spinzaar asked:


By profiling i mean using data compiled by credit reporting agencies and consumer reporting agencies to determine the character of a person, there are also many other ways to create a profile like “myspace”. If people can get enough data on you don’t you think they can compromise you somehow and take advantage. I think the initial intent of credit reports was noble but now it can be used to other means and with hackers running rampant anyone can get your credit report info.

JACK

3D Farms asked:


They have become much more treacherous to Consumbers .
1.
By imposed intrest rates in excess of 30% on customers whoes only offense might be a late payment to another creditor .
2.
Reduced grace periods when new purchases are free of intrest . 3.
Lobbled successfully to Congress to weakenprotactions for , cardholders.
4.
Lookup in Consumers Report page15 to learn what you can do to protect yourselves . And call your Congressperson and complain about it ..

JESS

magdarra asked:


Below is a copy of a letter sent to President Obama and each of my congressmen today.

If you have had your chances for a loan, mortgage, or job destroyed due to inaccurate credit bureau information, now is the time to speak up and ask for reform

Dear President Obama,

I am writing to ask you to focus attention on one significant aspect of the credit crunch that has not received much press - the effect of inaccurate credit bureau information on the ability of consumers to obtain credit.

Americans cannot obtain mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, or employment without a good credit score.

However, the credit bureaus have too much control over our destiny and too little control exerted over their inaccurate reporting.

Last week, I was delayed on my mortgage approval due to inaccurate credit report.

I have been working several hours each month over the last two years to clear up problems. The result - I currently have 3 bills that I know I need to pay off. These are leftovers from a period when I got divorced, lost my job in the tech downturn, had my house and everything in it destroyed by fire, and was out of work for 3 years when my son was undergoing a medical crisis. During this time, I managed to survive without going on public assistance of any kind.

My credit bureau currently shows 17 negative accounts - 14 inaccurate ones.

These may be reported past the 7 year limit for negative information.

One of the worst offenders is the US Department of Education. My loan has been rehabilitated for a year, with 20 payments made on time. However, they are still reporting me to TransUnion and to Equifax as being in collections.

I have had 8 phone numbers with Verizon, all of which have had all bills paid off. 3 of the accounts are showing different amounts for Verizon.

Comcast Cable has reported me to two different bureaus, for a total of 4 accounts, for an account which is also paid in full. Two of the collection accounts are for equipment returned at the time I moved from the house.

Progressive Insurance is reporting through a collection agency that I owe $273 on an old bill. I paid this off, and my last two checks were returned to me by the agency as overpayments, yet I cannot remove them from my credit report.

The FTC does not help.

I have sent proof to the credit bureaus of payments; however, they will not accept the proof unless it comes from collection agencies that filed the report. The agencies are extorting additional payments from Americans in order to remove bills that have already been paid.

American consumers need you to act quickly to offer them protection.

I would be taking one house off of the market now, and trading in my car, if the government took action to protect my credit rating. Multiply this by the many thousands of citizens in similar circumstances, and you could stimulate the economy with very little money spent.

SEAN

ac19 asked:


I am currently 19 and I have a 580 credit score. I have NO judgments or collections on my credit report. I have 2 credit cards currently reporting on my credit file. I have had one since I was 17 was late on a payment over 1 year ago. The other credit card is only about 2 months old, never late. I also have another credit card not reporting on my file (had this one about 1.8 years) late one time over a year ago. I also have student loans.

My identity was all most stolen; over 30 inquiries in the past year (which I think; maybe why my score is low). Should I add a consumer statement to my credit file explaining the inquiries?

I make a little over 2100/month. I have no bills I have to pay (only cell phone) other than that I just buy what I want. If i were to go to a bank and they were to take a look at my score and report could I get a auto loan for 15k?

GONZALO

David asked:


Thank you for your recent application for the Blue Cash SM from American Express. After reviewing your request, regrettably, we are unable to open an account for you at this time for the following reason(s):

Your American Express Acquisition Risk Score is too high (See below)

Your application was processed using our American Express Proprietary Acquisition Risk Scoring System which assigns a numerical value to the various items of information we consider in evaluating an application. Your application’s total score exceeded our threshold for approval at this time. Listed below are the reasons that you did not score well compared with other applicants. (For reasons based on information in a credit report, the name of the consumer reporting agency is identified.)

Number of trades (Experian)

Amount of credit available on accounts (Experian)

Ratio of your card account balances to your income is too high, or cannot be determined(Experian)

Our credit decision was based in whole or in part on information obtained in a report from the consumer reporting agency(ies) listed in this letter. Please understand that the reporting agency(ies) played no part in our decision and cannot supply you with specific reasons why we denied credit to you. You have a right under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to obtain a free copy of your report from the reporting agency, if you request it no later than 60 days after you receive this notice. If you find that any information contained in the report you receive is inaccurate or incomplete, you have the right to dispute the matter with the reporting agency.

An important notice concerning your rights is included. The creditor is American Express Centurion Bank.

It has been our experience that applicants who do not meet our basic requirements at one time may qualify later on. We invite you to submit a new application at a later date when your circumstances have changed.

Thank you for your interest in our service.

Sincerely,

Robert Garinger

Business Leader New Accounts

Now anyone who can tell me why I was denied? It clearly states it but I want to know MORE about it. And Im going to send a copy of it to experian so I can get a report from them. I know my credit is good. No bad marks whatsoever. I’m blaming it on the credit crisis! =D lol oh well. I’ll live.

NICKOLAS

Chane Steiner asked:


Collection accounts are typically seriously past due accounts that have been assigned to an attorney or collection agency. A collection agency is usually hired after a company has made multiple attempts to collect money that they believe is owed to them. Collection accounts can remain on your credit report for 7 years from the date of the initial missed payment that led to the collection (the original delinquency date). The following techniques will teach you how to remove collections from your credit reports.

What the Credit Bureaus Don’t Want You to Know:

1. A study released by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group in June 2004 found that 79% of the consumer credit reports surveyed contained some kind of error or mistake.

2. Once you dispute an account, it must be proven or it cannot remain on your report. If the credit bureau cannot verify the item when investigated, it must be removed from your file whether or not it’s true.

3. Every negative item on your report can be denied or challenged at any time. The credit bureau must re-investigate every time it is challenged and if the item cannot be verified within a “reasonable amount of time”, it must be removed from the file.

4. Many times the creditor does not re-verify in time or the credit bureau is busy and does not handle your dispute properly. It must then be deleted.

5. The older an item, the more difficult it is to verify. Creditors seldom keep records for longer than a couple years.

Steps to Repair Your Credit:

1. Obtain your three credit reports.

2. Review the reports and locate the collection accounts.

3. Dispute the collection accounts with the credit bureaus.



GUILLERMO

Robert F. Brennan, Esq. asked:


The Federal Credit Reporting Act ["FCRA"] makes it mandatory for Credit Reporting Agencies such as Experian, Equifax and Trans Union “to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information in the [consumer's credit] report….” A willful and negligent failure to do so is violation number 1 of the FCRA. One wonders then when in fact it turns out that certain Credit Reporting Agency ["CRA"] procedures, or lack thereof, assure maximum possible inaccuracy of information in the consumer’s credit report. Are we to take it that the words of a federal law mean exactly the opposite of what they say? Legally, philosophically, morally, one would think not.

A “trade line” on your credit report provides certain standard items of information about an account you have, such as the name of the company ( say a department store, for example), the company’s address, the account number, the current balance on the account, the terms of the credit, and so forth. Any of this information could in fact turn out to be incorrect, but the item of information we will address in this article is that definite and critical identifier for the CRAs, the account number.

One would think that such a mundane piece of information as an account number couldn’t possibly cause that much trouble, and in a sense that is true. What actually causes the problem is when the account number for the same account gets changed, and sometimes morphed repeatedly, so that the identity of the actual account is greatly obscured. When this is allowed to happen, the CRAs’ super computers, employing simple logic but lacking intelligence, assume that an account is the same, or a match, when it has the same account number, and that it is different when it does not. Therein can lie the source of much headache, aggravation and damages for a consumer, and much denial of responsibility from the CRAs.

A example would be helpful here to illustrate. Let us say that Consumer A is receiving bills for a $600.00 balance on a department store credit card. Consumer A never applied for such a card and therefore the debt cannot be his. He suspects someone stole his identity and opened the account using his social security number and other private information. After numerous phone calls and letters back and forth, the department store agrees that it is not Consumer A’s debt after all and tells Consumer A not to worry about it, that they’ll “take care of it”. Naturally, Consumer A is now relieved and assumes that it will be “taken care of”, i..e., they will stop billing him for the invalid debt and it will be deleted from his credit report. The account number, by the way — let us say it is 1234567890 and that is the way the CRAs are reporting it on Consumer A’s credit reports. Consumer A notifies the CRAs by certified mail of the situation, along with documentation, and they all delete the previously reported trade line within a month.

About four months go by and Consumer A is dismayed to receive in the mail a letter from a Debt Collection Company named “Pit Bull”. Pit Bull, in its letter, states that it is collecting a debt on behalf of the department store (the same one that earlier told Consumer A not to worry about it, that they would take care of it and delete it from

his credit report.) Pit Bull shows the debt now as $850, having tacked on a $50 penalty and a $200 “default charge” or attorney’s fees), but informs Consumer A that, although he owes immediately the full amount of $850, they will take $450 as a full payment. They can’t guarantee Consumer A that the department store will reinstate him in good graces vis-à-vis his credit card (the one that was never his in the first place) but if he pays them the $450 at least they will stop dunning him. The account number on the letter is now 123DEPTSTRE890. A few months later Pit Bull furnishes the account 1234567890 as 123DEPTSTRE890 to the CRAs, showing the account as a “charge off”, amount $850, and a note that the trade line will be reported for the next seven years!

Consumer A is now distraught. He calls the department store and reiterates his story that the department store had earlier investigated, agreed with him that he did not owe the debt and that “they would take care of it” for him. These words come back to haunt Consumer A as the representative now tells him that they are sorry, the account is now with collections, and that they cannot interfere as it is now out of their hands. Consumer A also tries to clarify the situation with Pit Bull but, other than being cursed at and told to “pay the damn bill”, he gets nowhere. He disputes with the CRAs with certified letters, giving a full account of the situation and a statement that he categorically does not, and never did, owe the debt. Two of the three CRAs shortly thereafter delete the trade line from Consumer A’s report, but one of them does not. That one informs our consumer that they checked with the furnisher (Pit Bull) and the furnisher “verified” with them that the information they provided on the debt was valid.

Some more months pass and Consumer A starts feeling frantic. He tries to get refinancing on his home but is told he’ll have to clear up the derogatory trade line showing on one of his credit reports as a first step. He is also denied credit on a couple occasions which he suspects resulted from the same derogatory reporting.

Consumer A starts religiously checking his credit report, and discovers that now the account is being furnished by another collection company, Viper, Inc., and the account number has changed again, this time to “732******”. Our consumer becomes by this point very discouraged. He tries communicating with Viper, Inc. but they are just as nasty and, if anything, more venomous than Pit Bull.

At this point Consumer A finds an attorney firm that will take his case and initiate a lawsuit on his behalf. Among other things, the Complaint accuses the remaining CRA of a “reinsertion violation”. What the CRA had done in this example was “willfully and negligently violated the reinsertion requirements of 15 U.S.C. Section 1681i(a)(5)(B) in reinserting derogatory information onto plaintiff’s credit report after he had previously disputed it, without certification or notice.” (Even though the account number kept changing, it was still the same account being referred to all along. The CRA in question deleted, then reinserted the same account without notifying Consumer A, a no-no.)

After the account is deleted and then reinserted, the CRA fails to notify Consumer A within 5 business days that they are re-inserting the account information. The ironic twist to all this is that the CRA then argues that the “reinsertion” of the account was not their fault because it had a different account number, and how are they supposed to know that it was the same account?

How, indeed! It was the CRA’s own regulations, or lack thereof, that allowed the reinsertion to occur. The CRA argued that if they had known it was the same account, then they wouldn’t have reinserted it, and yet the CRA is the one who allowed Pit Bull, and Viper, Inc., and whichever entities came afterwards, to keep changing the account number on the same account; in short, in effectively disguising it from the CRA’s computer which only matches identities, not similarities or differences.

It is bad enough that the CRAs frequently take the word of disreputable or highly questionable collection entities over that of disputing consumers (See earlier article, The Seamier Side of the Credit Reporting Business) it is unconscionable that the CRAs allow collection entities to in effect cloak the identity of accounts even from themselves, the CRAs, and then blame it on the same system that they helped create! This bungling would be laughable if it didn’t happen to cause consumers so much frustration and pain.



ABDUL

Herbert C asked:


Ok I have had a credit card from a well established bank for years and never used it. They sent it to me with great terms, 7.9% fixed for the life of the card. And thats “they sent it to me, I did not go out of my way to get it. Well I had a balance of over 7k on a loan at 11.25% so I used the credit card to pay it off. Now they send a letter that the interest is increasing to 21.45% and variable. This is no fly by night bank either. Its actually a bunch of BS. What recourse do I have? They have the standard clause in the agreement “We can raise rates for any reason”. I guess I have too much faith that if I honor the terms and pay as agreed they will honor them also. And by the way my credit reports are good, Scores all over 720, no late payments of defaults. Nothing on them has changed since they issued the card except overall debt went down so I am not buying their excuse of information obtained from a consumer report
Well so far I have sent certified letters to the CEO, CFO, 6 other execs, 2 customer service addresses, My US senator and US Representative as well as the House Committee on Financial Service,Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, The US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. And called their Customer Service Dept 4 times and got the run around. Now I’m filing a complaint with the Comptroller of the Currency.
Maybe I should declare chapter 13 and ***** them out of their interest all together.

COLLIN

Tom Dawson asked:


Homeowners need to take steps to safeguard their financial future, it has been suggested.

According to Experian, those Britons who are looking to remortgage their property in the months to come as their fixed-rate deals expire are set to find that such a process becomes increasingly hard. These predicted difficulties were attributed to moves by numerous loan lenders to tighten up their borrowing criteria and withdraw competitively-priced products from the market due to the impact of the credit crunch. With this taking place on an “almost daily basis”, consumers are reported to be facing a “mortgage freeze”. As such, it was stated to be more crucial than ever that homeowners take the time to make sure their credit history is in the best shape as possible.

In an attempt to present their financial history in the most favourable light, borrowers were urged to make sure that any previous arrears and debts have been paid off in full. Meanwhile, consumers who have developed problems with making repayments in the past were advised to state the reasons why such difficulties appear on their report.

For those consumers who discover that they encounter difficulty in securing a competitively-priced mortgage and so have to opt for a more expensive than previously anticipated product, it may be possible that they struggle to manage their money. Not only could such people face increased mortgage costs, but a rise in such a spending commitment could impact upon their capacity to meet other financial demands such as loans, credit and store cards, household bills and council tax.

Commenting on the report, James Jones, consumer education manager for Experian, said: “More than a million people will be coming to the end of fixed-rate mortgage deals this year and Experian is already seeing increasing numbers of people checking their own credit report before applying for credit. Quite understandably, consumers are taking much more interest in their credit status.”

In addition, the financial services firm advised that consumers take the time to ensure that their current address is registered on the electoral roll. Should prospective borrowers fail to do this however, it was stated that they may find a “dent” is placed on their credit history. Meanwhile, Experian advised that credit cards and other borrowing accounts which are no longer being used should be shut down. The company pointed out that money lenders might take into account any credit which is already available to consumers even if they are not actually making use of it.

Those consumers who have previous debt difficulties but are looking to supplement their spending may find that a bad credit loan is advisable. Such a loan could prove to be of particular help to people who in the past have struggled with credit commitments but who are now confident about their ability to make repayments. In addition, this type of loan could be of assistance to those consumers who are concerned about their capacity to meet more costly mortgage repayments. Getting a bad credit loan might be of instance to those Britons wishing to avoid filing for bankruptcy. In recent figures by the Insolvency Service, it was revealed that 2,800 people in Wales became bankrupt in 2006 due to difficulties with managing money. Such a figure represents an increase of 47 per cent from the previous year.



ISRAEL