Collection Deletion Times by Bureaus

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

I have been trying to build up my credit to buy our first house after our rental was struck by lightning in the fall. In January I had two collections appear within a few days of each other. The first was the electric bill for the month after the fire, which wasn't even more than 2 months old.  The second was a gas bill from our old apartment 2 years ago after we moved out and the landlord was supposed to take care of it. I went ahead and paid both thinking that was the best thing to do. I contacted both collection agencies to ask them to delete them, which both refused to do, they just said they reported them as paid. I then contacted the OC utility companies and they both said they would ask the respective CAs to delete them from my report. My LO suggested I also dispute them with the bureaus based on the circumstances with the fire. EX deleted both within 24 hours. TU and EQ are still investigating, about 10 days in of the 30 allowed.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience with one of the bureaus acting quickly while the other take the full time, and if all the bureaus reached the same conclusion or not? We have a house we want, and the selling agent keeps calling our agent to let us know the sellers are "very motivated" so just trying to get an idea of what my chances are of this taking less than the full 30 days. I only need one of the other bureaus to delete them to get my mid score where I need it to qualify.

[gdale6]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Hi All,

I have been trying to build up my credit to buy our first house after our rental was struck by lightning in the fall. In January I had two collections appear within a few days of each other. The first was the electric bill for the month after the fire, which wasn't even more than 2 months old.  The second was a gas bill from our old apartment 2 years ago after we moved out and the landlord was supposed to take care of it. I went ahead and paid both thinking that was the best thing to do. I contacted both collection agencies to ask them to delete them, which both refused to do, they just said they reported them as paid. I then contacted the OC utility companies and they both said they would ask the respective CAs to delete them from my report. My LO suggested I also dispute them with the bureaus based on the circumstances with the fire. EX deleted both within 24 hours. TU and EQ are still investigating, about 10 days in of the 30 allowed.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience with one of the bureaus acting quickly while the other take the full time, and if all the bureaus reached the same conclusion or not? We have a house we want, and the selling agent keeps calling our agent to let us know the sellers are "very motivated" so just trying to get an idea of what my chances are of this taking less than the full 30 days. I only need one of the other bureaus to delete them to get my mid score where I need it to qualify.

---

A dispute filed with the CRA has to be taken care of within 30 days or less, the only time it can be extended is if you were to file a dispute while a first one was still being investigated then it can extend an addl 15 days. Its not the CRA that makes the decision they are just repositories of info and the creditors are the ones that make the decision whether or not to change anything in the way its reporting or even say to delete it. There is no way to know if they are going to delete or not on these 2 CRAs. If they come back verified I would proceed to write a GW letter to the CEO of the agency who is doing the reporting asking that they be removed. Welcome to the board

[RobertEG]

You are apparently requesting good-will deletion of accurate reporting based on individual circumstances.

Request for voluntary deletion of accurate reporting should be sent to the furnisher, and not the CRA.

The CRA could hold the dispute as frivolous or irrelevant and dismiss without any requirement to conduct any reinvestigation, as it lacks a showing of any inaccuracy in reporting.

It is not unexpected that different CRAs might treat such a dispute differently, as there is no assertion of a factual inaccuracy.

The CRA must make its decision whether or not to forward the dispute to the furnisher and thus proceed with a reinvestigation, or dismiss, and either a dismissal or completion of reinvestigation must be completed within the thirty day reinvestigation period set under the FCRA.

They must then, if they do conduct a reinvestigation, send a Notice of Results of Reinvestigation no later then 5 business days after conclusion of their reinvestigation period.

If they do, as a finding of their reinvestigation, determine that the disputed informaiton cannot be verified, and thus must be corrected or deleted, include a new credit report as an attachment to their Notice of Results that shows that the correction or deletion has actually been made by the CRA.  See FCRA 611(a)(6)(B)(ii).

Thus, if they do delete, it must be completed by the time you receive the Notice of Results of Reinvestigation.

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

I had a similar situation and got the original creditor to agree to remove my account from collections just last week.  The collection agency (Southwest Credit) refused to assist in any way.  The original creditor said the removal may take 30 - 60 days but would expedite in hopes that it would fall off sooner.  I decided to dispute through the bureaus to see if I could force a delete.  Like you, Experian deleted in hours with a simple online dispute.  To my surprise, TU and EQ simultaneously removed the account less than a week later (my bet is that they got notice from the creditor and had nothing to do with my dispute).  My EQ and EXP score went back to what it was before the collection account was added.  For some reason, my TU score didn't reset so I'm hoping something recalculates and my original score is restored soon.  I'm new here but I hope this helps.  Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Thank you @elokeen! I did just look yesterday and they have both been removed from my Transunion report! Equifax investigation is due to be completed by next Wednesday so hoping that they follow suit. I'm going to hold off until after that date and then run my scores again to see where they are.