I hate the credit bureaus. But that isn’t news. Once again, they continue to ruin people’s lives because their system, on which the entire credit economy is based, is totally flawed and full of inaccurate information.

I watched the movie Maxed Out the other day in which one of the speakers said that it’s not that it’s too expensive to fix the credit reporting system, it’s just that they don’t want to. *roll eyes*

My latest client told me that she had a collection which disappeared (after she disputed, of course) from her credit report. She applied for an equity line of credit, received it, and then the collection reappeared on her report. The bank which granted her line of credit pulled her credit report (standard practice and totally legal) and when they saw this collection, suspended her account. (I didn’t even know this was possible).

My client, Vanessa, called the collection agency, who had resubmitted the collection it under a different account number to the credit bureaus, though it was indeed the same original creditor and account number.

How did she get it off the first time?

1. Vanessa even found that the so-called original creditor of the account is out of business. She tried calling and the number is disconnected. There is no active website
2. The collection agency has no real documentation to show Vanessa to prove it is hers. As the client said, “if it’s mine, I’ll pay it, but I want proof”.

The credit bureau, after receiving Vanessa’s dispute, says that they verified the account. What does this mean? They used e Oscar. They never talked to the collection agency. She told them the collection agency has no information about the account and couldn’t verify and that the supposed original creditor was out of business. The credit bureau told my client over the telephone that since they investigated that they couldn’t do a reinvestigation without new information.

So the new information I told Vanessa to give them would be the name of the lawyer who will be taking them to court for reinsertion of an account (illegal without written notification within 5 days) and willful non-compliance of the FCRA for failing to do a reasonable investigation. Or they can just remove the account and all will be forgiven. She has them on 2 violations of the FCRA ($1000 each) plus actual damages. I would just go to court.

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