Why is it saying accounts in collections when there isn't any?

[Anonymous]

I wish all of the reporting agencies would get together! *sigh*

Got a denial of credit and it was transunion. It says too many accounts in collections. *I* knew that I didn't have any as I had contested them a few weeks ago (they were not mine, but my husband's) and they removed them. So is it just that it didn't update in time for when they pulled it or...? It made me gasp at first, worrying that something was going on, but it shows no baddies on that account at all and 14 accounts in good standing/paying or paid as agreed, etc. I'm just coming here to see if anyone knows why the denial used that as a reason when Transunion doesn't show any baddies for me at all.

Thanks in advance :-)

[llecs]

Could that creditor have pulled prior to your latest app (e.g. for a CC, checking, savings, loan, whatever)? In other words, maybe they used a prior report pull as a basis for the decision?

If this is your first go around, I'd pull your TU FICO to see if there's something on there that you are being red-flagged for. In the eyes of many lenders, collections = any account 90 days or worse in the past including CAs, COs, and probably PRs. It also depends on where you got your report from. I had some CMSs (seems like TC was an offender) tell me my COs were in positive territory and that certainly wasn't the case.

[Anonymous]

Hmmm..maybe? It was a CLi request. I wasn't aware that they do that. Hopefully it wasn't a hard pull. Transunion is where it was through and that is my highest score (@ almost 700) and absolutely clean (no baddies at all) when I looked at it the other day here on FICO and I just checked it for the free report from a denial and it doesn't show on there, either.

[llecs]

It could be a generic excuse assuming your TU is clean as of today. I once got a $3000 CLD because the OC said I had a recent baddie. I said "prove it"! After being bounced around I finally found someone who admitted that it was a generic response regardless of credit and they restored it. You can always call the OC and ask them to explain that one.

[RobertEG]

It may be that deletion of the debt collector reporting of the collections themselves did not purge your credit file of information that the acount was placed for collection.

When the OC assigns (or sells) delinquent debt for collection, they update their OC account status to report a collection referral.  That is not the reporting of a collection per se, as only the subsequent reporting by a debt collector constitutes an actual collection, but the fact of collection referral may still be reflected in your credit file.  Debt collectors cannot delete the prior reporting made by the OC.

Maybe that is what they were referencing.... it is unclear to me.

You were denied credit by a creditor, not by TU.  They apparently saw something in your TU report that alerted them to prior collection activity. 

I would ask them specifically what they meant by "accounts in collection."