Case

One sunny morning, Mr. Prob was going out to buy snacks and beverage for a weekend party. Suddenly the phone rang and a irritating voice started yelling at him for not paying his loan back. Mr. Prob was shocked. He has been following a good credit habit and did not fall behind with any payment! He tries to convince the collector that he does not have any unpaid balance. The collector threatened of a lawsuit and hung up. Then he received 10 voice mails from the same collector on the same day asking for a person who he does not know.

Diagnosis

Collectors sometimes make wrong phone calls. But in this case someone else’s credit card account was placed in Mr. Prob’s credit report which made the collector to call him. The matter came to his attention when he ordered a copy of his credit report and discovered the wrong information posted there as a negative mark. It definitely lowered his score.

Possible Remedy

• Contact the creditor immediately and verify.
• Ask the collection agency to remove the wrong entry.
• Dispute the entry with credit bureaus and ask them to remove it.

Outcome

Mr. Prob called the creditor and found them to be very helpful. The representative on the other end confirmed the account not to be owned by Mr. Prob.

Then, Mr. Prob sent out a dispute letter to the credit bureaus. He attached a copy of his credit report with it and pointed out the error on it. He also added a summary of the conversation that he had with the original creditor.

He got a positive response from the credit bureau and the collection item was removed from his file. BTW, he did send out a cease and desist letter to the collection agency that called him as well to settle the case.