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2008 - 2009 FCRA - FDCPA violations

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Trans Union FICO score up by 81 points after DATE CLOSED correction - TU subjects client to ID theft

Trans Union is just so incredibly screwed up. 

It LOOKS like they retaliated against my client by changing her address to her OLD address from over a year ago.  However, I’m 99% sure that this is the NORMAL Trans Union incompetence.

Nobody in their right mind would run a database with IMPORTANT data like the credit bureaus—without ANY automated error checking whatsoever.

Anyone with half a brain and a conscience would ensure that addresses are only changed when reported by a CURRENT creditor with an active account or upon notice by the consumer.

Apparently there is NO error checking at all. 

Here is my fax to Trans Union:

To: Trans Union

Via fax to [redacted] – 3 pages

November 14, 2007

Re: Power of attorney [redacted] – TU file # [redacted]

To Whom It May Concern:

Attached is my client’s power of attorney.

Your 10/25/07 notice to me states that Trans Union sent the investigation results directly to my client.  However, my client did not receive the results and she finally ordered her new myFICO report on 11/6/07.

Trans Union CHANGED the address on the credit report to an OLD address!

1) Please immediately correct the address.

My client’s 10/4/07 TU myFICO report had the CORRECT address.  In September 2006, she moved to:

[redacted]

Please also mail your investigation results to this address.

2) Why did Trans Union change the address to an OLD address?

My client has many open accounts and all creditors should have my client’s correct current address.

If a creditor changed her address, please provide the contact information.

3) Please provide my client’s CORRECT address to all recipients of her INCORRECT address and especially to any entities that may be sending pre-approved credit offers to the incorrect old address.

The post-office forwarding order expired almost a year ago and Trans Union is subjecting my client to ID theft by selling her consumer credit data with the incorrect address to potential creditors.

Please implement procedures to prevent address changes to OLD and obviously incorrect addresses.

4) Please explain how the discharged Capital One account Date Closed was deleted.

The Trans Union credit report now contains the correct Date Closed.

The Trans Union FICO score increased by 81 points to 698.

Trans Union previously corrected this date in response to our dispute.  What happened?

Will it be deleted again? 

Does my client have to continually purchase Trans Union credit reports? 

Is Trans Union going to reimburse my client for her time and expenses, including my fee?

I hope it doesn’t take a lawsuit to get substantive answers.

Sincerely,

Christine Baker

c: posted at [this URL]

I do NOT expect a meaningful answer nor do I expect that Trans Union will implement procedures to prevent incorrect credit reporting and incorrect addresses.  And I certainly don’t expect Trans Union to reimburse my client for her costs. 

Credit bureaus NEVER pay for THEIR mistakes unless they’re sued.

YOU get to pay for THEIR mistakes.

YOU have to waste your hard earned money on credit reports. 
YOU have to waste your precious time on reviewing reports. 
YOU have to pay for my services.
YOU will pay higher interest and insurance rates. 
YOU will get declined and lose opportunities. 
YOU have a great chance at getting a divorce, ending up in foreclosure and/or getting cancer from the stress over continual credit and financial problems.

That’s what they call justice and fairness in America - “the greatest country in the world.”

My client lives in Virginia and if one of the many attorneys reading here is interested in representing my client, please contact me.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Equifax fails to investigate and fails to relay factual disputes to collectors

I’ve previously posted how Equifax often doesn’t forward the disputes to creditors at all and merely states in the investigation results that negative accounts are reported for 7 years, as it did in this case with two LVNV collections.

My client’s dispute:

LVNV 2 accounts - please delete both accounts as the debts became delinquent over 7 years ago.

The Equifax investigation results:

Adverse accounts that have been paid in full will automatically be deleted seven years from the date of last activity.

Where are the consumer attorneys?  It makes me so angry that Equifax gets away with these blatant FCRA violations.

Fortunately, LVNV apparently decided to delete after receiving my client’s dispute. Both accounts had been reaged after my client made the mistake of signing up for credit counseling in 2000.

Now I’m finding that Equifax also FALSIFIES factual consumer disputes:

My client disputed a paid medical collection:

…—please delete this account, it was assigned to collections in error as it was a [insurece company] insurance claim.

The Equifax investigation results:

Equifax verified that this account belongs to you. Equifax has verified that this account is being reported correctly.

Does anyone see my client dispute that it’s not his account or that it’s reported incorrectly?

My client contacted the collector and now has a letter stating that it is to be deleted.  As it happens millions of times, insurance companies don’t pay in a timely manner, doctors screw up the billing, whatever the reason, medical bills are often assigned to collectors prior to payment by the insurer. 

And even if the sick person pays eventually because the insurance didn’t cover everything or because they finally earned enough to pay the unexpected medical bill, is that really a reason to destroy peoples’ lives, to force them into subprime loans, to cause foreclosures, divorces and illness?

Fair Isaac’s FICO scores do NOT give you a single score point for paying collections.  A single $5 collection (yes, I’ve seen $5 collections) can destroy your flawless credit rating, whether you pay it or not—and turn you into a deadbeat.

The 2nd Equifax dispute draft:

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Proof that Experian ILLEGALLY sells consumer credit data for less than $1

Today I got some junk mail from IMC List Services.

From http://www.imclistservices.com/listsvcs/:

Since all successful campaigns start with good data, IMC List Services provides what is considered to be the best data available. Our Experian relationship enables us to offer Trigger Data, Advanced Select Prescreen Data and much more by using their repository. We are able to offer all of this data with no long term contracts or setup fees. Even a small office can now “run with the big dogs” by having access to the most sophisticated and responsive data on the market.

From http://www.imclistservices.com/listsvcs/trigger.html :

How many of your prospects would turn into funded loans if you knew before talking to them that they met this criteria!Within the last 24-36 hours the prospect had one of these events occur:

1. Mortgage inquiry
2. HELOC inquiry
3. 30 days late on current mortgage
4. Over the limit on a credit card
5. Bank or credit card inquiry

From http://www.imclistservices.com/listsvcs/Select.html :

Proven over the years Experian’s Advance Select credit and demographic database can deliver qualified and interested borrower’s for your loan officers to close. There are over one hundred criteria to select from and the actual Experian credit score appears on the lead. Typical criteria selects include:Homeowner has credit score of 525 or higher

Homeowner has $10,000 in revolving debt

$75,000 minimum mortgage balance

Mortgage seasoned at least 1 year

View a sample “lead”

The FCRA allows creditors to obtain this info for a FIRM offer of credit to consumers who did NOT opt out of promotional offers.  This has NOTHING whatsoever to do with a firm offer of credit: 

Experian is selling LEADS.

They don’t even pretend anymore that they comply with the FCRA, they feel so safe in our corrupt system.  An offer to extend credit is not mentioned ANYWHERE on this site.

The bought and paid for Congress removed the private right to sue for these FCRA violations with the FACT Act and the corrupt regulators who are now the sole enforcers do NOTHING to enforce the FCRA.

Do I need to point out that the LOW SCORERS are targeted?

People with financial problems are the banksters’ most profitable customers.  That’s why Experian does whatever it can to ensure that the credit reports contain as much false data as possible.

If any readers have access to more info (is IMC an Experian company?) and especially PRICING, please post a comment or contact me privately.

UPDATE:

I had a closer look at the bizarre e-mail, almost everything is in “strike-out” and it’s hard to read.  The leads are sold for “as little as $1” and apparently they are RESELLING the credit data.

Each month, we ask Experian to monitor all of the people in a given region who fit all of the criteria above. Once monitored, we then ask them to immediately deliver any people who have had a mortgage inquiry.

We pay so you don’t have to

We pay extra so you can get trigger records faster than most
We pay more for the appended phone search to help improve your chances of contacting them
We scrub all records against the Federal & State DNC lists.
We challenge you to compare our trigger data and price (as low as $1) with anyone else in the m arketplace.

So they buy the data from Experian, scrub it and then sell the leads to ANYONE who wants to buy.  Just WONDERFUL!

Here is the junk mail, apparently sent by a very low budget spammer:  http://creditsuit.org/images/uploads/2-14-07--IMC-junkmail.pdf

This is so illegal.  I’m sending this URL to Experian’s attorney Marc Carlson with Jones Day at and Michael McCaughan at for comments.  Mr. McCaughan is the sole contact for the IMC domain registration.

And if I don’t get a satisfactory response, I’ll post this issue at http://creditlegislation.org/ and I’ll send my complaint to the FTC.  Not because they’ll do anything, but to be able to DOCUMENT their corruption when I contact legislators.