HELP! Equifax lisitng transferred or sold accounts as Charge Offs!

[tmacar]

I need a specific legal reference to stop Equifax from screwing me. I have several accounts that went delinquent in 2001 when I became disabled. They were eventually sold to other companies, and they have all been paid now. Most were paid in 2005. Even though the original creditor transferred them, Equifax lists their Current Status as "Charged Off"!! Even worse, they update the Date Reported. When I noticed these accounts were still showing balances and filed disputes, Equifax kept their Current Status as "Charged Off", although the zeroed out the balances, and they updated the Dates Reported.

The problem is that many companies' proprietary automated scoring systems only look at the summary, and use the "Date Reported" for when the Current Status occurred. I'll give you just one example (Any category not listed is missing because it is blank in my Equifax Report):

ABC Company, Date Opened: 12/2001, High Credit: $2,225, Activity Description: Paid, Items As Of Date Reported: 02/2008, Date Of Last Payment: 11/2005, Date Of 1st Delinquency: 06/2001, Date Closed: 11/2005, Current Status: Collection Account, Type Of Account: Open, Type Of Loan: Collection Agency/Attorney

The Reality: This account was given to this company in 2001 for collection. I paid it off in October 2005.

How It Gets Scored: Because of the screwed up way Equifax has it listed, many prospective creditors score it as a collection account as of February 2008. The "Closed" that is under Current Activity should be under Current Status. And the 2008 Date Reported is killing me, becaquse4 many companies use scoring systems that only look at the account summaries and "think" that the Date Reported is when the Current Status happened, so I get scored with a Collection in Feb. 2008.

I have several like this, and Equifax refuses to change anything. They say it was a collection, so they can have that in Current Status. They say the last time they checked any info on this account was when I filed a dispute in Feb 2008, so THAT date is legitimate. Then they say that Date Reported is ONLY the last time they looked at the account, and if some companies use scoring systems that misinterpret that item, it isn't Equifax's problem!

What they're really doing is updating Date Reported whenever a dispute is filed, KNOWING many creditors use that to decide how old a delinquency is, to discourage people from filing numerous disputes.

Can anyone help em with a specific part of the law that can force them to fix this?

[athensguy]

I don't really see that there is a problem with the way it is being reported. It should fall off of your reports 7-7.5 years from DOFD, which is 06/2001 on there. So it'll be gone in less than a year.

If your creditor thinks that date reported is the date of collection, then they have no idea how to read a credit report, because I am not a professional and it is patently obvious to me what is going on with it.

Date reported is the last time they got information on the account. That will change every time the information is updated. Unfortunately, it does sometimes cause a minor score loss from FICO, but that is a flaw that will hopefully be fixed in the next iteration of FICO.

[dragnldy]

I have had the same issues over and over with them.  The CSR I spoke to kept telling me that the way they reported it was not hurting my scores, but I have seen where it is.  This is the letter I sent them CMRRR a couple days ago, waiting for them to receive it.

Equifax Information Services LLC

PO Box 105518

Atlanta, GA 30348

To Whom It May Concern:

I have disputed two collection accounts on my credit reports multiple times with you, however, you are still reporting these accounts incorrectly.  These accounts are NCO and Portfolio Recovery.  On my credit report, you are listing these accounts as open accounts with a collection status still.  These are not open accounts, as you have listed, but should only have been listed as collection accounts.  Nor are they recently 120 days late as you have continuously posted.  Because of your lack of investigation and correcting of inaccurate information, this misinformation is causing injury to my credit score.  As well, you are also still reporting the current status of the Washington Mutual/ Providian and Ford Motor Credit accounts as charge-offs.  I have disputed these several times with you as well.  These accounts’ status is closed/paid.  The way you continue to report it implies that these are still open charge-offs instead of being paid.  And, you have updated Calvary Portfolio to a zero balance, but yet do not list it as paid, but still an open collection with a statement that says “Subject has not satisfied debt” which is also incorrect reporting.

FCRA Section 611(a)(1)(A)clearly states that upon receipt of a dispute Equifax is to perform an investigation. Obviously, this did not hold true of my disputes of the past couple of months.  Because of your blatant disregard for the FCRA, I am demanding that the disputed tradelines be deleted from my credit report. I am guaranteed, by law, that you will report with 100% accuracy and that any account I dispute will be investigated. You have proven that this cannot be done.

You now have 5 days from your receipt of this letter to remove the previously disputed accounts from my credit report. Be advised, that my attorney has in his possession all the letters and supporting documentation regarding this matter. If the accounts in question are not deleted he will file suit in Federal Court.

[tmacar]

The problem doesn't seem to be with FICO. FICO appears to be scoring correctly.

What happened to me was that, from late 2005, when I finally got my disability money and started paying debts and getting my reports cleaned up, my score constantly improved, a few points every month. So did my actual credit, I started getting legitimate offers of credit in the mail.

In January 2007, I applied for a $500 loan with a finance company. My FICO at the time was about 605. About a year earlier, this company had loaned me $1500, when my FICO was only 512. I had recently finished paying that loan, with not so much as a single payment even a day late. Anything negative on my report had already been there at the time of the first loan (my most recent delinquency was in Feb 2002, and all the others were 2001 or older), and was now a year older, so it would have less of a negative effect. All of my good accounts now had another year more of on time payments than they had at the time of the first loan.

A perfect payment record with the company on a $1500 loan, another year's worth of perfect credit history, any negatives a year older now, a FICO increase of nearly 100 points. A slam dunk for a $500 loan, right? Wrong. They use their own scoring system, instead of relying on FICO (apparently many companies do this). Their computer pulls my report from the credit bureau, then scores my credit with their own system. Unfortunately, the computer uses the account summary, and in Dec 2006 Equifax had updated the Date Reported on several old accounts because I'd filed disputes about balances showing when nothing was really owed anymore. The scoring computer "saw" Current Status "Charge Off", Date Reported 12/2006, and "credited" me with a charged off account just a month before my application. This happened with several delinquencies from 2001, but just one such account would have done me in.

I was told my credit had deteriorated seriously since a year ago (despite a FICO increase of almost 100 points) and I was denied, due to "recent delinquencies". When I finally figured out what had happened (that took about 6 weeks of letters and phone calls), I took a complete current print out of my report to the company. The manager agreed that these accounts had been incorrectly scored, that their computer either "looked" only at the account summaries and therefore didn't "see" entries like Date Closed in 2001, or wasn't programmed to "realize" that such information contradicted a charge off in 2006, but he also told me that he was absolutely required to go by the results from their computer, and nobody in their whole company could get around that.

The same thing happened and caused me to be denied by a gasoline company and a retail store. Even worse, Chevron raised my interest rate and doubled my required minimum payment, again due to my "credit deterioration" resulting from "recent delinquencies" with other credit accounts. Same story. A proprietary credit scoring system misreading the Date Reported and Current Status and thinking I just had accounts charged off. And the same response. Yes, we see what you're saying, and we agree that it's a mistake, but we are required to go by how our system scores you.

THAT is the problem. The proprietary credit scoring systems used by some companies are misreading certain entries, and I do not believe for a minute that Equifax isn't doing this specifically to discourage disputes. Any time you file a dispute with Equifax, the Date Reported for that account will change, even if nothing else in the listing changes. Together with that, if an account was EVER charged off, they will leave the Current Status as "charged off", even if the account was later sold and, as in my case, paid off to the new owner. They should change the Current Status to Transferred/Sold/Paid, but they refuse to, justifying it by putting Transferred/Sold/Paid under the Activity Description, which does no good. Many proprietary scoring systems still score the account as a charge off as of whatever date shows up under Items As Of Date Reported. So an account that was delinquent in 2001, sold in 2002, and then actually paid off, gets scored as a charge off from last month.

[tmacar]

drgnldy,

You appear to be having the same, identical listing problems I am having. Accounts sold 5 years ago listed with a current (no more than 2 months ago) Date Reported and a Current Status of "charge off". Collections paid 3 years ago listed with a current Date Reported, a Current Status of "collection account" an Account Type of "Open", and Type Of Loan "Collection Account/Attorney.

I've disputed and disputed, all they do is update the Date Reported so the accounts look even newer that they are. Now they've told me that they will consider any further disputes frivolous and won't even process them.

And while these things may hurt your FICO some, you won't believe what they do with the proprietary scoring systems some companies use, instead of relying on FICO. For instance, a delinquency from 2001, that was sold in 2002, and paid off to the new owner in 2005, gets scored as a charge off that happened last month because the company's system "sees" Current Status "charge off" and Items As Of Date Reported February 2008. These individual scoring systems many companies use, which only read the account summaries, are where you really get hurt.

The problem is that Equifax KNOWS you won't sue them. The lowest retainer I have found any lawyer to want for this kind of suit is 2,000.00. And Equifax knows that most people who have problems with their credit reports don't have that kind of money laying around.

If your letter threatening a lawsuit works, please let me know. ON the other hand, if you've actually found a lawyer who will sue without a $2,000.00 retainer, please let me know that.

[Geordi]

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@tmacar wrote:
drgnldy,

You appear to be having the same, identical listing problems I am having. Accounts sold 5 years ago listed with a current (no more than 2 months ago) Date Reported and a Current Status of "charge off". Collections paid 3 years ago listed with a current Date Reported, a Current Status of "collection account" an Account Type of "Open", and Type Of Loan "Collection Account/Attorney.

I've disputed and disputed, all they do is update the Date Reported so the accounts look even newer that they are. Now they've told me that they will consider any further disputes frivolous and won't even process them.

And while these things may hurt your FICO some, you won't believe what they do with the proprietary scoring systems some companies use, instead of relying on FICO. For instance, a delinquency from 2001, that was sold in 2002, and paid off to the new owner in 2005, gets scored as a charge off that happened last month because the company's system "sees" Current Status "charge off" and Items As Of Date Reported February 2008. These individual scoring systems many companies use, which only read the account summaries, are where you really get hurt.

The problem is that Equifax KNOWS you won't sue them. The lowest retainer I have found any lawyer to want for this kind of suit is 2,000.00. And Equifax knows that most people who have problems with their credit reports don't have that kind of money laying around.

If your letter threatening a lawsuit works, please let me know. ON the other hand, if you've actually found a lawyer who will sue without a $2,000.00 retainer, please let me know that.

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Yes, I am in this group also. However, in my case I will probably pay the retainer once I find an attorney to represent me. The question is if I do begin litigation against Equifax for improper reporting, will I be entitled to monetary damages or does Equifax just have to fix how it is listed. Which would mean, I would have to pay BIG $$$$ just to fix 3 or 4 accounts.

[tmacar]

Herte's the deal.  You don't need a lawyer to sue these guys.  The last time I checked,the penalty they're liable for with  misreported items is only $1000.  So you suein your local saml claims court/  BUT...  ARE they really misreporting?  It doesn't look like it.  If date updated means. to them, the last time they changed information, but to some proprietary scoring syatems ti looks like when yhe bad thing happened, the credit reporting agencies aren't at fault.  They're only legally reaponsible for accurate information, not for how someone else interprets it.  Creditors can do whatever they want in making a decision.  Here's a really egregious example of that. I pulled my credit while applying for a moretgage and found a collection on it.  I didn't have any collections, made some calls, and the collectiom company apologized dor the misteke and removed it.  It was on my report .for a total of mayvbe 4 weeks.  BUt suring that 4 weeks Americxan Express had done their periodic credit check on me, and I got a notice that they were closing my account.  As is always the case with "reasons" letters, they listed every single thing that wasn't absolutely perfect on my report, like "roo much use of recolving credit" (I was at about 42% usage), but I contacted them and found out that the only difference between that time and the last time they'd checked was that collection.  So I wrote a letter explained that the collection was a total errore, that it was now completely gonr.  They answered that they'd reviewed my situartion, the accvount was staying closed, and the reasons included that then non-existent collection.  They obviously never even read my letter or checked my credit report, they just got my appeal,.looked at their existing reords, and decided the decision had been the right one.  AMEX closed my account because of a phony collection, and when I appealed never even bothered checking anything.  And there wasn't anyhting I could do about it.  How some company interprets credit report info isn't regulated,  In the cases mentioned in this thread , it seems the only thing you can do is to ask the creditor about their system and avoid anyone who has their own scoring system.  

[tmacar]

Sorry, I'm a lousy typist.

[morgacj2004]

In reply to AX closing your account over an error on your CR .  I had a similar experience with them despite the fact I had 3 AX  acts for years with big spend and perfect payment hx this included a platinum card.  They cancelled my accts and didn't bother to even respond to my inquiries with anything but standard form letters.  Their customer service is horrible and it only appears as if they are interested in their highest tier members. That used to not be the case. For me the prestige, benefits, awards associated with AX membership are no longer there.