The three major credit reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — receive more complaints from consumers than most banks, primarily because these reports frequently contain errors and they make it incredibly difficult to resolve disputes. The credit industry seems to think its mistakes are within acceptable standards, but will they feel the same way when their brand names are facing similar odds for a disastrous mistake? [More]
credit bureaus
I Can’t Buy A Car Because Acura Thinks I’m Dead
By 7.31.15
Dead people do not need cars, and they also have trouble making the payments. That’s probably why one woman’s credit score plummeted to zero when a lender accidentally put her down as dead. It was due to human error, but she’ll need to wait 30 days to move on with her new car purchase because someone at Acura Financial Services picked the wrong thing in a drop-down menu. [More]
FTC Shuts Down Credit Repair Business Masquerading As The Federal Trade Commission
By 3.27.15
Fraudsters have been known to scam unsuspecting consumers by claiming to be agents with the federal government. So, in a bit of poetic justice, the Federal Trade Commission had a hand in shutting down a business calling itself the “FTC Credit Solutions.” [More]
Companies That Furnish Info For Credit Reports Are Obligated To Investigate Disputes
By 9.9.13
More than 1-in-4 credit reports contain some sort of error, according to a recent Federal Trade Commission report, but one can’t lay all the blame at the feet of the three major credit bureaus — Experian, TransUnion, Equifax — as the companies that supply this information are not always fulfilling their legal obligation to investigate disputes by consumers. [More]
Jury Awards Woman $18.6 Million In Battle With Equifax Over Credit Report Errors
By 7.29.13
There’s major consumer victory news from Oregon: a woman who discovered huge errors in her Equifax credit report and couldn’t get them fixed was awarded a total of $18.6 million in damages. She contacted Equifax eight times about the errors between 2009 and 2011, but they remained on her report. [More]
Woman Spends 6 Years Trying To Convince Credit Bureaus She's Not Dead
By 4.16.12
In 2004, a hospital staffer accidentally checked off “deceased” on a heart surgery patient’s discharge papers. That one little tick mark on one document resulted in years of headaches for that woman, as she has attempted time and again to prove to the three credit bureaus that she is not a zombie. [More]
While Getting House Financed, TWC Dings Score With Unauthorized Credit Report Pull
By 11.7.11
Shawn is peeved. He’s in the middle of securing financing on a new house and the last thing you need during that time period are any surprise people looking at your credit report. These inquiries can bring your score down. But he got exactly one of those, a “hard” one, thanks to an unauthorized peek-a-boo Time Warner Cable decided to do on his credit report when called them up to ask about reducing his cable package. [More]
How Lower Credit Scores Cost You More Money
By 11.3.11
People talk a lot about credit scores. Bands play songs about them in TV ads that try to sell you credit reports. It’s generally known that a higher score is better than a lower score. But what really is the difference between a person with a 820 and one with a 620? Is one a better person than the other? Not necessarily, but the person with the 620 score can expect to pay $227 more a month on a $216,000 30-year fixed rate mortgage. Here’s the breakdown. [More]
Do VIP's Get Privileged Treatment From Credit Bureaus?
By 5.16.11
NYT reports that the three major credit bureaus each keep a special VIP list of important people who are given preferential treatment when fixing their credit reports. The list has the names of celebrities, politicians, judges and others on it. When they have errors on their reports, they are fixed by employees who work in America, and fixed swiftly. The rest of us get our requests shunted overseas to be dealt with in a cursory manner. [More]
Never Pay A Debt Collector The Full Amount
By 5.12.11
The dirty little secret of debt collecting is that most of them are not working directly for the original company you ran up the debt with. They’re an outside third party and they bought your debt for pennies on the dollar. The debt collector’s goal is to get the most money out of you for the least amount of effort. This means all you have to do to make this calculus work to your advantage is settle with the debt collector for around the same price he paid to buy your debt. So start low. [More]
Free Sample Letters For Dealing With Credit Bureaus
By 5.12.11
Cleaning up a dirty credit report usually involves a lot of letters. Because just mustering the strength to sit down and face this task may have already drained you of your creative juice, via Frugal For Life here are a few sample letters you can use when dealing with the credit bureaus, debt collectors and creditors. Use them as Madlibs or as inspiration to kick your own cleanup spree into high gear. [More]
Mike Fights The Identity Thieves
By 2.18.11
Someone stole Mike’s identity and has been using it to pay for gas service and buy cellphones in his name. He’s even got a $163 default judgment against him for something he never paid. Here’s how he unraveled the threads of his identity thieves, and how he may never truly be free from their grasp. [More]
Credit Bureaus Can't Keep Me And My Doppelgänger Separate
By 12.8.10
An anonymous reader says credit bureaus can’t keep her identity separate with that of another woman with the same last name who used to live in her building. The reader says the bureaus won’t resolve her complaint, insisting the other woman has to take the initiative to fix the errors. [More]
Banks Concocting New Ways To Spy On You
By 11.12.10
Feel the hair on your neck rising? Your bank is watching, with greater scrutiny then ever before. Banks are figuring out new scores and models to figure out your credit worthiness, using everything from how you deposit and withdraw money to how you pay your rent. [More]
Letting Mortgage Go Delinquent To Qualify For Short Sale Damages Credit
By 7.9.10
In order to qualify for a “short sale,” in which the lender agrees for the house to be sold for less than the remaining amount owed and takes a loss, the lender sometimes requires the homeowner to be several months delinquent on their mortgage payments. But while getting out of a house you can’t afford can be a good idea, bear in mind that the delinquency will stain your credit report. [More]
How To Dispute Credit Report Errors
By 6.24.10
Over 80% of credit reports have errors on them, errors which could be lowering your credit score and keeping you from getting credit or paying more for it than you should. Here’s how to fix them: [More]
Credit Checks For Jobs On The Rise
By 2.24.10
Some HR departments use credit checks to help determine whether to hire an applicant. The practice has always had critics, since credit histories can have errors that are hard to correct, and since there’s no strong correlation between credit history and job performance. But in this economy the practice may be even less fair, notes MSNBC, even though more organizations are relying on it. [More]
Is That Credit Score FICO Or FAKEO?
By 2.10.10
Donny just bought a bunch of credit scores. But they’re all from different companies and none of them are the same. What gives? [More]
