Called Experian to Re-Dispute Several Items After Filing Police Report. Items already Removed?

[Anonymous]

I posted a short while ago about my struggles to get fraudulent items removed from my CRs. I was really trying to avoid dealing with the police mostly because I'd moved to a new area since the fraudulent accounts were opened (2 years ago, but only found out a few months ago.)

Anyway the advice was to go ahead and file a police report, which I did do.

I called Experian today to re-dispute the fraudulent items. I'd already been interacting directly with the collection agencies, sending certified letters in an attempt to get them to remove the items, which worked in some cases but not in others.

The Experian fraud person took all of my info and said she was going to contact the collection agencies to let them know about the new dispute. She said I may need to send Experian a copy of the police report and gave me a web address to do so (experian.com/uploads). I said I'd do it tonight when I got home from work. She said it could take 30 days for the dispute to be resolved.

However in less than two hours I got emails saying the disputes were completed and the result was that the items had been removed! Does this mean that the collection agency finally conceded to remove the items, and I've finally won this battle?! I can't view an updated copy of my experian report because I just pulled a new copy this morning, but... it seems too good to be true/too easy, after all I already went through!

[RobertEG]

The FCRA dispute process and the FCRA identity theft process are entirely different.

Filing of a dispute (FCRA 611) involves a showing of an inaccuracy in reporting, and referral to the furnisher of the information for their investigation and response back to the CRA.  The CRA then, considering all evidence before them, makes a final determination ("reinvestigation") and sends the results to the consumer.  

Filing of an assertion of identity theft backed by a copy of a police report does not involve any referral to the furnisher, or any input from the furnisher.  It is based totally on the sworn statement of the consumer in the police report, and permits block of the information without any resolution of a dispute.  See FCRA 605B.

I would suspect that the CRA, notwithstanding the comments made by the CRA clerk, ended up treating the police report under the proper identity theft provisions of section 605B rather than the dispute and referral process of FCRA 611, and blocked the information from your credit report rather than deleted the information based on a completed reinvestigation.

If the CRA had actually deleted based on a completed dispute reinvestigation, they would have been required to send a formal Notice of Results of Reinvestigation, along with a revised, free copy of a credit report evidencing they had actually deleted the disputed information.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for that information.
I spent two hours!!!! on the phone with Experian being bounced from department to department until I figured out what's going on.

I guess when you file a fraud dispute, in addition to disputing the information for the actual accounts, they also dispute any soft inquiries that may exist on your credit report relating to those creditors. Since these don't really affect your score, the creditors/collectors tend to agree to let those be removed immediately.

Thus 15 removal notices came rushing in to me regarding items I didn't even know had been disputed or even existed. I guess collectors and debtors occasionally check into your report with soft inquiries. Whoopee.