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Does Your Credit Report Contain Errors?
If it does then it can cost your thousands of dollars.
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In today's world, your credit rating is important. A positive credit rating is essential for purchasing a home, buying or renting an automobile,
obtaining credit cards, to obtain insurance and some employers even ask permission to review job candidates' credit reports.
Public Interest Research
Group or PIRG conducted a study in 1998
and found that 70% of credit reports contained errors and that 29% of the errors were serious enough to potentially cause denial of credit.
Inaccurate credit reports may be costing you thousands of dollars. Here are some examples:
Automobile Financing
- It you are buying a car and have bad credit it can be costing you $5,000 to $9,000 more just for having bad credit. These cost shows up in higher interest cost and a higher monthly payment. Let’s look what a difference it makes:
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$20,000 car paid over 5 years
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Credit Status
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Interest
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Payment
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Cost of Bad Credit
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Perfect
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10%
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$424.94
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$0.00
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Mildly Damaged
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14%
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$465.37
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$4,722.54
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Damaged
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20%
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$529.88
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$8,593.30
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Home Mortgage The cost is bad enough on an automobile, but it is dramatically higher
when it is a home mortgage. To purchase a $100,000 home it can cost as much as $50,000 to $130,000 over the life of the loan. Let’s take a look.
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$100,000 home paid over 30 years.
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Credit Status
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Interest
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Payment
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Cost of Bad Credit
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Perfect
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7%
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$655.30
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$0.00
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Mildly Damaged
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9%
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$804.62
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$50,155.24
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Damaged
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12%
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$1,028.62
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$130,791.63
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Insurance The insurance companies use your credit reports to determine the premiums
you pay. In short worst your credit is the more you have to pay. You can save hundreds
or even thousands of dollars, by correcting the errors in your credit report.
Credit Cards It can be very difficult to obtained a credit card without giving the creditor
collateral, often in a cash deposit, to secure the debt.. If you can obtain credit then it will
require initial set up fees, account fees and higher interest which in return cost you hundreds of dollars more in interest each year.
Some of the things which may be causing you problems:
Inaccurate or Obsolete information is being reported on your report.
Identity Theft - A major and growing problem where an individual obtains your
credit information and obtains credit under your name. Often an ex spouse or roommate.
Merged Credit File - Another persons credit has been merged into your file.
Excessive Pulls of your credit report by creditors and others.
Insufficent Credit History - Your creditors have failed to report your good credit.
This has become more common as some creditors attempt to keep customers and to prevent customers from becoming over extended.
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How we can help?
We can help you to remove inaccurate and obsolete information from your credit report by using various consumer protections laws. We cannot remove accurate information but
often a settlement can be made with a creditor in which they will voluntarily remove an adverse item. In certain cases where the creditor and/or the does not remove inaccurate
or obsolete information you are entitled to recover damages against the creditor and/or the credit reporting agency.
Unauthorized Use.
Similarly, companies and individuals, including ex-spouses and attorneys, may obtain a consumer report for unauthorized purposes. The FCRA limits the permissible purposes
for which a consumer report may be requested by court ordered access, access on written approval by the consumer, extension of credit, application for insurance or for
government license or permit, or other business purposes. A collection agency may access the consumer report in the course of collecting a debt. Examples of obtaining
consumer reports for unauthorized purposes include: accessing the report for the purpose
of litigation, accessing the report of a political rival, accessing the consumer report for use in support proceedings prior to the entry of judgment without court order, etc.
Deletion of Improper Information.
The FCRA requires the credit reporting agencies to maintain consumer reports to reflect the maximum possible accuracy. Debts older than seven (7) years and bankruptcies
older than (10) years are required to be deleted. The consumer may request the credit reporting agency to reinvestigate. If the entry is not verified or the creditor does not
respond, the information must be removed. The failure of the credit reporting agency to delete obsolete or unverified information violates the FCRA. Also, the reappearance of
such information after removal is likely to violate the Act.
Decline of Credit
If a creditor declines credit to you based on your credit history they are required to let you know the name and address of the reporting agency. If they fail to do so you can recover damages.
We welcome the opportunity to assist our client to insure that the credit reporting agencies maintain accurate credit information which saves them thousands of dollars.
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