Credit bureau lawyers want account numbers for accounts to be reported
Attorney Cara Hergenroether for Equifax wrote today:
Ms. Baker,
I will look into this. However, could you please send all of us a list of the accounts you believe should be on your credit file? If you have account numbers, that would be especially helpful.
Thanks,
Cara
They all have my credit reports and THEY could have wasted THEIR time to figure out what’s missing.
But of course those PREVIOUSLY REPORTED accounts were not at issue, although I made an effort to identify accounts. The point of my original request is to find out whether the FTC is full of crap or whether we can have accounts added that are NOT reported by creditors and how to go about it.
So here’s my response:
As discussed at the deposition, some of my oldest accounts are being deleted.
The account #s as per TU:
Mervyns GEMB
6045[redacted]JCP GEMB
7687[redacted]FCNB
4071760001947097
5421160101033571
4071760001435929EXPERIAN ISSUES:
HSBC BANK 549109861435....
Why is there no scheduled deletion date?As discussed at the deposition, my open GEMB JCP account is missing. I just got a new report and still don’t see it.
I only see two of the FCNB accounts.
HOWEVER, if you read my email and the FTC publication, you will see that the issue is the reporting of accounts by creditors who do NOT report to CRAs.
For my own as well as my readers’ benefit, I want to know EXACTLY what it takes to get accounts on the credit reports that are NOT reported by the creditors.
It is PATHETIC that I can’t even get the accounts that ARE reported by the creditors on my reports—DESPITE 8 years of litigation.
Christine Baker
It is so aggravating to constantly have to waste your time on this crap. I’m sure you’ve all seen the IRS and other government forms ESTIMATED time complete their forms. We should have something like this for credit bureaus and while the time wasted depends greatly on the number of accounts, I’m guessing that the average person would have to spend at least several hours a month and about $30/month to purchase and review the credit reports.
The trouble is, there’s no point to it because as you can see, DESPITE my many years of litigation, I still can’t get accurate and complete reports. I did get MANY corrections through the litigation, but it’s just AMAZING that they continue to delete POSITIVE accounts.
That’s the amazing part, these accounts are NOT deleted due to disputes, but they just “disappear” without notice.
Credit bureaus claim to report positive accounts for 10 years after the accounts are closed. That is of course totally unfair and can make a 50 FICO score point difference.
Why should you pay higher interest, fees and insurance premiums just because you switched banks and your MOST VALUABLE OLD ACCOUNTS are deleted?
I can’t take the time to routinely compare all positive accounts on my clients’ credit reports, but when account history is critical and we see a big difference in FICO scores for the various CRAs, I often find that a prematurely deleted account is the cause of much lower FICO scores.
There is no law requiring CRAs to report accounts, so you can’t sue for it and expect to prevail. So I recommend to my clients to get Authorized User accounts with a long history if scores are critical.
Don’t believe the Fair Isaac lies about AU accounts being ignored.
Considering the huge amount of time and money required to POSSIBLY and for a SHORT TIME have the CRAs add prematurely deleted accounts, AU accounts are the way to go for people with friends or family willing and able to help.
So all I can do is publicize these issues and motivate (near) judgment-proof people to STOP paying the large banks.
YOU have to CREATE justice.
As I documented literally hundreds of times, you won’t find justice even when you sue—you can only LOSE as a consumer in American courts and it is YOUR responsibility and MORAL obligation to send a message to the banks and politicians.
VOTE WITH YOUR MONEY!
I will of course update here with the attorneys’ responses.
