Is this legal?

Question

I had a credit card over 2 years ago. I lost my job, so I called them and made a deal (yes it was in writing) about my payments. They did not hold up their end of the deal, ended up charging off my card, and then turned me over to a collection agency for the remaining balance. Last January (2006) was the last time they reported a negative on my credit report and they turned me over to collections. I look today (3/17/2007) and within the past 2 weeks, they have entered negative reportings since the last one up to now. Is this even legal? They didn't report for over a year, sent me to collections, charged-off the account, and now reporting me negative? I know that the last negative (Jan. 2006) will stay on there for 7 years, but the rest after that should be taken off right? I have had no communication with them since they sent me to collections. I entered a dispute through the credit reporting today. My credit report went down over 80 points because of this. Help!

Answer 1

You are dealing with a beast with seven heads. Don't buy anything for seven years. Pay the dept. But you have ruined your reputation. Remember robbing a store or a bank with a gun is illegal. But they are robbing you with a pen. which my friend is perfectly legal. I have a company that came out of the blue. Claiming that in 1991. I charged $900.00 and that they need proof that I paid them. That was 16 years ago. It is now on my credit record. I have no way to prove it because I don't keep records of everything i puchased in my life.

Answer 2

Did you hold up your end of the deal? Obviously not, since they ended up charging your accout off.

They can report or update a tradeline or collection account as often as they want to. Many creditors do not update charged off accounts every month due to the cost. You can try to dispute the items directly with the 3 national bureaus, but the creditor is not required to delete any accurate information.

The statute of limitations is 7 years from the "occurance date," which is the date of the first missed payment which led to the delinquency, so all tradelines on your file should expire at the same time.

By the way, not using credit for 7 years will hurt you even more. You need to establish and use credit responsibly until the item is deleted, or better yet, pay the item, and you can recover even faster!

Answer 3

Hi - The important date on your credit report is the "last activity date". This controls how long it will be on your report (7 years). The last activity date is the last time you paid anything to them. It reages with every payment regardless of size. If you owe them money and you are not making payments, they can charge off the balance and sell your debt to another company. This opens a new collections account on your file and takes down your score. A debt, paid or not for a closed account will fall off your report in 7 years. I can't address the "deal" you made without details. You may have some rights there if you honored the agreement and they didn't. The written agreement is a contract. I use my Pre-Paid Legal membership to address this kind of problem. You can learn more about Pre-Paid Legal from website: www.wfwppl.com - there's a movie that will explain the service. Good luck.

Answer 4

The card company had a deal with you when you signed a contract to get the card. Hardly anyone reads the fine print.
Writing to them means squat. There are two ways to deal with card companies. No.1,and the best, get a loan from a bank to pay off the card. This way you have a person you can go and talk to and make further arrangements with if you are having trouble financially later on. And the rates are lower.
No.2,And the only other way to deal with card companies directly, is to get an attorney to talk to them on you're behalf. They HAVE to deal with you're attorney. Then if need be, he
can help restore you're credit status.

These two methods work equally well also with collection agencies. I would say good luck but if you use either of these suggestions, you won't need it.

Answer 5

I agree with K Hill below. I had a job right out of college for a couple years with a financial institution and sometimes we did collections. People every day were calling with big stories about how everything was confused and we made a mistake and blah blah blah. Then you'd look at their account, and 999 out of 1000 times, they just didn't pay their bills on time, period. That's the bottom line, people, you must pay 100% of your bills on time 100% of the time.

Continue with your dispute and see if you can sort it out or get it removed. In the meantime, still I wouldn't worry about it, just go on ahead, don't stop using credit, you need a good credit history to build your score back up, so just live your regular life and pay your bills on time and you'll be fine.

Answer 6

Sometimes the credit card companies make mistakes. I had a Florida State University credit union Master Card my first credit card in US. Later I acquired other credit cards. When I finished my studies and was leaving US I made it a point to pay all the outstanding debts in full and came off. When I reached back in India and a few months later I started getting letters from the creditu union wanting me to pay some amount not much and they keep reminding me about it every six years or so. Even after 19 years they still do it. I don't know why. They do make mistakes we cannot help it. We are away from the home base.

Answer 7

I had trouble somewhat similar. I had paid off (or thought I paid off) my credit card when I moved. I called on the phone to aks for the most up to date interest and paid extra to to the payment over the phone in order to ensure that there wasn't any additional interest to worry about. I hadn't heard from the company at all for 6 months. No statements, nothing. I called them up to cancel the card because I hadn't used it at all during that period. Well, it turns out that there was $9.14 of interest that wasn't reported to me. So over 6 months of late charges, interest charges, etc. the bill climbed to almost $200.00. I was stuck arguing with the company AND a credit collection agency for two months before I threatened to sue them (between cursing and screaming) for harrassment and usury. It finally got resolved, thank GOD, but those marks still went on my credit for the late payments. I have been very good with my credit since then and I've recovered quickly. I would say your best bet it to try to reason with the original company and just keep asking to talk to the representative's supervisor until you get to someone who can really make a decision. You may have to be a total jerk, or they might work with you, it just depends on who you get. I'd look into legal representation if it is a large sum of money (maybe over 5K).

Answer 8

Not enough info. Did they promise to not report the aging of your account? or did they promise to report you as 'satisfactory? or 'as agreed?' And most importantly, have you held up your end of the bargain - every payment received, not sent by the due date? If they promised not to report the aging and you've made your payments as agreed to then you should contact an attorney.

Answer 9

If it's all the same credit card, there should only be one negative report. They aren't allowed to put two or three different negatives on there for the same bill.

Dispute all of them and make them prove why they have it on there several different times.

Answer 10

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