I no longer provide credit services

I no longer offer credit services other than for clients I previously worked with.

I’ve been litigating against credit bureaus, creditors and collectors since about 2000. We had STRONG legislation protecting consumers, but the Fair Credit Reporting Act was weakened in 2003. Our corrupt legislators FAILED to amend the Fair Debt Collection Practices to adjust the $1,000 maximum statutory damages to inflation (it was enacted in the 70s) and many judges DESPISE all consumers.

It has become impossible for me to provide meaningful assistance to my clients as credit bureaus, creditors and collectors no longer worry about getting sued for violating the law.

To make matters worse, there are NO competent consumer attorneys willing to represent consumers without retainer and in many cases you couldn’t hire a competent lawyer if you had thousands of dollars for the retainer.   Several of my clients did retain attorneys, but the so-called consumer lawyers generally want to settle for only their HUGE attorneys fees and CORRECTION of incorrectly reported data. The consumers get NOTHING but a lot of aggravation and stress.

So I give up.

I’m only one woman with ZERO support from any organization.

I’m now focused on establishing a small organic farm in the high desert and I’m fighting Monsanto and once again, corrupt legislators such as Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake. Yesterday was a good day, the DARK Act was defeated — for now.

It’s good to see MILLIONS of people TAKING ACTION to get GMO labeling, calling their representatives and creating awareness.

When it comes to their health and especially to the health of their children, many Americans are willing to step up.

When I wrote about SYSTEMIC fraudulent credit reporting such as INCORRECT FICO scores (see FICTITIOUS late payments on Equifax FICO reports) resulting in FICO scores often 100 points lower than they should have been,  many thousands read my documentation, but NOBODY did anything whatsoever.

I know what it’s like when you’re BROKE and you have no credit and life just sucks.  I know it’s even harder when you have a family to support and you have to work some crummy job just to feed everybody.   I sure wish I could help, but I don’t have super human powers and I certainly don’t have the cash it takes to ensure that you’ll find JUSTICE in America.

Good luck to all of you!

Christine

Suing Chase and Equifax for verifying incorrect late payments and balance

On September 5, 2011 Chase reported my client’s old charged off credit card with NUMEROUS late payments after the account was charged off.  From the myFICO Equifax report:

9-5-11--Chase-Equifax-lates

My client disputed these incorrect late payments and Chase then reported the account with the “CO” notation in the payment history to Equifax.  Unfortunately, myFICO rated the “CO” notations as LATE PAYMENTS (fictitious lates):

11-7-11--Chase-Equifax-reporting-fictitious-lates

My client disputed with CSC as it maintained his Equifax file at the time and he included the myFICO Equifax showing how the fictitious lates lowered his FICO score: Read More »

Dell Financial Services lawsuit settled

I previously posted about the BIZARRE Dell refusal to settle an old charged off account:

Suing Dell Financial Services because it REFUSED to settle an old chargeoff

Dell actually hired an outside attorney and he scheduled a contested trial.   The attorney refused to communicate with me when I asked him whether my posting was accurate, but he finally responded to my client’s email and Dell then offered to delete the balance and my client accepted.

It cost my client $80 to sue and serve Dell and he had paid me $300 to settle the account, so I think it worked out ok.  I have NO idea why Dell wasted the money to hire a local attorney, but not communicating with customers seems to be an important part of Dell’s procedures.

This was SLOW going and the dismissal was just filed last week, a few days before the trial.  We had asked the attorney to have DFS change the payment history, but the settlement agreement states that Dell is not responsible for Fair Isaac’s FICTITIOUS late payments. Of course we know that, but why couldn’t Dell be nice about it and change the payment history?

As of today, the Equifax credit report still shows the balance and my client has to dispute with the credit bureaus.  And we’ll get a new myFICO report to see whether the fictitious lates are still an issue.

Experian FICO score FINALLY available at myFICO again

I’m not trying to drum up business for myFICO, but if you’re in the market for a mortgage, this is good news!

myFICO still creates entirely fictitious late payments on Equifax reports

I just posted the screenshots of a Dell account with fictitious lates and the resulting myFICO negative score factor at 3/19/13 myFICO STILL creates fictitious late payments.

In 2007 I notified Fair Isaac (myFICO) of this BUG in their software and I can only imagine how many people lost their homes, got divorced and/or sick because these entirely FICTITIOUS late payments caused credit declines and maybe worse, resulted in high rate mortgages.

Imagine how many people are declined for credit cards or have only very low limits and end up getting payday loans because their FICO scores are 50 or 100 points lower than they would be without the fictitious lates.

I hope to find the time to notify the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as the FTC couldn’t care less.

Until either regulators or courts force myFICO to fix their software, be sure to carefully look for these fictitious lates and try to have the creditor remove those chargeoff notations.

My client sued Dell because it refused to settle the account and last week Dell offered to settle the lawsuit by reporting a $0 balance.  So now we’re asking Dell to also remove the “CO” reporting to Equifax.

Dwolla.com payments from bank accounts for 25 cents

I just updated the CreditFactors order page to include Dwolla payment buttons and I installed the Dwolla plugin for the CreditFactors Membership signup. The plugin is still in alpha testing, but I hope it works.

As long time readers know, PayPal changed its terms a few years ago to prohibit credit and debt settlement services and all merchant accounts I have seen have similar terms. So I’m thrilled to have Dwolla and the incredibly low 25 cent fees and of course I’m passing the savings on to my clients.

Please let me know if you encounter any problems ordering.

Suing Experian for failing to investigate and Chase for reporting FALSE late payments

A client disputed several accounts with Experian.  It refused to investigate a Household 2nd mortgage and a Chase account with a balance that it had forgiven (1099) because Experian previously investigated the accounts in 2011.  My client had included the Chase 1099 with the dispute.  Trans Union promptly changed the balance to $0 after it received the dispute.  However, Chase also verified completely BOGUS late payments for this account, charged off in 2007.

I had contacted Chase about the lates on the Equifax myFICO last year and they refused to correct! The account was charged off in 2007.

Recently my client was DECLINED when he applied for a mortgage because his FICO scores are too low.

So now it’s time to sue Experian, Chase and possibly CSC.  Of course I’m helping my client since he doesn’t have an attorney and it’s fairly easy to sue in his small claims court.  I’m not even charging my client for helping him with legal research such as finding the registered agent to serve the lawsuit and summons and I won’t prepare the documents for him.   But I decided to post the complaint as I would file it at the CreditFactors member forum and if he wishes to copy the complaint, he can do so — I’m not practicing law, but I post what I would do.

If he doesn’t get fast results with the small claims suit, he’ll retain an attorney.

UPDATE 7/8/13:  I just posted the details about the Chase ordeal and the lawsuit:

Suing Chase and Equifax for verifying incorrect late payments and balance

 

 

 

Suing Dell Financial Services because it REFUSED to settle an old chargeoff

I’ve been settling accounts for clients since the early 90s, but I never had a creditor refuse to settle an account.  On 3/13/13 I first contacted Dell Financial Services (on credit reports as WebBank and/or DFS) and I was advised that Resurgent Capital Services has the account.  Resurgent then stated that it had returned the account to DFS on 4/20/10.

I immediately faxed the power of attorney to Dell.  A week later it was still not yet in its system. I faxed to a new fax # and when DFS finally had the power of attorney so they could discuss settlement, DFS again insisted that Resurgent has the account.  It didn’t matter how many times I explained that Resurgent stated that it had returned the account to Dell in 2010, they kept giving me the number for Resurgent and even worse, often transferred me directly claiming that I was being transferred to the department that would handle the settlement.

Last Friday I was on the phone with DFS for a long time and I finally got a fax number that allegedly goes to the DFS legal department.  The first part of the fax is posted below.   I also attached the fax I had previously sent to Dell credit reporting in India regarding the fictitious late payments (a documented FICO scoring bug) and I will explain details in my next post.  While Dell credit reporting claimed that they updated the credit reporting last week, today’s Equifax report shows NO changes.

Another issue with DFS was that they initially claimed that the account could not be settled because it was in bankruptcy and that it would take a week to clear that up.  My client’s bk had been dismissed, as DFS reported to the credit bureaus for years, along with the balance.

Yesterday I attempted to verify that the DFS legal department received my fax, but DFS refused to provide a phone number for its legal department.  To add insult to injury, they even transferred me to Resurgent again and gave me their phone number to confirm receipt of my fax sent to the DFS legal department.  Of course Resurgent again told me that they sent the account back to Dell on 4/20/10.

When I requested that the DFS Indian billing department manager transfer me to someone in the US, I got to speak with Marcia.  She confirmed that there is no phone number for the legal department (they’d probably get thousands of calls from upset customers every day).  Marcia said that she would try to confirm receipt of my fax and that the person she had to contact was away from his desk.  I was supposed to get a call back from Marcia within an hour — several hours ago.  I got NO call.

So we have no choice but to quickly file a small claims suit AND start contacting attorneys.

I already emailed the TX SOS for the registered agent info as the DFS headquarters are in Austin.  I’ll post the small claims complaint once we get the info.  If Dell doesn’t immediately delete the account from the credit reports and reimburse my fee we can have an attorney take over.  If my client’s lease option expires because of DFS we’re talking major damages, far beyond small claims.

We are also going to send a published complaint to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

FYI, my client paid $300 for the Credit Activist settlement.  On average it takes about 6 hours to settle an account, including the followup to ensure that it is reported correctly or deleted. I already spent at least 12 hours on Dell, but if my clients cannot recover my fees from the creditors / collectors engaging in illegal activities, there is no extra charge for the sometimes over 50 hours required to get results.

Occasionally I start an entire new blog with regulatory complaints as for Asset Acceptance.  However, since my Dell client’s lease option is expiring, we don’t have the time to go through the regulatory complaint process and have to file suit right away.  The primary purpose of the CFPB complaint is to create public awareness and to hopefully have the CFPB order Dell to clean up its act.  Indian support for financial services ought to be ILLEGAL!

For the record, I have nothing at all against Indian people, have Indian friends and clients and I wish I could visit India for a few months.  However, our financial and personal records ought to be in the United States. 

So I’ll post the small claims complaint as soon as we have it ready and below is the fax I sent to the DFS legal department on Friday: Read More »

Only forgiven PRINCIPAL is subject to a 1099-C upon settlement or non payment – NO tax if you were insolvent

I see more and more 1099s not only after settlements, but because lenders chose to stop collecting.

  • If you settle accounts for less than the full balance, you might well get a 1099 from the creditor if the discount was for more than $600.
  • Many original creditors are sending out 1099s when the SOL expired or after a few years of inactivity.

You MAY have to pay income tax on the amount of PRINCIPAL forgiven, but NOT on forgiven interest and fees.

Debt buyers rarely send 1099s because they don’t know how much of the balance is interest / fees and how much is principal.

If the amount is significant, make sure that

1) you weren’t insolvent
2) interest and fees are NOT included in the 1099.

Make sure that the credit reporting is accurate!

Check the 1099 and your records, details are explained below.

Here are some IRS references:

Read More »

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