Investigation: Red Light Cameras Can Damage Credit

[Anonymous]

The City of Dallas, Texas has installed traffic cameras at key intersections to catch people running red lights. The license number is photographed, and a citation is issued to the offender.

If there is no response in the time allowed, Dallas sends the file to a collection agency, ACS. ACS, Affiliated Computer Services, is the private company the City of Dallas hired to run its red light camera program.

And guess what if the offender doesn't pay the collection? Yup, you guessed it. It gets put on your credit report.

"Credit analyst Eddie Johanson says one collection notice on an otherwise perfect record can drop a credit score by 60-to-80 points. "You can have pages and pages of positive credit. You can have great current credit and you can be a 780 credit score---anything over 720 is golden in the mortgage world---and you can get one collection and it's over," said Johanson.


This is an interesting read:

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=5124742&version=3&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1

Message Edited by Sylviatob on 12-05-2007 09:55 AM

[MidnightVoice]

Sylviatob wrote:

"Credit analyst Eddie Johanson says one collection notice on an otherwise perfect record can drop a credit score by 60-to-80 points. "You can have pages and pages of positive credit. You can have great current credit and you can be a 780 credit score---anything over 720 is golden in the mortgage world---and you can get one collection and it's over," said Johanson.

See my latest thread in understanding scoring 

[Anonymous]

How timely! 68 point rise. MERRYYYYYYYYYY CHRISTMAS!

[Anonymous]

...
"We are not supportive of credit bureau reporting," says State Sen. John Carona (R) Dallas. The senator co-authored a new state law that forbids reporting unpaid red light camera citations to credit bureaus. That law took effect September 1, 2007.
...
So why, three months after the law went into effect, is Dallas still reporting people to credit bureaus? City staff says the law applies only to new contracts executed after the law went in to effect. In October, the City of Dallas extended its contract with ACS to 2013. But that doesn’t wash with Senator Carona. “I think it would be offensive to the intent of the law,” said Carona.
...

I guess the city of Dallas thinks they're above the law.

[Anonymous]

Exactly Noah. I think Dallas will experience severe repercussions from this....I hope.