Hi everyone,
My story is that I tried to dispute one negative item on my Experian credit report: I sent a letter with certified-mail-return-receipt saying account was not mine. What I received does not match my idea of what they had to provide me according to FCRA. If anyone could help me by advising what to do further, I would be very grateful to you. Thanks in advance!
Within just a few days of receipt of my dispute, Experian sent me a letter telling that they were investigating that item. The letter contained a report number, which I could enter on their website and thereby see that item "is being investigated". Up to that moment, everything was fine.
Now, It has been around 2 months since then (more than 45 days), and I did not receive any more letters from them. Recently, I decided to check the same report by means of entering its number on Experian webpage - it showed me that the negative item I was trying to dispute remained intact, but has been transferred to "accounts in good standing"! Given that the item lists "charged off account", it does not look as a positive thing for me, so that is definitely not a kind of result I anticipated.
My questions with respect to the aforementioned are:
(1) FCRA 611(a)(6)(A) specifies: "A consumer reporting agency shall provide written notice to a consumer of the results of a reinvestigation under this subsection not later than 5 business days after the completion of the reinvestigation, by mail or, if authorized by the consumer for that purpose, by other means available to the agency". FCRA also further indicates the contents of that notice. As for my case, I was not given any results by mail. Despite I was provided with a report number to check the status online, that fact does not allow Experian to ignore FCRA provisions. Thus, under my consideration, they failed to provide me a "written notice of the results of a reinvestigation" and therefore, the item should be deleted. Do you think it is correct?
(2) Even if that online report considered a notice which Experian was supposed to provide me, it would still lack any information as to whether the item has been verified, amended or found inaccurate. Merely transferring the item from the list of "negative items" to the list of "accounts in good standing" does not correlate with FCRA 611(a)(1)(A), saying that "...the agency shall, free of charge, conduct a reasonable investigation to determine whether the disputed information is inaccurate and record the current status of the disputed information, or delete the item from the file". Since it is said nothing in the new report whether the item was verified, amended, or found inaccurate, I treat it as a violation of the above-mentioned section of FCRA. Again, the questions is whether I am right or not.
I decided to post my doubts here to get an advice regarding what to do further: either to insist that Experian must delete that item, or to do further steps such as verification method etc.
Any help will be much appreciated.
Sincerely,
Need-to-get-out-of-the-bad-credit-history-hell guy.
do you have all your credit reports?
what state are you in?
what is the original creditor and the name of the CA? for this item on EX
what is the date of first delinquency? 30 days after last payment
how about attacking the tradeline owner with a 623?
Thank you for the response. The thing is I need to get an advice regarding exactly this situation, i.e. whether I can insist on deleting a negative item or not.
Anyway, to asnwer your specific questions:
1. I do have all three credit reports;
2. I reside in MA;
3. The original creditor was BoA. I have not started dealing with CA so far;
4. I do not remember exact dates, but it was around 3 years ago.
5. As for 623, I will definitely do that as a next step in case my current situation does not improve.
Does anyone think it would be well-founded to say that Experian failed to comply with FCRA under the circumstances?
Thank you again,
The same guy.
I have never heard of any CRA doing this but I am not sure where it runs afoul of the FCRA.
The SOL in MA is 6 years. Do you still owe this? Is there a CA?
Yes, there is a CA, and yes, I do still owe the debt. I realize I have to deal with CA as a primary creditor now. However, I am trying to dispute things in turn, so I am starting with original creditor, i.e. charged off account.
From my previous experience of disputing with Experian, they mark verified items as "verified". Since the item I am talking about is not marked by anything, I conclude that they have not verified or deleted it, which under my consideration is in violation with FCRA, although I am not completely sure about the exact clause.