Win Some and Lose Some

Anonymous · ‎01-25-2011

Earlier this month I joined the good fight here and received some amazing advice to which I thank all of you for. Now to report what I've been working on and where I am now:

Successes:

RJM Aquisitions - PFD (They settled for half)

West Asset Management - PIFD

DTE/NCO collections - PFD (Settled for 70%)

NCS Collection - PIFD

I'm happy those few baddies will soon be off and gone. But, I am left with a few other baddies that range in time from 2005 to 2007 and are fully paid off that I'm not sure about. I was wondering if anyone has had any luck with goodwill letters to the following places:

American Eagle, HSBC, Capital One, Target, Chase, Citi Bank, Portfolio Recovery, and Midland Credit Management.

Citi Bank actually only has 2 late payments reported before I closed with them but American Eagle, HSBC, Cap One, and Target were charged off the collection agencies mentioned with bad payment histories.

Lastly, I received a judgement from Capital One which has since been paid and settled and the way the letter reads that they sent me it sounds like they might actually be deleting the derogatory information from my account with all four reporting agencies they use. My question is, another board member mentioned I could ask the attorney of Capital One in the judgement to have the judge vacate the judgement now that it is settled. The judge who signed the order is actually my boss, I work for lawyers and prosecutors. I'm wondering if I shouldn't just talk with her myself, or do I -have- to contact the original attorney for capital one?

Anonymous · ‎01-26-2011

I'm no lawyer, but I'd think it wouldn't *hurt* to ask her how she would treat that or if there's a route by which you could get it done. I don't think you can, I looked into it myself. I *was* able to get a judgment off of my EQ report by using a letter from the infamous HIPAA program author (she has other stuff on that site if you poke around a little). It didn't work with the other two. The idea is you look at the info on your credit report and compare it to the real info you have and if you find a discrepancy you ask for follow up info from the CRAs. I had the wrong court listed, in one way or another, on all three. Courts themselves (at least in my case) don't report to the CRAs, a third party does it. I don't remember all the details, actually. You should check that site, though, if you get bad news from your boss. Another poster a while back had luck by talking to one of the clerks at the courthouse - she (the clerk) was outraged by the idea that it was reporting and was able to "fix" it for the poster.

Anonymous · ‎01-26-2011

Thank you for the information, I'll absolutely look into that.

Anonymous · ‎01-26-2011

I just realized I forgot to mention, I'm also in MI, so I was looking at the laws for here.

Anonymous · ‎01-26-2011

Yeah so far from what I've experienced Michigan is a little iffy, every now and then someone will actually be a stickler on the SOL but I've been lucky enough to mostly get people willing to delete.

I actually have one baddie left that I'm not sure about. It is a collection for a hospital bill from 2006 for $157. It is the only outstanding collection now that I've gone through my whole report and taken care of everything.

I was wondering, do I follow the HIPPA process even though it is in collection with a CA, or does that only apply if the Hospital held the debt? I want to just get it PIFD, it's old so I'm not sure how much it would impact my scores.

Anonymous · ‎01-26-2011

If you follow the HIPAA process, you deal with the hospital, period. You have no contact with the CA.

I had some with UMHS that I used the HIPAA process for. I did something dumb and contacted BOTH CAs (LJ Ross for the older items, UCB for the newer) but didn't get a satisfactory answer from them. Then I did go through the HIPAA process. TU deleted all medical items, even one that wasn't UMHS, with my pre-HIPAA letter for the UMHS items. EQ and EX verified. I paid off the UCB items (UCB was assigned, I guess) with UMHS, but they wouldn't take payment for the LJ Ross ones. I then sent the OC letter with payment for the LJ Ross items. UCB updated balances to 0 and added a "paid" one that they hadn't previously reported to TU as well. LJ Ross came off all of my reports. I wrote a modified letter to TU about the new item, which they dropped. UMHS responded to the follow up letter that the matter was transferred to another department, and then I got an additional letter saying that they were within their rights to keep it on my reports and were in compliance with HIPAA. YMMV. The next step was to send the complaint to OCR, which I didn't do. I still have UCB on EX and EQ and LJ Ross is gone from all of my reports.

Anonymous · ‎01-26-2011

Unfortunately I have UCB to deal with on one and Russel on the other.

I want to attempt with Russel and I might as well try UCB myself but I got the same answer you did in a phone conversation because the $65 debt was from 2006 and I didn't pay until 2010.

I'm confused with the letters thugh, I do I send the pre hippa letter to the health care provider first? and then do I send letters to the CRA's AND the CA? Or just the Health Care Provider? Been researching this all morning.

I also got the process started on getting that judgement vacated for Cap1.

Anonymous · ‎01-26-2011

The pre-HIPAA letter is sent to the CRAs. She tells you to whom to send each letter on her site. (I don't know if anyone else has this bias, but I think whychat's a female individual, so I refer to said individual as "she")

UCB told me over the phone that it was "policy" to "delete upon payment" because "we have to". They wouldn't put it in writing. They never responded to my PfD. I've seen other people say they've had success with them. 2006 isn't hurting you so badly anymore, though. I have about a 20 point difference between EQ and TU. UCB is on EQ but not TU, but I have other differences, too.