I pit the sad state of U.S. credit reporting, as well as my family (long)

The BBQ Pit
1

I have always been pretty anal about my credit, and for the past couple years, I’ve ordered my free credit reports from the big three so I could check for inaccuracies. When I first did this, I noticed plenty of shit that needed to be cleaned up. The late American Express bills will come off in another 18 months or so. I did that, so while I’m none too pleased with myself for it, at least that crap is mine and I’ve taken ownership of it.

Actually, my credit will be quite good after the Amex shit disappears. That is, it would be if a few nagging things went away.

When I first got my credit report a couple years back, there was this hospital bill in collections from a hospital in my old neighborhood in Manhattan. Years ago, I lived on the Upper East Side in Manhattan and my sister lived a few blocks away in her own apartment. The aforementioned bill was from Lenox Hill hospital, which is the hospital I probably would have gone to in the event of, say, alcohol poisoning from carrying on all night at the local bars. There’s just one problem. I’ve never been to Lenox Hill hospital for ANY reason whatsoever. Moreover, I’ve never received a bill from Lenox Hill hospital to dispute. And now there’s a bill in collections on my fucking credit report.

Let’s pause to explain some relevant detail, shall we?

My dad has the same name as me. He now lives out of state after legally separating from my mom some years ago. My sister and mother now live together in a house on eastern Long Island. Two years ago, when I first discovered inaccuracies on my credit report, I sent out a “WTF?” e-mail to Dad, Mom and Sis, asking if anybody knew anything about the hospital bill or a mysterious Lord & Taylor department store credit card that was somehow in my name despite the account being opened up when I was, oh, 11 months old. (I’ll get to that in a minute.)

Everyone responded to this e-mail at the time. Evidently, the hospital bill was the subject of some longstanding controversy between Sis and Dad. Sis went to the emergency room for something stupid. Insurance covered everything but $130 of the bill. Bill came to Sis. Sis ignored it and sent it to my father for payment (she was still under my Dad’s insurance). Dad blew it off. Sis continued to get the bill until she moved and the hospital lost track of where she was. Somehow this shit ended up on my credit report, which is when I assumed the role of person who nags the responsible parties.

So after I got this e-mail response, I knew I wasn’t responsible, and I kept telling Dad and Sis that I didn’t really give a shit who paid the damned thing, just as long as one of them contacted the hospital and paid it. And would they terribly mind letting the collection agency know that I had absolutely fuck all to do with this? And by the way, what the fuck was up with this Lord & Taylor card that somebody opened up in 1973?

Mom’s e-mail response was that she knew precisely nothing about any of this.

Flash forward a year. I get my free credit report again. American Express history has drawn one year closer to never damaging my credit score again. Everything else is in order, except here again is the hospital bill in collections and the mysterious Lord & Taylor card, which doesn’t have a balance but represents a chunk of open credit I’d rather not have attributed to me.

E-mails go out again. I go visit my Dad out of state and mention it to him. He doesn’t have a fucking Lord & Taylor card, and he thought he paid off that hospital bill. I’m going to be buying a house in a few short months. Nagging continues. Nobody pays the hospital bill, nobody knows shit about Lord & Taylor.

I buy a house. Actually, my fiancee (now my wife) buys it, because I have less attractive credit and if we’re both on the mortgage, we get fucked with a higher rate. And since I now she’s the sole responsible party on the mortgage, she’s the sole person on the deed. I now have to pay a lawyer to change the deed, and I get precisely dick with respect to good credit history for the mortgage payment I faithfully lay out 20 days early every month. I am thoroughly pissed, but I get over it.

Flash forward to about a month ago. I get my free credit report. Hospital bill and Lord & Taylor are annoyingly still there. I figure I’ve done enough complaining about this shit and I’ve been more than accommodating with giving family members a chance to take care of bidness. I dispute both through TransUnion, explaining that neither account is mine and that my Dad has the same name as me, so maybe it’s his responsibility. Could the credit reporting agency get these two creditors to check the social security numbers they have on file from these two accounts?

Some time later, I get an e-mail from TransUnion. I click on the link. Lord & Taylor is gone. Hooray! TransUnion says, however, that there is “new information” on the hospital bill. I click. Nothing had changed. There’s not even an explanation as to what TransUnion did to try to clear this up. So not only do I not get this thing off my credit report, but I don’t even get an explanation of why it’s though that I’m still responsible.

Last weekend, I’m hanging out in my Mom’s kitchen. She’s opening her mail. She opens one envelope to discover… A shiny new replacement for her Lord & Taylor credit card! I watch as she opens her wallet, takes out the old Lord & Taylor card with the 1973 date on it, and replaces it with the shiny new one. WTF!!!

The explanation I get? “I never carry a balance on it, so you shouldn’t worry.”

Mystery solved. Thankfully, the shit’s been wiped off my credit record. I can’t wait for Lord & Taylor to discover that the responsible party disputed the account and for them to send a letter to my mom, canceling the shit out of her account. That will just be precious revenge for 2+ years of lying that this card even existed in the first place.

Last night, I get home and get the mail. Here comes a letter from the collections agency from the hospital, saying essentially “Fuck you, pay me.” No acknowledgement of the dispute whatsoever. Next step is that the bill goes to legal. The unwritten subtext, of course, is “Thanks for disputing, motherfucker. Now we have your new address.”

You know what? This system fucking sucks. I’ve done nothing wrong. And yet, I’m wasting incredible amounts of time, effort and money trying to convince three fucking companies I’ve never done business with that the data they collect on me is inaccurate. It’s like entrusting your reputation to a tabloid newsweekly. How the hell did this burden of proof shift? Meanwhile, the three credit reporting agencies are happily sending me e-mail asking me to pay more money so I can get my credit score, while they flagrantly ignore the accuracy of the data that make up that score. Thankfully we don’t have to pay money to get our credit reports once a year.

And you know what? Having family that won’t own up to their responsibilities kinda sucks, too. I’m torn - my Dad’s bills should have fuck all to do with me. Because some credit reporting agency can’t distinguish between two people with the same name, I now have to nag him to pay his bills on time because his payment history can and will affect mine, and directly affect the notion of whether I pay tens of thousands of dollars worth of interest over the course of my life. I shouldn’t have to do any of this.

2

Actually, I have to say that the blame for this problem falls squarely, and almost entirely, on your family.

The reporting companies are simply doing what they’re supposed to, reporting what they are told by creditors. The creditors are reporting what they think is correct. One item is wrong, and they should rightfully fix it. The other item is simply identity fraud perpetrated by your mother, I can’t blame L&T for that.

The reporting companies can’t be very debtor friendly about changing the report, because folks like your family will happily take advantage of them to get out of being responsible borrowers.

Now that the hospital has established direct communication with you, maybe you can redirect them to your dad.

3

THespo, I feel for you. I would suggest filing an FTC complaint. I’ve tried to resolve a problem with respect CardAccessServices.net in regards to their on-line payment web-site. It’s been down for the past month, but to actually talk to someone (the number listed on the credit card statement only gives the balance due, payment date, and payment address–no humans here), required a Google which told me that I was not alone in my complaint and found a phone number.

With a new customer service number, I talked to an possible human (as you will see, the skepticism was justified). I told them I tried to pay the bill on-line, but the server wasn’t showing up (I assumed something was amiss with the company firewall so I had my wife and father in different parts of the country try accessing the site–no luck). The lady in the office told me she had no problem, so I elaborated by telling her I had tried accessing/pinging the web-site from three different computers, in three different locations in the US and recieved no response. They kept telling me that I was doing something wrong, because if they could access the site, they everyone could. :smack:

I told them that perhaps they had access via the intranet as opposed to the internet, and that the internet portion wasn’t working. Not willing to admit that this information exceeded their cognitive abilities, they stonewalled me by saying, “but it does work sir, I can access at my computer.” I gave up and filed a complaint with the above link. I’m not sure if it will make any difference, but at least I could complain to someone in authority.

In closing, it is my sincere wish, First Consumers National Bank, that lot of you end up as eternal patrons of First Contraposse National Bank of Cocytus, locate in the Ninth Circle of the Inferno dealing with their customer service department…

4

One comment on the OP.

The one thing I dislike about this system is the burden of proof change.

For example, say I say Thespos owes me money. He says he doesn’t. It would normally be up to me to drag him into court and show that he does, in fact, owe me money.

However, I don’t need to do this if I can affect his credit report. I can just report to the agencies that he owes me money and hasn’t paid. It is then up to him to convince a ‘non-court’ corporation that owes no allegiance to him (because ‘I’ am the customer of that corporation) and if he needs to buy a house or something he is stuck.

Now, if I say he owes me a gazillion dollars, he won’t pay. If I say he owes me $263.43, he may just have to pay it to smooth over buying a house even though he didn’t owe it.

I don’t like it. It seems to bypass the legal system. I am not a lawyer…but it just seems ‘not right’ to me.

5

In Colorado, all you need to do is obtain a Quite Claim form and have your wife quite claim 50% to you and record the deed.

6

Here is what you must do:

Dispute the collecton account exactly like this:

“Collection #1234567 = NOT MINE - I AM A MIXED/CONFUSED FILE WITH MY FATHER, PLEASE VALIDATE SSN”. That dispute will require that the collection company return the SSN they have on file, and if it doesn’t come back to the credit reporting agency or doesn’t match, they agency WILL delete it.

Also, please tell me the name of the collection agency. It can help.

Do it by phone to make sure they enter it as a mixed/confused file dispute: call TransUnion at 1 800 916 8800. Wait time is less than a minute.

7

I had a similar problem with a completely different outcome. The first time I got my credit reports, they were filled with errors. I supposedly had credit cards that were issued before I was born, I was married to my ex-stepmother and all kinds of crap like that. This problem spanned all three credit reporting agencies. I called them up, explained the problem, and they transferred me to a special department that dealt with name issues. All three agencies just had me go down the list and say which ones were inaccurate then they hit the DELETE button. It was sweet because I couple really were mine and it didn’t seem to matter to them. I went from terrible credit to stellar credit in a couple of hours.

That was 8 years ago and things might have changed but your situation doesn’t sound right. I agree that you need to contact the agencies and dispute the charge with all 3 agencies. The hospital has to provide evidence that it is accurate after that happens. That may work with the other two if it didn’t work with Trans-Union and lots of creditors just use one reporting agency so it would still improve your situation.

8

Okay, some clarity as to what’s happening here.

I spoke with the collections agency early this morning. Upon revisiting the website, I found that the status of the debt with the hospital had changed and it will now be removed.

As best as the rep I spoke to could tell, the dispute resolution caused them to reach out to the next person they thought might be the person who owed the money, which turned out to be me (again) at my new address. I don’t know if I buy this. Regardless, the thing will now be expunged and I can go merrily about my business. Hooray!

One thing that ticked me off about the collection agency, though, is they don’t seem to care whose credit they wreck. Once I explained that it wasn’t me, and they saw that the SS#s on their records didn’t match, they were happy to annotate my file. But the second I asked for a letter or something I could have for my file, the rep got really snotty.

From what I can ascertain, this will now move to the next person down the line who most closely resembles THespos in their data file. And it will fuck up their credit until they dispute it, too.

And that’s another example of what bugs me about this whole thing. It’s the notion that BlinkingDuck expressed so well earlier. The consumer is now in the position of having to spend time and money proving that he doesn’t owe somebody money. It’s this shift in the burden of proof that bugs me.

In my book, you impugn my reputation, you fix it. If you say I owe you money, and it turns out I don’t, you should be the one setting the record straight, not me.

9

Maybe I misunderstood you, but are you saying you had the credit agencies delete accounts that were legitimately yours? :dubious:

THespos, next time, don’t mess with your family. Dispute any wrong things on your own with the credit agencies. It doesn’t appear that your family cares enough to help you fix their errors.

10

My mom has been getting a call from a collections agency nearly every day for at least five years now. They claim that she opened a Target credit card account (which is laughable, if you know my mom), bought something, and won’t pay. She spent the first few months asking them simply to tell her what she is supposed to have bought, and the won’t or can’t tell her. So she’s told them she’s not ever going to pay. It’s a standoff now. They’ve threatened to ruin her credit. She laughed. My parents have a couple of cards that have no credit limit because their credit is so good. They bought their last house and their last half dozen cars with cash. She told them to go ahead and ruin it, since they’ll never need it again. I envy my parents somewhat.

11

Wow. You weren’t kidding. That was long.

12

One thing I discovered about my credit report: my payment plans to the IRS/State tax board don’t show up.

I was surprised to discover this when I applied for a new car loan. I’m shelling out a bunch of money every month to cover my '06 taxes, but it doesn’t show up on on any of the Big 3. I chose not to correct the database(s).

My credit score is 803. I always pay ALL my bills on time, including the ones that don’t show up on Equifax. “Make the system work for you” has always been my motto. I’m honest to a fault, but not stupid enough to ruin my credit score.

13

Well, I don’t think there’s anything to correct, as I don’t think your IRS payments would be reportable under the circumstances. I don’t know anything about the inner workings of the IRS, but (a) I don’t think your taxes count as consumer debt, and (b) it doesn’t sound as if you declared bankruptcy (which *would * show up on your credit reports). Also, if you’re paying on your '06 taxes, ISTM that you asked for a payment arrangement in pretty quick order instead of dragging things out until you were in danger of being declared a tax deadbeat (and I don’t know if the IRS reports even deadbeats to the credit bureaus).

I’ve had payment plans with the IRS a couple of times, and it never once occurred to me that they might report something like that the Big 3.

14

I recently got one of my free credit reports and I was a bit annoyed by a couple things. I am showing up having 2 SSNs because my stupid mortgage company at one point messed up my SSN bu changing the first digit. This was human error on their end, someone entered it wrong. As soon as I saw it on my statement I called them and had them correct it but now it looks like I did something shady by having two SSN numbers.

For some reason a couple of old CC companies, I no longer have cards with them they were closed out by bankruptcy, keep checking my credit about once a month for the past several months. What’s up with that, can they check your credit unsolicited?

15

I sympathize, but with all that’s at stake – getting your credit in good shape, etc. – did you ever consider just paying the $130? I know, it’d be like rewarding the collection agency for ineptitude, but you’d reach your goal more quickly.

16

Yes – that’s how they decide who to send credit offers to. Fortunately, unsolicited pulls of your report do not affect your credit score.

17

I have a question.

Credit agencies track data on individuals, and if they get it wrong, that can adversely affect the individual’s ability to get credit, especially on significant purchases like homes. Often times, the procedures to correct mistakes is a Sisyphean nightmare, and I’ve heard of instances where the credit agencies don’t change the records to reflect accurate information.

Is it possible under those circumstances to sue the credit agencies for defamation of character? Or perhaps, could a person realistically expect some sort of resolution by suing for defamation of character?

18

Ethics questions aside, the answer to your question is yes, I was transefered to some type of “family name confusion department” for all three agencies. They basically gave me the right to delete whatever I wanted from my credit reports as long as a gave a two sentence explanation regarding why the entry was incorrect. The answer “I have never lived close to there. That must belong to my father” was good enough for all three agencies. Please DELETE. They also told me that I was in the name confusion database and that I should call if such a problem should happen again.

The accounts in question were utility bills that I didn’t know how to follow up on when I moved from undergraduate school to graduate school 2000 miles away. I had no idea that I owed any money yet I had a graduate school secretary frantically chase me down in grad school because a lawyer called. It seems I owed $38,75 for my previous phone service in New Orleans even though I didn’t even live there during the period in question and they were lying and abusive.

Given the opportunity, I had no problem saying that I lived 2000 miles away at the time it went to collections and please delete that record. All three agencies complied with one easy phone call. I believe in paying the money I owe and have perfect credit now and I refuse to play trash reindeer games.

19

Nope, paying the $130 wouldn’t have allowed him to reach his goal more quickly, because even though the account’s status would’ve (theoretically) been changed to reflect that the debt had been paid, the fact that the account had gone into default would still remain on his credit report for seven years.

And this–on top of the $130 he’d have lost–for an account that wasn’t his to begin with.

20

Here in Canada, I was led to believe every time you query your credit report, it slightly reduces your credit score - for example, every time you apply for some credit of any kind or every time you find out what your credit score is. Is that not the same in the U.S.? Or is just such a small hit that you don’t need to worry about it?