topic Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report in General Credit Topics

"Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

rebound2014 — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 19:00:34 GMT

Hey All.. I just received notices from both myFICO and My Privacy Matters alerting me to an "account update". So far this has only shown up with one tradeline (an auto loan through SunTrust). We live in Central FL and although we did experience some fairly minor set-backs here locally from Irma, it was nothing compared to what The Keys are still having to recover from.

Nonetheless, the "comments" have been updated across all 3 majors (that I know of) and it states, "Affected by natural disaster". I might could understand if we had been late on a payment or had enrolled in some type of debt relief/defference program... but we have not. I haven't even received any outreach from SunTrust other than the stock "we're here for you" email that all of my creditors sent out.

Any idea if this verbiage could be interpretted as a negative when under a manual review? I've never seen or heard of anything like this before. Thanks for any opinions or feedback!!

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 00:51:25 GMT

I'm guessing that would only come into play in the event of a missed payment taking place or something similar. Perhaps that verbiage sets you up for a mulligan in the event that you were late on a payment?

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 03:22:56 GMT

I saw that in my husbands report as well, and I thought the same.

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

Gidgetmom — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 10:53:33 GMT

I live in the Keys and have not seen anything like that on my reports. The only odd thing that I have is...Cap One hasn't updated since Aug on any of CB's. All other cards updated for Sept. Not sure what that is about.

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 15:51:15 GMT

I saw this on my report just yesterday (only on account for car loan). No damage, no claim, but yes its got a remark there. I too suppose its a 'just in case'.

<---Harvey

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

Berk — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 20:23:32 GMT

Yep, got it too on my U.S. Bank card. I live in NE Florida. I've gotten emails from all lenders though stating that they are waiving any late fees, etc for 30 days because of the hurricane.

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

rmduhon — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 21:00:21 GMT

I wonder if this is just a Florida thing, for lack of a better way to describe it. I'm in Texas and got hit by Harvey, but no comments/remarks were added to mine, hubby's, or my mom's reports. Our truck note got pushed back a month as a result of both hubby and I losing 2 weeks of work, so you'd think that the remark would be added to that account at least if it was astandard action due to a natural disaster.

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 19:17:27 GMT

I live in Central Texas (Austin) and not affected by Harvey. We got rains but no damages in our area and not decalred as natural disaster area by FEMA. Today I got an alert from myFICO saying "Account Change has been detected in your Equifax data" This is from my Citibank account. I don't have any balances on my account now

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

trsharpe27 — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 22:36:05 GMT

I work for an auto finance company and we are adding this comment in case of a missed payment/s for places effected by Harvey or Irma.

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

AllCredit — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 22:58:42 GMT

Are you guys looking at report through myFico? I'm in Central Florida as well, I would like to check (I guess I can pull one of my free annual credit reports since I like to do them quaterly), but just wondering how people are reviewing these new comments on their report.

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

Anonymous — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 23:18:39 GMT

I got it too, on my auto loan only, here in Miami, no delays or anything, I didn't like or understand that remark either when I saw it

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

trsharpe27 — Tue, 10 Oct 2017 00:55:20 GMT

One of our talking points when asked how we would report to the credit bureaus.

Q: How is this reported to the credit bureaus? For accounts in areas that were declared a disaster area by FEMA, (Company) will use a special code (AW) developed by the credit reporting agencies when reporting on accounts in the impacted areas. This code will indicate that an individual has been affected by a natural disaster.

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Oct 2017 16:52:54 GMT

*trsharpe27 In response to your comment, if it’s just a comment as you have said, why would that comment be dropping credit scores on accounts that are in good standing, with no late payments and little to no credit utilization? These comments are negatively impacting consumers. Adding the comment “just in case” seems to be a far reach. Add it for those people who request the assistance.

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

rebound2014 — Sun, 15 Oct 2017 19:05:17 GMT

OMG... I'm Sorry!!!

I never received any emails informing me that folks were replying to my post!

I just happened to check in on this thread after checking a myFICO alert on my wife's account for, you guessed it, an "account change" that added the comments to another one of her accounts. This time it was from Kohls (CapOne).

I would need to make a daily SP through another site to give a full list on who all has added this comment so far but I do recall CitiBank being one of them - as mentioned by another poster on this thread. Yeah, my whole concern was that it could/might have a negative affect, however, I have yet to see any indications of it affecting actual scoring.

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

Berk — Sun, 15 Oct 2017 19:23:02 GMT

Just a data point - My Best Buy Store Card just posted a payment noting that it was an "Affected by Natural Disaster" payment. I know I got an email from Citi on the two cards I have with them but don't remember anything about their store cards.

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 17:58:07 GMT

Hi, I don't live near any of the hurricanes but I do live near where the fires have done great damage in Northern Ca. Earlier this week, I got a notification that a comment had been added to my Equifax credit report that says "affected by natural disaster" for one Citi based credit card and then today, the exact same message was added to my Equifax credit report for a 2nd Citi based credit card we own.

I'm half afraid to ask Citi though I likely will soon. Instead, I've been searching online and seeing lots of info, like that contained in this post about many folks in the hurricane areas but I haven't yet found that it also extends to the California fire areas. Can anyone shed any light on why I might be receiving comments on my Equifax credit report related to "affected by natural disaster" even though I don't live near the hurricane areas??? But DO live near the recent California fires??? thanks..

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

Gidgetmom — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 19:00:22 GMT

I just noticed Citi added that to my reports as well. My area was hit by Hurricane Irma. I didn't request any assistance from Citi due to the storm, so they must be adding it based on the address only. If a State of Emergency was called for the fires (it would surprise me if it wasn't), then I believe your area is considered a natural disaster as well.

I don't see where the comment damaged my score, so I haven't done anything about it.

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

Anonymous — Sat, 28 Oct 2017 02:55:04 GMT

Hi Gidgetmom, Thanks for the response. At least it appears that this message is not coming from bad guys and that's my main worry.

I did log online today to one of the Citi cards and tried getting some answer via CHAT. I like chat because I can then save a copy of what was said. Very useful sometimes. But the chat person told me that they can only answer limited questions and that I needed to instead call the number for this particular Citi card. Haven't done that yet because if you get someone not very skilled at customer service, they sometimes raise more questions than they answer.

Anyway, I might just leave it be, again, because it does NOT appear to be from bad guys, instead that Citi is adding some sort of comment to our credit reports (at least Equifax, the only one I've received feedback about so far) that says something about us being in some sort of Natural Disaster area. We live about 40 miles from where the fires hit.

Thanks again for your response.

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 16:30:15 GMT

It could be that it's for certain states or areas of the companies info. Being that Texas is still dealing with major aftermath of Harvey, they may not be adding that, so it doesn't affect your credit. I have a few from years ago when Charlie, Francis and Jean hit Florida. I have 2 that I don't even know why that it's even listed at that. Unless it was from my car accident that left me disabled or the bill was from the car accident settlement. I hope that you and your family have rebuilt and are doing well now.

Re: "Affected By Natural Disaster" on report

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 23:38:41 GMT

Hi, Thanks for your response and concern. We live in Northern Ca about 30 miles from the recent, horrible fires. We know people who lost their homes but fortunately we came through that ok due to the distance. I learned that one of our Credit Card companies included us in a folks "affected by natural disaster". When I looked up these companies on google, clearly it said they were offering some sort of relief as far as paying bills are concerned to folks affected by the recent hurricanes. But I found nothing about the fires here in California. But clearly that was the deal, that our Credit Card company included us in this list of folks "affected by natural disaster" and they sent that info to one of the three credit agencies. In fact, they have since sent another notice to the same credit agencies stating that the "affected by natural disaster" deal has been removed, ended.

So, that's the story. Again, thanks for your reply and your concern but we made it through without the fires reaching us. thanks...