Paid in Full account reports as Discharged in Ch. 7 BK

[Anonymous]

I am hoping that someone can shed some light on my situation.

I bought a 2000 Mitsubishi Mirage in October of 1999.  I pad on the car for years but in 2005, my husband and I found ourselves over our heads in debt (over $100,000 in medical alone).  We filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy in October of 2005 BEFORE the law changes.  The Mitsubishi Mirage was listed in section 2b in my "statement of intent" (Property to be retained) and also on my exemptions page.  I continued to pay on the account (even though they refused to mail any statements or proof of payment amounts or pay off ammounts) and I paid the account off in full on July 24th 2006.  I have a "Paid in Full" letter from Center One Financial (the creditor) but they refuse to report this account to the 3 CBs as paid in full.  TransUnion has deleted it, but both Experian and Equifax show the account as Discharged in Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, Balance $0, Date of last derog. Oct. 2005 and Date of last activity Oct. 2005.  I have disputed this 2 times with Experian and 4 times with Equifax.  All six times the account was "verified" as reporting correctly.  I have also disputed this directly with Center One Financial and they sent me a nice little letter that said "After that discharge order, you continued to make voluntary payments and paid the account in full on July 24, 2006.  Since that account was not paid in full until after your the debt was discharged, the credit bureau reporting 'Discharged in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy with a zero balance' reflects an accurate reporting of the account."

They say this is because the debt was not reaffirmed.  I did send in a reaffirmation form but it seems to have magically disappeared from their paperwork and I was bad and I did not keep a copy as I did not think it was all that important as long as I continued to pay on the account (my only downfall of filing pro se as far as I can tell).

I would like to sue them under my rights of the Fair Credit Reporting Act Section 616, Civil Liability for Willful Noncompliance, but I want to make sure that this is possible or what laws may be protecting them if this is in fact true.  It does not seem that this would be accurate reporting at all and section 623 of the FCRA seems to support my minimal knowledge.

I would really appreciate some input here as this information does not seem to be covered anywhere on the vast internet but seems to be more of a specific issue to me and my luck.

[Anonymous]

Have you tried talking to a consumer lawyer? Look for one locally on naca.net or myfaircredit.com

If they are willing to take your case, then you likely have grounds. Without a lawyer, you'll probably wanna hunt for more paperwork to make the case stick.

[Anonymous]

Looks to me like you have a case for FCRA violations.

Look up:  MOULTON v. CITIBANK, TRANS UNION, EQUIFAX (U.S.D.C. Northern District of Nevada 3:07-cv-188)

Pretrial was 11/05/07, can't wait to see the outcome of this one!  Citibank, TU, EX & EQ being sued for misreporting a BK discharged account.  Although your account wasn't discharged, the facts remain that the OC and CRA's are not accruately reporting your account information.

Message Edited by dwarfess on 11-08-2007 06:01 PM