Don Davis Ph:360-652-9994 email:dond@htlnw.com
You are guilty until proven innocent is the way the credit reports work. It doesn’t matter if the account isn’t your and it doesn’t matter if you can even prove it. If it is on your report… it must be yours. It doesn’t matter if it is reported in error. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t yours. It doesn’t matter if you never missed a payment and it shows you have. If it is on the report…guilty! These are the kinds of errors that exist on credit reports today. Because it is on YOUR report means that it must be yours. This can be an account that is listed as yours but you don’t have what ever it is. For example, I have a client who has an account listed from Honda Finance. This is not his account. It belongs to some one else with the same name. They live in different states and have entirely different social security numbers. It is listed in error on my client’s credit report! I can supply documents that show this belongs to a different person, including phone number, address and everything that clearly shows this doesn’t belong to my client. But it is on the credit report and the lender takes that as the gospel truth, despite documents stating otherwise. Because of this it is preventing him from obtaining financing to buy a home.
Do you think the credit bureau cares? Do you think Honda Finance cares? No. In fact Honda customer service states that they have no mechanism to refute an erroneous entry. Yes they are the ones reporting to the credit bureau and no they don’t have any way to change it. I have personally spent hours on the phone with Honda to correct this problem and to no avail. They can verbally say that the account doesn’t belong to my client with the social security number I gave them, but they cannot put anything in writing! They suggest that we send a request to the credit bureau to correct the error.
Okay, here’s how that one goes. I supply the credit bureau the information to request that the erroneous account be removed. The credit bureau responds with “account verified”. This is because Honda Finance is the one supplying the information. The credit bureau’s computer sends Honda’s computer the challenge as well as the information that it is reporting. The Honda computer compares that with what they send to the credit bureau (how do you think the bureau got the info in the first place) and the account comes back “verified”. That is because it is the same, erroneous information.
So we contact Honda once again and explain that until they correct the information they are reporting, it won’t change the outcome. They say “we’re sorry, we can’t do that”!
A vicious circle
This is a system that is screwing with peoples lives. This particular client has been haunted for years, just because his name is the same as someone else. And it isn’t fixed yet.
As a mortgage professional I do have solutions. This is only available to mortgage lenders and not to the general public or to any other types of lenders. I can get a credit supplement or a rescore. All I have to provide is the documents proving that, in this case, the account belongs to someone else along with supporting documents and in three to seven business days the problem is cured. This is unlike what it would take you to fight this. In fact this same client had spent over two years clearing some other accounts that were listed on his report that were the other person’s accounts. It would have only taken me days. The key is that there needs to be proof that it belongs to someone else. Or in other instances that an account is being reported in error or that the account is paid off or there are no late payments. In virtually every instance, if I have documented proof, it can get remedied in a matter of days.
I have a very big distain for the credit reporting agencies. While everyone may think that their business is reporting, fairly and accurately, your credit history, in fact their main source of revenue comes from selling your information to marketers. Around 50% of their entire income source is generated from selling your information. This is where their time and energy is really spent, making money off of the information they collect about you.
So next time you think the credit bureau should care about you and a fair and accurate report about your credit history, think again.
Questions, comments? Let me know what you think!
Don Davis
360-652-9994 ext 1
