Does anyone know if there is a government agency that oversees wrong credit reporting against a person?

Question

My 21 year old son is trying to buy a home, and today he went to a bank to talk about what his options are. He has an excellent job history, but has never had any credit or bills other than for his college courses, phone, utilities, insurance and one credit/debit card. It was quite a shock when the bank produced a credit report that said my son owes over nine thousand dollars in unpaid medical bills! My son has had few medical needs, since his worst incident was a car accident when he was a minor, but that was completely paid by our insurance company. He's had no other major medical need, and on everything else, our insurance or his college insurance covered him. One loan officer also said that even if it is proven in court to be inaccurate or false, it will still always remain there the rest of his life as a blemish on his credit. Does anyone know if there is a government agency that oversees wrong or false reporting against a person? To me, this seems to be libel.

Answer 1

The loan officer was mistaken. If there is incorrect information on your report the credit reporting agencies are required by law to remove it.

First your son needs to get a copy of his credit report. He is allowed 1 free one from each of the 3 main agencies(Equifax, TransUnion, Experian) per year. He will need go to http://www.annualcreditreport.com to do this.

Once he gets the report he needs to dispute any invalid information with the CRA. Do this by having him send a certified letter stating that he does not beleive that the debt was his and wants to see proof of the debt. If they are unable to verify the debt by law they must remove it.

If they do validate he will need to find the company that has the information on his report. He must send them a certified letter stating that this debt is not his and they must provide proof that it is. This includes things like the actual medical bill. If they do not respond in 30 days he can have it removed from his report.

Just make sure he does everything in writting, and keeps all of his communications. You can see a couple of sample letters from the link below.

Answer 2

Have you not heard, it’s your job to make certain the information reported is accurate? First there is no government agency to request help or report this to.

1) Contact the 3 Bureaus, (in writing and authorize the creditors discuss your account)
2) List the accounts in question and only report them as not being your accounts ( they don’t care about him having insurance, you need to make the reporter prove its valid)
3) This letter writing can only be avoided if you pay for an online membership at one of many fico sites on line. ( You must correct the 3 bureaus, so you probably have to pay extra doing this on line.)

4) They will open a dispute and request the reporter of the disputed account respond.
5) The creditor will respond with confirmation it is a valid derogatory account, or they may not respond in the time allowed and then the item will be deleted.
6) You can do this on your own or pay a company to do it, sometimes it can cost up to $500 for so called rapid rescoring and supplementing the incorrect accounts.

Once a dispute is opened it takes up to 30 days processing, and then you may get a letter saying it is a bill you owe. In that case you will either pay it and move on or fight it and then it begins reporting as BRAND NEW (meaning 10 years from that day it will report and as a new derogatory account, this will hurt your credit more then anything). Should you decide to pay it and settle, only do so if they will in writing agree to DELETE the derogs from your credit, or change it to AS AGREED. If they only change it to paid in full or 0 balance they just hurt your fico score again.

Answer 3

OC1999 is correct, the second poster is so completely wrong.

Yes there are agencies to file complaints with - they are called the FTC and the Attorneys General AND if the bogus account remains, then you take them to court - yes, one woman recently received $100k for bogus info constantly being reported. While that is not the normal amount received for violations - it has happened.
Also, making a payment on a charged off debt will "NEVER" reage the account to run longer than it normally would - and the 10 year reporting? I don't know what country the second poster is from but medical debts never report longer than 7 years from the date of service in the U.S.

111nzek, I would suggest that you go with what OC1999 posted and totally ignore the second posters remarks.

Answer 4

Follow OC's advice.

I've posted a very good link below. Someone send me this link and it really makes it a lot clear on the exact procedure of disputing an inaccurate credit report. Other parts of this site have sample letters and other advice.

For you collection agents, I'm not associated in any way with this or any other site I post links to. If the info is great, I share it.

I will give you one last word of advice. You are about to go to war. Knowledge of the law is your only weapon. You need to read the Fair Credit Reporting Act, learn the procedures, and understand your rights.

Document EVERYTHING! All letters must be sent by certified mail/return receipt. Get names/date of every person you talk to...keep a log! Trust me, you will need all of this.

It is not unusual for some of these creditors to not work with you, and you will have to take them to court. The good news is that this is very easy to do. It's a small claims suit, and you will win $1000 for each person you have to fight with.

Contact me if you have any questions. I went through this a a few years ago....will be happy to assist you.

Answer 5

You might as well forget about FTC. I complained to them once stating that Experian was refusing to delete references to my defaulted student loan that was keeping it for 10 years. FTC basically told me go get a lawyer. This is even though I actually provided positive proof to FTC that. Experian had falsified the record to stretch the derogatory account to stay longer on my credit file. That is when it dawned on me that although credit reporting agencies may not have the identifying mark “Federal” in front of their names, but they and FTC are but one, meaning, they are all together protecting the 0.000009%

Answer 6

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is the government agency that stipulates the laws which govern credit reporting. OC1999 gave you some very good advice in his answer.
I've included a link to the FTC website below, it explains your son's rights.

Answer 7

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