Cleaning up your Credit
 

The first step was getting my credit reports. Which I've done.

My FICO is dismal, and I want to raise it.

On my credit report, it lists a credit card under the issuing company, and then again, under the collections agency. This nearly doubles the outstanding balance on my credit report.

Is there a way to make them remove the credit card company or have that balance zero'd out, since the account was given to a collections company?

Reporting it twice as two separate accounts just doesn't seem right to me.


Also, they don't have my correct address or employer, and have that it was last updated in January of 1970.???

All credit reporting agencies are required by law to act on your written clarifications and explanations. You can start by sending your corrections to the agencies involved. Good luck, because many of these agencies do not correct blatant errors for quite some time after you contact them, if ever. Try to get a phone number and call them, ask what they have to receive in order to remove the "double faults" you have. Document every conversation and save the name of the person you talked to.

Right now I am suing the collection agency who did this same thing to me. A medical provider failed to file the insurance info he was given, admitted the mistake to me on the phone, but demanded that I pay the $5,000 anyway. This prevented me from refinancing my house when the rates were so low, so my lawyer believes we have a chance to force THEM to clean up my credit.

I believe the credit beaureaus have 30 days to investigate any corrections you ask for. If they don't do this, they are punishable by fine of 1000.00. You can sue them. If they don't hear from the creditor or are unable to verify what is on the report they have to remove it...at least this is how it was 3 years ago. I went through the process of cleaning up my credit report back then and was able to raise my score on all 3 reports by about 100 points. I wrote them some letters and sent via certified mail. It took about 4 months or so, but it was worth it at the time. I had a ton of collections stuff on there. There is a lot of info out there, but beware of "credit repair" agencies and "credit counseling" services. They may do more harm than good.

There use to be a good forum out there called creditreportrights.com, but I think it is gone, now. I haven't found anything that good, since. Probably got shut down, because people were finding a way around the system. :ninja: