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equifax
5 No BS Ways To Get A Credit Score For Free
Here are 5 ways to get your credit score for free. Note, all of them are the credit scores developed by the credit bureaus themselves, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax, and are not your actual FICO scores. Only the FICO score is used by lenders to determine your credit worthiness. However, you can at least use these credit bureau scores to get a general sense of how good your credit is.
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zombie debt
Third-Party Debt Collectors Misusing Courts To Increase Profits
The Chicago Tribune writes that "More than 119,000 civil lawsuits against alleged debtors are clogging [Chicago] courtrooms," but since collection agencies make money off of volume business, the suits filed are based on too little information. The result: cases based on mistaken identities, or for debts already settled, or against debtors who have made good-faith efforts to work out repayment plans. "The system is out of control," one attorney tells the paper. More »
bad customer service
Former Time Warner CSR Arrested For ID Theft
A woman in Cincinnati was arrested this week and charged with two counts of identity theft and two counts of theft, for allegedly stealing the credit card information of a customer who was paying a bill in November 2007. Time Warner fired her when the investigation started and it appears no other customers were affected, but it's a good reminder to stay on top of your credit report at all times. More »
bad company
Company Bills Customer For Chargeback
After Ilan successfully filed a chargeback on a company, the company decided to bill him directly for the amount that was refunded. What's even sneakier is the company (which Ilan didn't name) waited until after they reported the matter resolved to the Better Business Bureau. Now Ilan's wondering what options he has to fight back. More »
sallie mae
Sallie Mae's 100+ Point FICO Drop Error Getting Fixed
Sallie Mae has publicly apologized for a coding error, potentially affecting around 1 million customers, that caused some consumers credit scores to drop over 100 points, and some consumers report that their dinged scores are already back up. If your score is not back to normal and you are in the middle of a transaction where your good credit is at stake, Sallie Mae said it will provide a credit reference letter. You can also call Sallie Mae customer service at 1-888-2-sallie. Sallie has pledged that the fix is in, but consumers can still take matters into their own hands by pulling their free credit report from annualcreditreport.com and disputing the incorrect information with Experian. Note, it's against Federal law for creditors to report false information to credit bureaus, and consumers can sue violators up to $1,000.
PREVIOUSLY: FICO Scores Drop Over 100 Points After Sallie Mae Recode, Potentially Millions Affected
(Photo: Getty)
justice
After a multimillion-dollar verdict, attorneys get fee award, too
To add (just) insult to (just) injury, a Florida judge awarded $518,301 to Angela Williams's attorneys (PDF link). Ms. Williams recently won almost $3 million in a lawsuit against Equifax for Equifax's refusal to fix her credit report after her identity was stolen. More »
heroes
Leukemia Survivor Who Had Identity Stolen By Lab Tech Tells His Story
We wrote about Eric Drew a few weeks ago—his personal information was stolen by a shady lab technician while he was undergoing treatment in 2004. Even after the lab tech was convicted, Drew still had to fight with the credit reporting companies to prove he existed and to clear up his credit record, so he filed lawsuits against TransUnion, Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, Equifax and Experian. He settled with TransUnion earlier this year, and as part of the settlement they will now accept doctors' notes for the hospitalized and the elderly, as well as offer free credit freezes to victims of ID theft.So why are we rehashing this? Discover magazine just published a detailed account of Drew's story, from his battle with leukemia and subsequent remission to the lengthy battle he waged against the credit industry to clear up his credit history.
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credit reports
I had a weird unpaid debt listed on my credit reports, some video store I used to go to in college. I guess they thought I had an overdue video? Anyway, they never sent me any notice about it but yet on my credit report it was listed that I never paid Integral Recovers Inc, who also have never contacted me, some $250. So, about three months ago, I filed a dispute notice with TransUnion, the one credit bureaus report it was listed on, and today I got a nice letter saying they deleted the item. It was all very easy, I just went to annualcreditreport.com, checked my credit report, went to the dispute item area, printed out the one-page form, filled it in saying that I was disputing because I never got any notice about the debt, and mailed it all off. Took less than 10 minutes, tops. Be sure to check your credit report from all three credit bureaus at least once a year for errors and file disputes when information is incorrect. Otherwise, your ability to get credit might be unfairly affected. It's easier and faster than you might think!
Got $250 Video Store Debt Deleted From Credit Report
I had a weird unpaid debt listed on my credit reports, some video store I used to go to in college. I guess they thought I had an overdue video? Anyway, they never sent me any notice about it but yet on my credit report it was listed that I never paid Integral Recovers Inc, who also have never contacted me, some $250. So, about three months ago, I filed a dispute notice with TransUnion, the one credit bureaus report it was listed on, and today I got a nice letter saying they deleted the item. It was all very easy, I just went to annualcreditreport.com, checked my credit report, went to the dispute item area, printed out the one-page form, filled it in saying that I was disputing because I never got any notice about the debt, and mailed it all off. Took less than 10 minutes, tops. Be sure to check your credit report from all three credit bureaus at least once a year for errors and file disputes when information is incorrect. Otherwise, your ability to get credit might be unfairly affected. It's easier and faster than you might think!
credit reports
This Is Why You Don't Use FreeCreditReport.com
Jesus from South Texas signed up for credit monitoring at the notoriously scammy FreeCreditReport.com. He never received the confirmation email and wasn't able to access his account, so he never used it, but forgot to call to cancel it. After three months he realized he was being charged $15 a month as per their terms of service, so he went to their site to retrieve his login credentials and was told the account didn't exist. After that, it took him 4 calls to get the account canceled, and they would only refund him for one month of service. One of their CSRs tried to scare Jesus into keeping the account open because there had been some "suspicious activity" in his credit history that he'd be wise to monitor. Then they told him there is no phone number or email for their "customer satisfaction department"—it can only be reached through snail mail. More »
how to
A thief charged over $1,600 to my credit card at Bed Bath & Beyond. Here's how I responded:
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Fight Fraudulent Credit Card Charges
A thief charged over $1,600 to my credit card at Bed Bath & Beyond. Here's how I responded:
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credit reports
Know Where To Fix Your Credit Score By Getting Your Reason Codes
If you want to improve your credit score, a score from 300-850 that lenders use to determine whether you qualify for a loan and how much interest to charge you if you do, you'll want to know your "reason codes." These are 2-digit numbers that come with you credit score when you purchase it. Each bureau usually gives you four reason codes with their report, so get your score from each one for a total of 12. One wiki tutorial says that reason codes are listed in order of importance. Armed with that, The Mechanics Of Credit site decodes all the reason codes and prescribes solutions for each one. With this info and tactics, you should be able to boost your score a couple of points and save a bundle.
(Photo: KUTV)
credit reports
Woman's Credit History Goes Missing, Giving Her A Credit Score Of Zero
When Cindy X pulled her credit report from TransUnion recently, it was blank. "I am 48, have an active credit history, and my other credit reports were accurate," she writes in to Kiplinger. TransUnion, however, told her that she was on her own to fix the problem and would have to contact her creditors individually. More »
When 5/3 Bank acquired another bank, a computer glitch in the records merging splooged incorrect information into thousands of customer accounts, in some cases totally fudging up their credit reports and credit histories. The bank says it's fixed everything but one customer says that's not true and lost three loans due to the errors. [Orlando Sentinel via U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog]
success stories
Adam shares his success story in using an EECB (executive email carpet bomb) to get his student loan company to fix his botched loan after a year of runarounds and empty promises:
EECB Scores Direct Hit On Student Lender ACS
Adam shares his success story in using an EECB (executive email carpet bomb) to get his student loan company to fix his botched loan after a year of runarounds and empty promises:In January 2007, I took out a Graduate Plus Loan to cover a couple of courses at George Washington University. I was in-school half-time from mid-January to mid-May of 2007. Accordingly, I should have been covered by an in-school deferment through May of 2007. Well, unknown to me, my lender, ACS (as sub-lender to PNC bank) decided that I actually needed to be making student loan payments while in school and never decided to tell me about it!More »
email addresses
Reach Equifax Customer Care
If calling the regular Equifax "customer service" (cough, cough) line at 866-640-2273 doesn't work for you, customer.care@equifax.com is an email address you can use to try to resolve problems with your Equifax credit report. Equifax really doesn't give a damn about you because you're not its customer, banks and lenders are, but a reader says that he was able to use this email address to get an Extended Fraud Alert that he didn't put on taken off his account. You can also try 404-885-8000, which is a direct line into their Atlanta corporate headquarters.
credit cards
Creditreport.com Is A Scam
One lady reports that she started to get inexplicable credit card charges from Creditreport.com. After speaking to 12 different reps, she reached a supervisor who threatened to sue her because she had signed a contract. When she asked for the contract to be mailed to her, the supervisor said, they "couldn't" print it out, they could only email it. To which the lady responded, "So how exactly is this going to hold up in court? What are you going to do, Email the judge?" Oh snap. Eventually, after a little more hassle, they canceled her account. Someone should have told her that the only place to go to for a free, no strings, no monthly fee access to your credit report is annualcreditreport.com.
Consumers Beware: Creditreport.com [WYLFWT] (Thanks to John!)
personal finance
