30 Days? Yah, Right!

Well, as of October 24, 2005, I had been monitoring my credit for over 30 days with no apparent corrections or changes to the Sherman/LVNV account. At this point, I decided to write another dispute to the credit bureau, figuring that my dispute fell on deaf ears.

Up ‘til now I’d been conducting more online research on credit reporting and was armed with a bit more information. I found out that although the Sherman/LVNV account appeared as a duplicate, that it was the WAY that they were reporting that was causing it to appear as a duplicate.

For one, they were reporting a pay history, and reported me 120 days late in March and April of 2003. For another, they were reporting that the account was currently “Open”, and they had reaged the date of last activity to 08/1999, instead of 07/1999. And lastly, they were reporting their account as a “Factoring Company Account”, and a LOAN to boot. Their account was also appearing as an "OTHER" account on my credit report (as opposed to being located in the collections section of my credit report) and the balance was counted against my available credit balance, which was DEFINITELY not right.



So, I figured another dispute to pinpoint specific problems with the account would be in order. I logged online to www.equifax.com and submitted an online dispute. Among my disputes, I included the fact that the account should be reporting as CLOSED, that the date of last activity should be reporting as 7/1999, and that these guy were NOT a factoring company, they were junk debt buyers. I hit the send button on my dispute and wait some more...

Debt Collectors Fight Back Dirty

Okay, I took a while off to spend time with my family over the holidays, but I'm back in full force.

Before I continue with my story, I wanted to let everyone know about a serious miscarriage of justice that an online acquaintance of mine has run into.

Paul has been attacked for years from collectors and has now armed himself with the wits to battle violators of federal and state debt collection laws. His most recent opponent, Accounts Recovery International, has apparently violated debt collection laws on more than a few occasions. After being personally served with his intent to file a lawsuit against them, they decided to retaliate and file harassment charges against him and have him arrested. You can read his story here at http://aribwk.blogspot.com/.

What I want to know is how a consumer who fights back within the boundaries of the law can be construed as a harasser. What message is then sent to consumer who choose to fight back? I'm rooting for you Paul!