Credit Errors: 4 Step Removal

Credit Errors : 4 Step Removal

One common statistic that all reports suggest when determining the number of errors that exist on credit reports is…A LOT. The FTC believes that there are up to 40 million errors on credit reports, other government studies show 1 in 20 have errors impacting their scores.

Step One – Surface Errors

If our opinion means anything, we believe a vast majority of credit reports have errors, especially those reports that contain derogatory activity. The question becomes, what do we define as an error? You need to look no further than the surface of a credit report while upholding a little section of the Fair Credit Reporting Act that states items need to be complete and accurate. Therefore, whenever you see missing or incomplete dates on payment history, account numbers, names, or even original creditors then that is violating that law. But this is just the beginning of surface errors, how about whenever you see an X, – , /, N/A listed, or the words like unknown. What part of the word “unknown” is complete or accurate? In fact the definition is NOT complete and accurate and yet they have the audacity to place that on credit reports.

Step Two – Unverifiable Information

Okay, so we have discovered that you don’t need to look far to see report errors scattered all over the place. However, what happens if you don’t know if something is reporting in error or not? What happens if you don’t even know if it’s your account or not? What might have started out as an innocent $50 collection with Macy’s somehow turned out to be $750 with RuthlesscollectionsRus out of Bangladesh.

The good news is you have the right to have your information and accounts verified as much as you want to your own satisfaction level. Looking at your credit report, if things don’t quite look 100% to you, then in come the bulldogs. Think about how much information your creditors should have on you. This all needs to be accurate, they can’t have pieces missing otherwise it could be someone else’s entirely. Payment history, previous transaction, original documentation and creditors, personal information, the list goes on and on and you must be given the benefit of the doubt.

Side Note

There is amazingly little to no amount of consequences for the creditors when misreporting information to the bureaus. See, you have to end up proving whose fault it really was and of course both the bureaus and creditors blame each other and provide zero cooperation. If by some miracle you pass through those obstacles you then have to provide evidence of the specific financial loss you received due to each specific error. As you can imagine your lawyer fees will completely surpass everything you may ever hope to receive.

Step Three – 30 days to verify

If you know anything about credit repair and the Fair Credit Reporting Act you know the bureaus are allowed 30 days to verify whatever minuscule details we are requesting. This protects you from dying of old age before getting a response, which no doubt would happen if they could get away with it. Let’s take a quick minute though and examine the other advantages there are with this 30 day response policy.

What’s actually happening behind the scenes is the bureaus are playing the middle man waiting for a response back from the creditors from a particular investigation. It’s ultimately the creditors that have 30 days or less to respond to the bureaus, who in turn determine if that response is appropriate. We continuously see indications that either no work or attempted work was done on our investigations. Simply, the account is now deleted, without any argument.

They don’t divulge that information, but as office paperwork tends to stack higher than the Himalayas, letting documents age 30 days would appear to be no challenge at all. Also, look at government related accounts such as, Judgments, Bankruptcies and Tax Liens; in your opinion does the government operate at lightning speed such as cashing your tax payment or slow as snails like the DMV? So when giving only 30 days to complete a series of exquisite investigations into their wrongdoings you can only guess what the result might be.

Step Four  Economic Decision

There is no law forcing the creditors to do all the work necessary to complete our investigations. It just so happens if they elect not to do anything the outcome goes in our client’s favor. Think about this, if you have a paid collection dragging down your score, and we together find it to be questionable or inaccurate and we launch a series of questions for them to support their claim. What economic incentive do they have to do anything? Not much, as they have already received their money. How about if you have a medical collection or credit card charge off? Medical debt is often sold at 2 cents on the dollar while credit card debt can be sold at 15 cents. It doesn’t take too long to burn through those profits fighting us over a debatable account.

 

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