me anything you can't post publicly. I need help now before I go in January as I doubt they will even pay attention to the intent to sue letter.
Actual damages: Denied credit card, car loan, personal loan, mortgage Denied credit line increase (ask for 1k for example) Higher cost of credit on existing credit lines. For example, if you now pay 20% but with the corrections you estimate your interest rate would be 13%, calculate the difference for the time period the errors are in question (don't exceed 2 years) and there you go. I would definitely get declined for something specific. Go into a bank and apply for a line of credit (I think it's easier if you ask for 1k and get turned down... it's very specific in amount). you get the idea. Keep in mind the small claims limits, you want to get actual damages, at least 1k in FCRA violations, and costs (filing etc).
Marie, I'm confused as to what amount I need to list that I'm suing for and what reasons besides violation of the FCRA. Do I go for the whole $5K or just 1-2K. Also do I list any other reasons besides FCRA violations, such as defamation etc? I'm hoping they settle out of court for a clean report, I'm not looking to get rich...but if not I'm ready for them.
Thanks everyone for your support! Christi - I put $5000, the max down for each CRA in the lawsuit itself, for violation of FCRA. It's $1000 per violation and I felt each inaccurate entry was a violation, plus costs and punitive damages. I sent a settlement offer for $2000, but got no response. I would recommend trying to settle out of court if possible, whether before the trial or bring that up during the trial. The main thing is that the lawsuit grabs the attention of the CRA. I will tell you though that the CRA will insist that they are 'doing their job', which is the verification process - that they verify the name, address, social, etc. They do this by computer and do this with numeric code values on their reports. However of course you can always add a 100 word statement or such and while talking to the reps of the case - I mentioned that we both know this does NOTHING for you since it's all electronic anyway when people check your credit file, searching for negative words and checking for limits, etc. So your main argument should be that even though the information may be confirmed, that it is still NOT accurrate and you hve the proof to back that up - validation letters, responses from the CA/Creditors, etc. I will post the full story once I can confirm everything is gone.. I will actualyl be leaving out of town for the next few weeks (leaving thurs), so we;'ll see what happens in the nxt few weeks. I had met representatives from all 3 CRA's. Also - I would recommend scheduling the court dates for the 3 on DIFFERENT days. My mistake was also scheduling it all on the same day around the same time - figured the convenience would be for me. However, they (CRA) used each other's arguments and supported each other and even tried to collaborate my negative information amongst themselves. I warned them that that information was private. Anyhow, good luck and I'll still post here updates on what happens! Thanks again everyone!
I believe I was actually awarded money for all my trouble as well.. I wasn't clear on that and I didn't wnt to push my luck either. I'll let you guys know..
