Re: *Who* has the authority to remove something from my credit report??

Posted by CardReport.Com on October 27, 2000 at 03:07:07:

In Reply to: *Who* has the authority to remove something from my credit report?? posted by pecd on October 26, 2000 at 00:01:56:

First of all, the charge-off is the original phone
service account with the phone company. Only they
could order it removed, and they are probably *not*
going to be interested in doing that, since they
are finished with the debt. The collection agency
does *not* have the ability to remove or change
the original charge-off.

Gulf State Credit may have separately reported this
debt as a "Collection Account," and they can change
or even delete that item if they really want to.
But the usual thing is for a collection account to go
from "Unpaid" status to "Paid" status, and should
then be scheduled to expire seven and a half years
after the date of the original deliquency with the
original creditor (the fact that Gulf State bought
it does *not* give them any legal right to re-age
the item.)

Creditors and collection agencies are resistant to
removing items from credit reports in exchange for
payment, because their contracts with the credit
bureaus may have restrictions against this sort of
thing. The credit bureaus want the true negative
info, without debtors being able to negotiate/buy
their way out of it. A major reason is that such
deletions could cause the consumer to appear to be
less statistically risky than s/he is, thus reducing
the usefulness/value of the information that the
bureau sells to future prospective creditors.

If you are going to attempt to negotiate with a
collection agency for "removal" in exchange for
payment, the approach to take would be to try to
get them to agree to simply fail to confirm the
item if/when you later dispute it with the credit
bureaus.

Regarding dealing with Experian: Just saying that
you never received the bills will *not* be considered
grounds for disputing the charge-off or the
collection account. The only viable dispute would
be that you feel you never owed this money in the
first place, or that you paid off the account before
it became a charge-off, or that it isn't yours at
all.

Follow Ups:

• Thank you SO MUCH for your help! eom pecd 10/27/00 (0)

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