3 Common Errors On Credit Reports That Consumers Often Miss

 Many people attempt to repair their credit by mainly disputing negative information on their credit reports with the credit reporting agencies. I believe everyone that is trying to repair their credit needs to dispute with the credit bureaus/credit reporting agencies (CRA's). I also believe that disputes need to be sent directly to the furnishers of that negative information, that would be the alleged creditors and 3rd party collection agencies.  

Now when disputing with the CRA's, I hear and read that a lot of you are disputing "no contract" or something similar to that.  That is an honest, true, and factual claim or reason for the dispute but if you keep disputing like that, you're going to end up getting the dreaded "frivolous" letter. CRA's can send you that and tell you that they are no longer going to entertain any challenge from you on that disputed item. I believe they can ignore your dispute for the following 6 months. That will delay your progress if you get yourself into that situation.

What you need to do is to pick apart the information that is furnished and find every error you can because that is what you use to dispute and that's how you keep from getting the "frivolous" letter. You can dispute that you have no contract with the company but when they respond that it is verified, you shouldn't dispute the same thing again immediately afterwards.  To continue the dispute and keep fighting, you have to bring up another error you found on your credit report. 

Here are some things that maybe you forget to dispute or maybe didn't even realize you could dispute:  

*    Is there a notation on your report that you have disputed that information? Well, how long has that been on your credit report? It should only be on your report for up to 30 days because the courts have determined that 30 days is a reasonable amount of time to "verify" the accuracy and get back to you. So, if it says consumer disputes and then it says "consumer disagrees", well then contact them and say, if you provide the proof that it's been verified, send me the documentation. If it's proven that they are reporting accurately, then I'll agree.  I haven't received proof of diddly squat yet. You can't just say consumer disagrees and leave the "disputed" notation on my credit report, and you claim its "resolved" without sending me the proof.  Either you prove it or remove it! They can't say it meets FCRA guidelines either. The FCRA says they have to have it accurate, complete and verifiable or else it has to be removed. If it meets the requirements in the FCRA, then they should have sent you the proof, or corrected it, or sent you the sworn verification. Remind them of the definition of "Verification" from Black's Law Dictionary including the accompanying case law.

*    Do you have a charge off that shows a balance and also shows a past due amount? I have no doubt that there are multiple errors on this furnished information but the thing that stands out quite a bit to me is that on a charge off, there is not a "Past Due" amount, It's been charged off. It's no longer late. They can claim there's a balance but believe me, that is another error that they need to prove in order to force you to pay them. That's a topic for another time but for this post, don't forget to dispute this with the CRA's. This furnisher is claiming there is a past due amount on this alleged account but the law states that a charge off cannot have a past due amount. Correct or delete this immediately pursuant to the requirements in the FCRA.

*    This last one is a whammy that they all violate probably 95% or more of the time. The FCRA Requires that every alleged account that if furnished to a credit report also includes the DFD, or you can say the DLA. What do those acronyms stand for? Date of First Delinquency and Date of Last Activity. So, the DLA is the date you last made a payment on that account. The DFD is the first month that you missed a payment on the account prior to the account being charged off,  Why are these dates important? Because they are the key to knowing when the Statute of Limitations runs out for collecting and for reporting it on your credit reports. It should be no problem for an alleged original creditor to furnish accurate dates on your credit reports. You can look at your credit reports, all 3 bureaus side by side and you will see that each CRA report usually differs on each one.  I don't know that I've ever seen an accurate DLA or DFD on an alleged account furnished by a 3rd party collector. I will reiterate that this is a very important requirement stated right in the FCRA and also, there are FTC Staff opinion letters written about this common error and requirement.

Please take this information and apply it to your CRA disputes to hopefully start seeing some better results. It will protect you from getting slapped with a "Frivolous" violation and suspension of your ability to dispute, It will also help you find multiple errors to dispute and use against the furnishers and CRA's to make your credit reports pretty again,

If you've found this information useful, please consider donating through the "DONATE" button on the right hand side of this page. Also, please see the post I'm placing right below here. It has a link to GiveSendGo which is similar to GoFundMe but they don't steal people's money.  My family is going through a very rough time right now and we need all the help we can get. I really appreciate any help you can give whether it be financial, or sharing the link on your social media or your prayers. All of it is appreciated,

One more thing. I have been very busy the last couple of years, Busy with credit repair, busy with assisting clients with lawsuits, and health problems that landed me in the hospital for quite a while. After that, I decided that I would be scaling back my credit repair services and concentrate much more on teaching others how to fix their own credit and also training credit repair companies how to have more successes for their clients.

I have been working hard on this training and will be posting some more information about it soon. I'm almost ready to launch it so if you're interested in learning even more that what you can find here on my blog, come back often and when I announce it, you can sign up at that time. Thank you and best wishes on your credit repair success,

Here is the link to the information about my family's situation right now. 

https://givesendgo.com/lopezfamilyfunerals

Please help by donating and/or sharing. We have 4 funerals that we need to pay for before we can hold the services. Thank you so much for helping us. Here is the link to donate. https://givesendgo.com/lopezfamilyfunerals

Shannon Lopez

ttiFebr4uary S24 una1oi2ti 211a:53 frelPMd  · 

Shared with Public

As some of you may know, we recently lost 4 of my husband's family members. We are comforted knowing that they loved our Lord Jesus Christ and are no longer suffering with pain or struggling to breathe. They are in Heaven worshiping and praising God now.

However, now we need some assistance covering the costs of burying our loved ones. I am asking for help both financially and/or by sharing the link to GiveSendGo as we cannot hold our funeral and burial services for them without everything being fully paid.

I'm including the link below and really appreciate any help you can give. Thank you for your prayers and support.

https://givesendgo.com/lopezfamilyfunerals

Credit Repair Law Firms? No Thanks!

One of the most famous credit repair law firms is Lexington Law.  Probably the next most famous one is Ovation Law.  There are many others.  I am completely for people utilizing legitimate credit repair companies, but I really take issue with ones like these that have monthly charges.  Also, though they may have started out as really good companies, they have just become big repair mills that don't personalize your disputes.  Also, they are not really "law firms" in the sense that they actually provide "legal services" other than credit repair. They mostly are credit repair companies that pay to use a law firm's or lawyer's name.

When you pay for a service that charges you monthly, you can bet they are going to do things that drag it out so they can keep getting that residual monthly income coming from you.  Most people want to see their credit improved as quickly as possible.  They don't want the service to write letters in a way that gets a "frivolous letter" response from the bureaus.  That can delay progress for months and sometimes, it really blows the opportunity of getting that item removed at all.

There is another thing I really don't like about these types of law firms.  They use "Good Will" letters to try to improve the credit. Why don't I like those?  Well, they are basically "Pay for Delete" letters and I am adamantly opposed to paying to delete bad credit.  Sometimes they delete, but many times, when they don't and you follow up to the bureaus and send in a copy of the agreement to delete, they get stubborn and refuse to take it off.  Sending in a copy of an agreement is like admitting that the negative tradeline is yours.  I don't ever recommending sending proof of an account to the bureaus unless it is a completely clean bit of proof that there were no lates and it was paid off completely.  You have to remember that the burden of proof lies with the creditors, collectors, and the bureaus. If they can't prove something, it has to come off.

Something else I don't like about these "Good Will" and "Pay for Delete" letters, is that you are basically offering to settle with the creditors and collectors.  This is so bad!  Once a trade line is bad, it is always bad. It just becomes a "paid" bad. If its a couple late pays that are making it bad, its best to try to remove the lates, then there's nothing bad. You have to remove the "bad".  Usually this means needing a deletion.  Plus, when you "settle" with one of these types of letters, they have the right to send you a 1099 tax form for the amount you didn't have to pay and then you get to pay taxes on that as if it was income. Not a good thing.

The other thing that I know they do, is to include a "Cease and Desist" to their clients' creditors. That is a very dangerous thing to do.  If it is not a time barred debt (outside of your state's statute of limitations) you are allowing yourself to be put in a position to be sued.  I use a "Limited Cease and Desist" paragraph in my letters.  This is what stops the phone calls to you at home, your cell phone, your work, and anyone you might possibly know that they would try to call.  It forces them to communicate with you in writing only.

I have a lot of second hand experience with these types of credit repair companies.  Second hand because many of my clients, past and present, have used them and came to me afterwards.  It is always the same story.  They've paid for months and months, past a year, spent upwards of $1500 and slim to zero results.   They then have me write letters for them and poof!, all of a sudden they start seeing results.  Credit repair is most successful when it is strategically done and both the creditors/collectors and the bureaus have consumer laws, case laws, and other legal documentation put in front of their faces.

My goal with credit repair is to help people see deletions and improvements as fast as possible.  There is no sense in dragging it out.  If you truly want to help people, then you would want what's best for them.  If you are only interested in making a load of money off of people's bad credit, then you charge them up front and drag it out, month after month, year after year.

Credit repair can be done for yourself.  Hopefully, if you're looking to do this, you will look through the different posts I have here so you can see how to do it most effectively. Credit repair is an undertaking that you have to stay on top of, be consistent, keep records and send disputes that fall within the legal timelines so that you don't accidentally give the bureaus more time to stall and drag their side out as well.  For many people, its just a lot of work they would rather delegate to someone else to do.

If credit repair is something you need, but you just don't want to have to be writing letters all the time, I would love to help you. I provide help completely legally and use many different laws and tools to implore them to remove the bad credit from your reports. Contact me through my email or phone number above anytime if you would like some help with repairing your credit or just need some guidance while you do it yourself.

Removing 3rd Party Collections From Your Credit Report

The most common negative credit that I see on credit reports are "collection" accounts.  If you have them, you are part of the majority.  There are a number of reasons to get them off of your credit. First, they're bad.  Who wants bad stuff on their credit report?  But here's a few other reasons: 

• They lower your FICO score
• If you pay them, they are still bad
• If you don't pay them and try to get a mortgage, you will have to pay them
• If you refinance your house, escrow will take part of the money and pay them
• Your interest rates on new credit, auto loans, house loans, refi's, etc. will be higher
• And the most important one in my opinion -- YOU DON"T OWE THEM ANYTHING!!

One of the problems with collections is if they can't collect from you, they leave bad and negative information on your credit report, but then they sell it to another collection company and the harassment and negative reporting on your credit report starts again.  They ding your credit with non-permissible pull inquiries, then they go and claim you have an outstanding debt with them and drop your FICO score some more.  Some will even sue you.  You need to get them OFF!

It starts with Validation.  If and when you receive a letter from a collection agency, you need to respond right away.  Write a letter to them, preferably within 30 days, disputing the alleged debt.  Tell them you are not asking them to Verify (as in name, address, etc.) being correct. You are challenging the validity of the alleged debt and they need to send proof that you owe them.  Send your letter to them certified mail with return receipt.  It costs you about $5 - $6 bucks but its worth it.

If you did not receive a letter from the collection agency and you found out about it because you saw it on your credit report, when you write the letter, tell them that you have received a recent copy of your credit report and were stunned to find out that they have put false information on it.  Then you follow through with demanding validation and that you're not requesting verification.  The credit report should have their contact information on it - mailing address, not phone number.  You NEVER want to talk to them on the phone.  They are trained to intimidate, pressure you, get money out of you, get you to admit something, any and everything they can, and intend to and usually do, control the conversation.  You do NOT want this scenario.  Stay off the phone and keep all communications in writing.

After you get the green card back from your certified letter, now you can dispute with the credit bureaus.  Collectors are not allowed to verify with credit bureaus until they provide validation.  Remember, validation means proof, real proof that you owe them.  Proof is not some bill or computer generated statement with your name and their account number on it.  Proof is an actual contract between you and them, that you actually signed and they actually signed.  It is documentation of monies given to you with an accounting of every cent used, every cent paid, every bit of interest applied, and the date any of those events occurred.  

They may claim you had an original account with some other party and they have been assigned the right to collect it.  They need proof of everything about that as well. They need the original contract between you and the original creditor with your true signature and a qualified employee of that original creditor, they need the full accounting, they need to provide proof of the assignment or the purchase they made from the original creditor.  

I really need to make a comment here about original creditor information requested from a 3rd party collector.  I mainly ask for it just to force them to do some work.  Personally, I don't give a rip if they can provide it or not.  If not, they go away a bit faster, but since they are not on the original contract you allegedly signed with the original creditor, they have nothing and you owe nothing.  3rd party collectors are NOT ON ORIGINAL CREDITOR CONTRACTS!  Therefore, you OWE THEM NOTHING, NADA, ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH!

Remember this and quote this when they try to claim they have rights to collect:
The right of subrogation does not exist for a stranger to the transaction.  73 AmJur 2nd, Section 90.  

Now I will explain this in common, easy to understand language. "Subrogation" means to substitute. "Does not exist" means is not allowed. "Stranger to the transaction" means someone or some entity not on the original contract.  So, here we go again in easy to understand wording:
There is no right to substitute someone or some entity that was not on an original contract. It is not allowed. 
 Now, this includes attempts to collect based on assignment, sale/purchase, or trade.  See?  The collector cannot substitute himself to collect money because he believes he was assigned the task or he purchased the bad debt, or traded some bad debt for a different bad debt.

Now, in order to get the bad or negative credit off your credit report, you have to dispute with the bureaus.  I generally don't recommend saying "its not mine" because you want to save that one for a last resort and if you do, they'll usually put fraud alerts on and want you to provide some identity theft stuff to them.  However, you can say it in a way that gets the same message across.  You can say, "I have never done business with this company and I have no idea who this company is."  You can almost always find plenty of other errors in the way they report as well.  They usually say you have late payments or your date of last activity was prior to the account being open.  An account has to be open before you can be late on it -- common sense there! Challenge dates, challenge amounts, challenge the account number, but only challenge 1 error at a time.  If you keep challenging the same thing or things with every dispute, they will send you the dreaded "frivolous" letter and refuse to re-investigate. 

If the collection company obeys the law, they will not verify with the credit bureaus because they haven't provided validation.  That is the best possible scenario.  It happens many times.  But, there are also many times that they just ignore the law and verify again.  You will need to send follow up letters to the collectors and follow up letters (repeated disputes) to the bureaus if they don't come off right away.  Don't expect them to come right off, right away because they are all scum.  Expect to fight. Expect to have to wear them down. But, be pleasantly surprised and proud of yourself for fighting back when they do come off.  Its a wonderful feeling and a beautiful sight!

If there is more information you need me to delve into on this subject, please leave me a comment below.  I will get it and I will respond.  I may even write a whole new post addressing your questions or different situations you need help with.  If someone posts a comment and you have a similar question, please add your comment too.  I want to be able to help as many people as I can.

If you are tired of dealing with these liars, thieves, scum sucking, extortionists called 3rd party collectors and debt buyers and are tired of the back and forth fight you have to stay on top of, I would love to assist you in the fight.  My partner and I have been at this successfully for 50 years combined.   I love the fight and am passionate about helping others get rid of the bad credit that is holding them back.  I get tons of emails about how my assistance has helped people get jobs, buy homes, cars, and start over.  I would love the opportunity to help you too!

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