Fighting with Credit Agencies

During the economic downtown, I fell behind in a few bills. However, I continued to pay my mortgage and was shocked to discover negative actions taken by Bank of America. They misapplied payments to everything but my mortgage and worst failed to notify me of actions they had taken. It was an expensive, time consuming and draining process to rescue my home from their clutches.

As my personal economy recovered, I took steps to repair and clean up my credit. Today, rightly or wrongly as every American knows credit is used in a variety of decisions from home loans, employment and access to services that have nothing to do with extending credit. But most Americans are unaware of their credit profile and 79% have major mistakes on their credit.

The common and most accepted wisdom is for you to fix credit issues yourself and it can be done without involving a third party. But after my experience I do not believe that this is true. My experience with Experian alone was a fine example that most people will need to find a reputable credit repair company. And I cannot underscore the word reputable enough. This is an unregulated industry helping you with a limitedly regulated industry, so referrals are essential.

I found my company Trinity Enterprises LLC through a referral from a respected luminary in the mortgage industry. I was spurred on by several failed attempts to repair my credit myself. I had been armed with proof of payment, letters from the company, and in case of my mortgage BOA—several of their employees had commented that I was eligible for a credit correction. But they quickly noted that BOA seldom makes updates as a matter of policy. In most cases, I had few successes. And was shocked and stunned by a lack of due process review in the credit procedures. Anywhere else, and in a court of law my proof would have been more than sufficient.

Trinity Enterprise demonstrates results almost immediately, as I was an active participant. I read the do’s and don’t carefully, and maintained my payments to my creditors. Prior to contracting with Trinity some creditors had made corrections by me simply calling them due to my payment history with them. One bad period was not the sum of me. But creditors are not the only one dogmatic in their reporting. The bureaus themselves can be obstinate and clearly take positions they should not.

As example, on all three credit bureau reports my Sallie Mae student loan history was listed as defaulted in 2009 and indicated I had not made one payment in that year. This was not only at odds with my record of payments but with Sallie Mae’s. To make matters worse, by September of 2009, I was not even a Sallie Customer due to consolidation but my credit reflected four 120 days late from that day on and a note that the consumer could not be found.

You would have taught that this would be easy to fight. Wrong! Although, armed with letters from Sallie Mae that I forwarded to the credit agencies, I received “sharp and strong “letters from the credit agencies that my dispute of this reporting was frivolous and the information had been verified. One letter from Experian stated outright they saw new reason to investigate the matter further.

Another issue, I had a reported debt that was more than 7 years old from a now defunct company Provident Bank. The company that bought the debt reported it as a new debt. I paid the settlement and in my state that does not reset the clock. This too was a fight to have this item removed although on my conversation with the debtor they freely admitted that this was older then they had records. However, this too was verified and met FCRA according to the note by Experian and Transunion. Equifax did not accept the posting.

It is exhausting to fight these companies. You can be right until the cows come home, you could have receipts, letters, transaction histories and the credit reporting agencies are not inclined to update any information—unless the company itself wants it to be updated. The customer service agents for creditors and bureaus will tell you that fact point blank.

No one has that kind of time, resources and unlimited patience. And moreover it takes a great deal of legal expertise to fight incorrect reporting. The agencies do not delete incorrect data on the merits but on the argument.

The importance of credit in society is disproportionally out of whack in important to what it indicates as far as behavior, which is nothing. Nor does its importance relates to its level of accuracy as it determines many quality of life decision. But every person needs their credit to be favorable. I strongly suggest for anyone who needs to fight the credit reporting agency to hire a reputable company or a lawyer specializing in credit repair. It may make all the difference.