Posted on 02/03/2009 5:59:54 AM PST by shove_it
A mistake on your credit report can cost you literally thousands of dollars, especially in this economy. So what can you expect from a big credit bureau if you ask them to investigate and correct the error?
The answer, for many consumers: About 50 cents worth of effort, conducted by offshore workers at third-party firms. That’s just one of the findings from SmartMoney’s investigation into why credit-report errors continue to pop up so frequently—and why consumers often have so much trouble getting them fixed.
To follow what one consumer advocate calls an “electronic hot potato,” SmartMoney pieced together a depiction of the dispute process through information from trial depositions, internal company memos and the bureaus’ own employee manuals—much of which the bureaus and their trade group subsequently confirmed. The process may be efficient, but it remains a mystery to most consumers, and a source of bitterness for some.
[...]
But while consumers might assume that each bureau employs an army of dedicated sleuths who carefully investigate and correct errors, all the bureaus actually process most disputes using a system that’s almost entirely automated—and where human beings are involved, they’re often working at a harried pace. The bureaus say the system, dubbed with the Muppety acronym e-OSCAR, is the most efficient way to handle the more than 20,000 disputes a day they receive. In practice, most complaints are electronically zapped straight to the lender, and according to consumer advocates, many lenders respond by simply rereporting the erroneous data.
[...]
(Excerpt) Read more at smartmoney.com ...
from what I heard ... the credit bureaus get paid for each neg item they report on a credit report. If true ... it would explain why they are loathe to remove errors. MAJOR overhaul of the credit bureaus is long overdue. There is NOTHING fair about fair issac
I hate credit cards. Scourge of the earth. I cut up the last one I had
just recently. Get rid of them. They don’t play fair.
Pudlo’s thoery of database integrity: the bigger the database, the more likely it is in error and the harder it is to fix it.
Make them FAR more financially accountable for negligence in civil courts.
If the credit bureaus did their job, no one would lend our congress any money.
Lol.
“you heard”?
Thanks for clearing that up. :)
No banking information for any US citizen should ever be allowed to be touched by any foreigner abroad, under any circumstances, ever. The potential for fraud is simply too great, and when it comes to people abroad not just using your credit cards, but screwing with your credit itself, you have zero recourse.
I heard from my good friend ... who happens to be an attorney who specializes in that field ... that better for you ?
Of the three, Experian is the worst of the lot. They do not look at SS numbers from documents, they look at first and last name only.
How do I know? I was being investigated for a security clearance when inquiries about credit problems cropped up.
I have owned a number of homes, bought a few vehicles, all with good credit to my name.
When I finally recieved a copy of the disputes, 19 of 20 were for some other individual with the same first and last name.
It didn't matter the SS# was different, didn't matter the middile name was different, didn't matter that all of them were in areas of the country I have never lived in or co-signed for people I didn't know.
It was MY responsibility to correct the errors created BY Experian.
It has caused much grief in our household as we recieve calls from creditors looking for money on a vehicle that we have never owned or purchased, all in another state we have never lived in.
The headache is there is no relief from this type of arbitrary inclusion into someone elses credit problems, except at your own expense. And when confronted, the company says simply...."tough luck."
A trial lawyer told you?...
Well then, it must be true. :)
Who said trial lawyer
damn.......i have been there before....the other one with my name lived a few miles away ( and my name is not common by any means ) i had calls from banks, loan companies, and i even got calls from girls in the middle of the night ( try and explain that to your wife )...i finally tracked down the guys mom, and calmly explained to her that if her son continues to use my phone number and address ( that is how he got credit and got out of lawsuits ) that i would put a .44 slug in his brain....suddenly, all the crap stopped.....
I’d love to see the outcome of a character defamation suit against a company that publishes inaccurate information knowingly. A few of those with some punitive damages attached mind end this nonsense much quicker than more regulation.
MAJOR overhaul of the credit bureaus is long overdue.
Precisely. Having three different files and credit scores is BS. You should be able to select ONE credit bureau to handle your data, and the others should be forced to purge your information from their files.
It's time to declare war on these bastards.
Fine them. For every incorrect entry on a credit report the “victim” gets $1,000 for defamation, ven if they simply can’t spell right. The only thing companies answer to are financial losses. Hit them where it hurts.
“Why the Credit Bureaus Can’t Get It Right”
I used to manage a Credit Bureau. They used to be ‘local’ and that is one of the problems. They’re too big, too far away. Believe me, when a CB is in the same town, they get the information right because they’re neighbors can find them and when they do they’re not happy.
Like the government, banks, real estate, trade......bigger isn’t always better. We need to take back local control of everything if we want any power in our lives.
>I hate credit cards. Scourge of the earth. I cut up the last one I had
just recently. Get rid of them. They don’t play fair.<
I hate them, too. I use a debit card and checks. Credit cards are truly a rip off.
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