I am very late at getting out this post and I am truly sorry. I have been swamped with my own clients' letters and real estate duties and just haven't had the time to get to this. Please accept my apologies for the long delay.
Let's get to the bureau disputes. We will cover charge off's collections, repo's, foreclosures, settled accounts, accounts included in bankruptcy (IIB), and public records. One thing that is important for you to know about some derogatory accounts is that some are not worth disputing. Take charge off's for example. If they are reporting a $0 balance, I don't bother with them. I'm telling you that in more cases than not, if you remove them, your score will likely drop.
Accounts with $0 balances, even though derogatory, usually have more positive attributes that affect the score than the negative aspects, so they offset the damage that is being done. Deleting them removes the good factors and the bad factors but because the good outweighed the bad, your score will drop. We see this time and time again for clients that are adamant about removing old charge offs and settled accounts with $0 balances. We warn them, we advise against it, but if they insist, we go after them and when we start seeing them removed, we see the score drop pretty much every time. I personally think that a higher score is more important than a totally pretty credit report.
Collections: Always negative and I don't care if the balance is $0, I'm going to go after deletions on these. Typical disputes are as follows:
- (Round 1) I do not have any account with this company, have never heard of them and this needs to be deleted.
- (Round 2) You told me to contact this company and I have done so. FDCPA 809b requires this to be deleted until they validate. I have requested validation and they have not produced it. Delete this now.
- (Round 2/3/4...) Please produce the contract used to verify this account because I have none with them and the information you have is inaccurate.
- Please provide the sworn affidavit used to verify and the accompanying documentation as required pursuant to Black's Law Dictionary which defines what "verification" actually is. ~ then I copy/paste the definition of "verification" to the letter.
Charge Off's: This is only for accounts showing a balance, past due or both. Typical disputes are as follows - Do not dispute all the errors at one time. Dispute them 1 at a time, round after round:
- (Round 1) The balance (and past due/or past due) on this account is incorrect. It should say $0. I do not owe any monies to this company for this account. Please correct or delete this.
- (Round 1 or subsequent) You are allowing an inaccurate history of this account to be reported. Please investigate, gather documentation proving accuracy, or delete this from my credit report.
- (Round 1 or subsequent) This company does not have any information to verify as they have reported over and over in the history that they have "No Data (ND)". As this is unverifiable, FCRA Sect. 611 REQUIRES you to delete this.
- (Round 2 or subsequent) This is not verified. I contacted the furnisher as you told me to do and they have either refused to provide any documentation or they are unable to provide documentation proving the claim or the accuracy. This remains inaccurate, incomplete and not verified. You are REQUIRED to delete this immediately according to FCRA Sect. 611.
Repos: Many times you will have a repo auto loan account that has a balance because of a "deficiency" remaining after they sell the car. I treat these as charge offs and dispute the same way but some times add a little twist.
- (Round 1) You are allowing this company to furnish an incorrect balance. The balance needs to show $0 because this account was paid in full by the asset protection insurance attached to it. Please correct to $0 or delete this account immediately.
- (Round 1 or subsequent) Please investigate the history reported on this account. It is absolutely inaccurate. Correct or delete this immediately as anything inaccurate about the information they have furnished requires correction or deletion according to FCRA Sect. 611. Take care of this immediately.
- For Repo accounts with a $0 balance I suggest that you send the company a notice to Cease & Desist ALL communications regarding the account. Advise them that furnishing or verifying information with credit bureaus is considered a "communication" according to the courts and a violation of your C&D notice. For these types of repo accounts, once you have issued your notice to them your dispute should be as follows:
- (Round 1) I do not have any account with this company and they have been issued a notice to Cease and Desist all communications with you. Please delete this account immediately!
Foreclosures: Sometimes foreclosure accounts will have a balance. This is an obvious error. Dispute this as follows:
- (Round 1) This account is inaccurately and erroneously reporting a balance that they know should be $0. Their intentional and willful furnishing of inaccurate information is a violation of FCRA Section 623 and according to FCRA Section 611 you MUST correct or delete this immediately.
- (Round 2) I have contacted this company and requested the proof that they are reporting accurately. They have failed to provide it within the 30 days the law allows them. This is inaccurate and unverified and you are required to delete this according to the FCRA. I expect you to comply with the law and remove this slander immediately!
Settled Accounts: For all settled accounts that are original creditors (except for repos), leave it alone! For collections, send them a full Cease and Desist (C&D). Then follow up with a bureau dispute that says:
- (Round 1) I have no account with this company nor have I ever signed any contract to do business with them. They have neither lent me anything nor have they provided services to me for which I requested. They are under an order to Cease and Desist and accordingly, this must be removed from my credit report immediately.
IIB Accounts: Because a bankruptcy obliterates all debt, you no longer have any account with the creditor. It has been eliminated. If you had a bk that was dismissed, no account was in a bankruptcy because according to the courts, a dismissed bk is the same as never ita bk at all. Sometimes they erroneously report a balance as well. Dispute as follows:
- (Round 1) I do not have any account with this company. Please delete this.
- (Round 1) This account claims it was included in a bk. If that were true, which it is not, this would be violating the federal bk stay. Delete this immediately.
- (Round 1) This account is erroneously claiming I owe them money, which I do not. This is an error and according to the FCRA, inaccurate information must be deleted.
Public Records: Hopefully before you dispute these you have removed any addresses associated with it, especially bankruptcies. Do not send the court clerk or county recorder letter yet. You may send the FTC staff opinion letter with the first round if you would like.
- Bankruptcy (Round 1): Your information is inaccurate. I do not recall having a bankruptcy on the dates you are reporting and there are blank fields making your information incomplete as well. The FTC has publicly stated that your public record information is often inaccurate, which is the case in what you are allowing on my credit report. Delete this immediately!
- Bankruptcy (Round 2): You are big, fat liars! You claimed that you verified this and told me to contact the furnisher. You claim that the court furnished and verified the information. I did as instructed and they gave me a letter claiming that they neither furnished the information nor verified the information. They are the only ones qualified to make a verification regarding this alleged bankruptcy and they did not verify. You are allowing slander on my credit report. See the attached letter from the court proving that you are allowing erroneous information on my credit report and are falsely claiming that it is verified. Your butts need to be sued if you do not remove this from my credit report. It is inaccurate, incomplete and NOT VERIFIED! Delete this immediately!
- Tax Liens (Round 1): I have NEVER had a valid tax lien. Further, according to my state statutes/the IRS (pick one), taxpayer information is confidential and not allowed to be on any taxpayer's credit report. (if you know your state statute, insert it in your dispute). You need to get this crap off my credit report immediately as it is inaccurate and damaging to me and may be actionable for statutory damages, actual damages, and punitive damages. Delete this NOW!
- (Round 2): Please see the attached information from the county recorder which you claim furnished and verified this tax lien. It proves you are huge liars. How do you get away with this stuff and how on earth do you sleep at night? You should be in jail for causing injury to consumers. This was neither furnished nor verified by the county recorder. Get your false information off of my credit report now!
- Judgments: Even if you have had a judgment, you can demand that they verify it and since they are accusing, the burden of proof lies with them. If you have a default judgment, it is not a valid judgment, it is a "Void" judgment and carries with it the right to challenge it at any time. In order for a judgment to be valid, the case must have at the trial a plaintiff, a defendant, subject matter jurisdiction (which can be challenged at any time) and a competent witness (sworn affidavit by a witness with first-hand information that testifies and produces the accompanying documentation to back up the testimony).
- (Round 1): I am not aware of any judgment against me for $XXXX. I do not believe you are furnishing accurate information and I need you to investigate this and provide the documented proof that your information is 100% correct. Otherwise, please delete this immediately.
- (Round 1): I do not have a valid judgment against me. You are allowing false information on my credit report. Delete this immediately.
- (Round 2): I have proof that you have lied about verifying this bogus judgment. The only persons qualified to verify it is the court or me, and I can't verify it and they claim they didn't verify it. See the attached from from the court proving that you have lied and that this remains unverified. The FCRA requires that this be deleted until you get proof from the court exclusively that this is mine - which obviously it is not! Delete your inaccurate, incomplete, and unverified information immediately!
Okay, this should provide you with a really good start to cleaning up your credit report. I cannot guarantee that any or all of these disputes will work every time because you are relying on two other parties per account to obey the law. Unfortunately, creditors, collectors and credit reporting agencies have notorious reputations for ignoring the law and doing whatever they please. I do hope that you will see more success using some of these disputes than you have been getting or that most people get using boiler plate disputes.
Please remember never, ever to admit anything to a credit bureau. It is THEIR JOB to get the proof and it is the furnisher's job to provide you with the proof (which is why I dispute with both the bureaus and creditors/collectors). I never, ever advise sending proof of a paid tax lien, paid judgment, or bankruptcy paperwork to the CRA's. If you do, you are giving them what they need to keep these public record items on your credit report for a full 7 years after that event.
If you decide you don't want to do this on your own, I would love to assist you with your credit repair. Also, if you have trouble removing tax liens or judgments, paid or not, we have an escalated proprietary process that can help. By law, we are not allowed to guarantee any results, however, we do have a 100% success rate removing them. We would love to assist you with removing them if you would like us to.
Best wishes for your credit repair venture. You can be successful so don't believe the naysayers that claim ugly credit has to stay on your reports for 7 years or more. That's an ignorant statement and totally untrue. Whether it's accurate or not, the furnisher has the responsibility to prove it and the bureaus have a responsibility to maintain maximum accuracy. If it can't be proven, a claim of accuracy should not be made by anyone. Also, you may think it's accurate and you may think you owe monies, but I'm here to tell you that you that you have been deceived. Your contracts with creditors were never truly valid and no 3rd party collector has a lawful claim against you.
Stand up for your rights. Fight hard for your credit to be repaired. You are to be congratulated for taking the steps needed to get your life and credit back!
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