topic Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite? in Rebuilding Your Credit

Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 05:08:11 GMT

An old judgment from 2008 is appearing at the top of page 1 of Google search results for my name. The California judgment is posted on plainsite.org as the top Google search result. However, the judgment was never renewed and is now expired and unenforceable, being older than 10 years, per CA law: http://www.courts.ca.gov/8207.htm

How can I get it removed from Google and plainsite?

Background: The judgment came at the darkest time of my life. I was gravely depressed and grieving multiple deaths of friends and family. Self-employed at that time but my clients were hurting from the 2007 recession and my work assignments dwindled. I was so depressed I became unable to function at the little work I could get. Maxed out my credit card with cash advances, then unable to make payments. Went on disability, and am now on retirement Social Security, which is my sole source of income. Age 67, no employment, no assets, no close kin, below poverty level, on food stamps and other public assistance programs.

I never responded to any collection efforts, nor to service of papers. I was paralyzed by fear and didn't know what to do or say, so I did nothing at all.

This week my search through online court records shows the original Oct 2008 filing, but there is nothing whatsoever of any renewal filing.

I am trying to move from my current gov-subsided housing to something a bit better. However, if any prospective landlord googles my name, I won't stand a chance.

Can someone please advise me on what to do about Google and plainsite.org? Thank you.

Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

FireMedic1 — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 09:28:09 GMT

Go to Contact Us/ I would like to suppress information affecting me/explain why you it removed for landlords,ect/submit

Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 09:54:34 GMT

@FireMedic1 - Thank you so much for your offer of advice. I don't know my way around the site very well. This is the only "contact us" link I could find, but it doesn't look like the right one. I sent you a PM instead, hope that's OK.

https://www.myfico.com/help/contactus.aspx?_ga=2.63899247.1348201672.1544694045-457677786.1544694045

Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 16:21:18 GMT

Firemedic is talking about going here: https://www.plainsite.org/contact/index.html

Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 00:40:35 GMT

@purcell1911 - Thank you for the clarification. I've read their Privacy Policy and it's pretty hard-nosed about denying such a request as mine. But I may as well go ahead and ask anyway. Will report back with whatever results.

Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

FireMedic1 — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 00:56:21 GMT

Cool. Some are easy and some wont respond back and some dont care one bit. Good Luck!

Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 04:08:53 GMT

Thanks for your good wishes. I've submitted my request. Heart in throat and fingers crossed.....

Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 04:23:10 GMT

Auto-reply received by email just now...

__________

Hello,

Thanks for getting in touch with us. This message certifies that we have received your request, which has been assigned the tracking code [XXXXXXXX].

We receive 5-10 requests per day, and have an extremely small staff. Therefore, it may take us anywhere from 1-60 days to respond to your request depending on volume, though we sometimes are able to reply sooner. Most requests are reviewed and addressed within 30 days.

If your request involves a life-threatening situation, please reply to this message and let us know. Otherwise, we will do our best to address your request in the order it was received.

Generally, please do not call us, send us multiple requests, mail us letters, or appear in person to our office. Such actions will not accelerate the review process, and may actually slow it down.

Best regards,

The PlainSite Team

____________

Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

FireMedic1 — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 10:30:37 GMT

Looks promising. Good Luck!

Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

RobertEG — Sat, 15 Dec 2018 05:43:18 GMT

Have you checked with the judgment court and verified directly from them that their judgment has in fact expired and was not renewed?

A simple visit to the office of the clerk of the court and review of the case file should provide the status of the judgment......

Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Dec 2018 21:31:16 GMT

@RobertEG - As I mentioned above, I obtained the info on my case by searching the online records, which are given on the website for the superior court of my county.

____________

Search Civil Cases by case number or by last name, first name

On this site, you can look up Unlimited/Limited Civil, Family Law, Probate, and Small Claims cases by case number or by case name for cases filed from 1987 to present.

____________

I searched for my name... there is only the one case. I searched again for the case no. and got the same result. The judgment was filed in Oct 2008. The last action was in Nov 2008 when the creditor obtained an abstract of the judgment. (These are the same details as posted on plainsite.) The online case record shows no further action, therefore the judgment is expired as of Oct 2018, by Calif. law.

Do you think I need to also go in person to the court clerk to confirm what they have online?

Plainsite doesn't care whether a case is expired or not. As long as it's part of the public record, it's on their site and on Google search results for my name. That result doesn't appear on my name searches via Bing or Yahoo; I haven't tried any other search engines than those three.

Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Dec 2018 21:59:17 GMT

That was quick. I've received two email replies from plainsite. The first reply appears to be computer-generated and conforms to their Privacy Policy rules for denying removal:

____________

Thank you for getting in touch with us about your docket on PlainSite. After reviewing the details of your request and the associated docket, we have come to the following decision:

Your request regarding [XXXXXX] has been denied.

Based on our research, the following factors were used to make this determination:

Your case appears to involve a sum of money greater than $2,500.00.
Your case is popular and has received numerous hits, and is therefore of public interest.

If you do not agree with our decision, please keep in mind that you still may have several options, including filing a motion, such as a motion to seal, before the court or administrative agency responsible for the records in question. Typically individuals are not required to hire lawyers to file such motions, and examples are available on PlainSite.

You can also consult our Privacy Policy to learn more about why public access to government records is important, and how we make our decisions.

Best regards,

The PlainSite Team

____________

Most of those "popular" clicks are mine, as I have repeatedly checked the site for several months now, in horror.

The second email reply came from an actual staff person:

____________

Thank you for reaching out to us with this information. While we do not see sufficient reason to suppress the entirety of the docket, we have abbreviated your name to avoid indexing by search engines. Per our Privacy Policy:

Name abbreviation. In some cases where we feel that there is a strong public interest in keeping information available, but a particular person's privacy interests are also strongly compromised, we will on rare occasion modify names contained in public documents and replace them only with initials to avoid the indexing of the names by search engines.

Regards,

____________

I can see that they've already made the change on plainsite. However, my full name still comes up on Google. Does anybody know how long it will take for Google to show the change? This is agony.

Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

FireMedic1 — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 11:52:14 GMT

It will go away in time. Google spiders crawl sites and thats how you end up in their search engines. Once Google picks up the change it will be changed. If you have a Google account. Go to Google Webmaster and try to have the URL deleted from their search. The webmaster of the site may not delete it. Or they may not catch it and it will be removed from Google's cached pages.

Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 23:58:38 GMT

I'm inclined to just wait it out. I've put my apartment hunting on hold for now.

Meanwhile, today I visited the County Clerk and got confirmation that nothing was filed after 2008, and there are no other case records for me except that one old judgment. Then I went to a free legal aid service and got confirmation that the judgment, being past the 10-year mark without renewal, is now expired and cannot be enforced. The legal aid team gave me three organizations that might be able to assist me with the possibility of filing a motion to seal the record or some other way to protect my privacy from search engines. I'll make those calls tomorrow morning. More news as it breaks.....

Re: Help! How to remove old judgment from Google / PlainSite?

FireMedic1 — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 00:55:57 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I'm inclined to just wait it out. I've put my apartment hunting on hold for now.

Meanwhile, today I visited the County Clerk and got confirmation that nothing was filed after 2008, and there are no other case records for me except that one old judgment. Then I went to a free legal aid service and got confirmation that the judgment, being past the 10-year mark without renewal, is now expired and cannot be enforced. The legal aid team gave me three organizations that might be able to assist me with the possibility of filing a motion to seal the record or some other way to protect my privacy from search engines. I'll make those calls tomorrow morning. More news as it breaks.....

Great work! Good Luck............