Small claims judgement affecting score?

[Anonymous]

H, I'm only 21 years old and currently have one credit card, a capital one journey student card with a credit line of 800.

I have had this card for a year and it has gone up from the orginal line of 300, my score is 597 according to transunion (my credit card provides free credit score tracking and via a website called journeycredittracker).

Anyways in november of 2010 I was in a accident in which I totaled a car. The local body shop the person I hit used deemed the car totaled, and my insurance (allstate) cut the owner of the car a check for all the fee's storage etc etc. The issue was the previous owner to my knowledge never actually paid the body shop to remove the car with the money from allstate.

A month and a half later I was given papers saying I owed the body shop over $1000 in storage fee's. I called the insurance agency and they said they paid the storage and I had nothing to worry about.

Few months later I was served with paper saying I was being sued in connecticut small claims court. The insurance angecy again said they would handle it. I got papers saying I could attend or not attend didn't matter.

I checked my credit score on a actual report website and it said I had a potenially negative mark on my score and it was this small claims court thing. I find out today (june 2012) that allstate LOST the case in court and had to pay out $2000.

Is this going to affect my score? Surely it can't since I didn't personally owe the body shop any money. Isn't it the point of having insurance to pay for all of these fee's and trust me I have enough coverage. Can I get this removed because I'm afraid it could ruin my score for a while and it has steadily been increasing.

I have no idea why allstate lost the case, I never went to any of the hearings or anything but I have a feeling the local body shop charges a fee that is more than the average for storage and the body shop did not accept the storage amount the insurnace wanted to give, or my dads theory is that the entire time the owner of the car and body shop owner wanted to screw me over since I Was a kid and they figured I wouldn't know better.

[pizzadude]

Sorry to hear about this situation ~ I honestly don't know what advice to give other than to talk with your insurance company.   I would think that they would cover the expense, I mean isn't that what insurance is for ??  Or maybe the insurance company did pay, but if you were the defendant then the judgement was against you.....and that's why it is on your credit reports.

A judgement is a major derogatory item and will definately hurt your FICO score in a significant way.   Have you had a chance to pull a FICO score ?   The scores from Transunion are not FICO scores, they are what is commonly referred to as FAKO scores, and shouldn't really be relied on.

[JohnPTEX]

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@pizzadude wrote:

but if you were the defendant then the judgement was against you.....and that's why it is on your credit reports.

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+1 - insurance companies can choose to represent their customers against claims and they often do, but this doesn't mean that you weren't sued in your individual capacity.  It only means they provided legal representtion.

[Anonymous]

I'm almost furious right now.

It turns out my insurance company did not want to pay the body shop there storage fee and instead paid a "standard" fee of a lesser amount. The body shop rejected and sued me. The insurance company took a gamle they would win the case and now I am at fault on my credit report. The amount has been paid to the body shop but it will still be on my report..

I am a young student and just worried this is going to affect me, I understand if I am trying to get a loan from a bank it would be pretty easy to explain this but still what about trying to get a second credit card?

[pizzadude]

Wow, it stinks that your credit rating took a hit becuase Allstate wanted to avoid paying the shop.   Instead they ended up paying more and you got a judgement on your credit reports.       I don't know what recourse you have at this point, other than trying to get the judgement vacated, which would likely involve asking the plantiff to agree or submit the motion.     I'd start with Allstate, maybe a letter to their CEO or something similar would prompt their attorneys ( who defended you unsuccessfully in court ) to help....