Equifax Deleted 20 Positive Accounts

I just checked my Equifax credit report. They DELETED 20 of my positive accounts from the report. All of the accounts were closed and "Pays as agreed". They just deleted all of these items within the last 2 days. I looked at my report on 11/14 and they were all there. I had been disputing items with them (Of course, not the positive ones). Has anyone else experienced this problem. Can they legally just delete positive accounts. None of them have been closed for more than 5 years. Some were just closed within the last 2 years. I thought that the positives stay on your report for 10 years from the date of last activity. I am sending them a dispute letter about this tonight. I also sent them an email about it. Maybe they are having computer problems or something that caused this.

Please let me know if anyone is having the same problem with these idiots.

Any ideas on how to proceed if they refuse to put the accounts back on my report?

My FICO dropped almost 100 points!!!

Thanks in advance...

Not to mention, their credit watch that I am paying for didn't even notify me of this drastic change. I see changes all the time and they NEVER email me as promised. I would not trust them to thorughly watch your credit.

Have you been doing the bumpage thing? If you have, this is what a lot of people have been experiencing. I lost 2 good accounts myself, which one was my mortgage.

The inquiries they claim are too much for them to handle, so either a persons file gets split or they delete positive items, nothing negative.

BTW, I rarely get any messages from them about anything. I just have to check my reports and find out. Sometimes they will put a notice in the archive section. Its basically a useless function that they used to drum up extra business.

CSC (Equifax) did the exact thing to me. They said my file must have had multiple files and one of them must have been deleted. I am also a Credit Watch member and check almost daily which creates lots of inquiry entries. The reason I'm ticked is they removed 9 positive accounts that were paid in full before my bankruptcy and left all my current positive accounts and all negative items. My score went down 50 points because of this.

I have been dealing with the supervisor who is supposed to reseach the other file and fix it but they won't give me a estimated time for when it will be fixed. I am going to give them until the end of the week and then I will be suing them in small claims for damages. I would love for them to explain to a judge how their computer just deletes positive information because they don't have enough space.

Remember - don't be afraid to sue sue sue!!! Its cheap to file a pro-se small claims case. A judgement is a judgement.

Why do you think you will win? They don't seem to have violated the FCRA. They have not defamed your character. You do not have a contract with them. On what basis will you sue? Just a general tort-style "I'm hurt and they're at fault" thing? Can you prove damages?

I had a similar thing happen to me where Equifax deleted my oldest account, which was paid satisfactory and closed. The loss of this account made my credit history seem shorter, but I found it difficult to prove damages and eventually decided that I couldn't justify pursuing the matter (though I did swear a lot, privately).

They did violate the FCRA by deleting accounts that are supposed to be reported for 10 years. My accounts were with multiple different companies that ranged between 3-5 years old. I did verify with some of the creditors that they are still reporting the information.

The accounts are still being reported to the other bureaus and I have a record since I pull my credit everyday that they just lost part of my credit record. I keep excellent records and they admitted that they might have lost part of my file. Since their mistakes will cost me more on a mortgage I will sue and they will have to answer to their practices of record keeping.

I have all my ducks in a row, I know they won't so who will a judge believe? I have phone records with names and transcripts and copies of certified letters I have sent them. I also will be filing a complaint with our attorney general. Also, do you think they will want to come to Minnesota to explain how half of a credit report can just disappear without a trace?

Originally posted by rhaeny
Have you been doing the bumpage thing? [/QUOTE]

rheany, what do you mean by the bumpage thing?

Not really. I just check my credit via credit watch daily. I guess it could be called bumping as it should make inquiries fall off. That is not what I am trying to do. It will be part of my complaint against the company. To many inquiries = remove paid credit accounts?

They need to purchase more drive space..

How many others that have had this problem use Credit Watch? It could be helpful if we know of each other to push the company to fix the problem. I think I will call the Credit Watch support and mention that when you check your credit file alot it seems to screw up your file. Bad advertising!!

Originally posted by dfwtol
Originally posted by rhaeny
Have you been doing the bumpage thing?

rheany, what do you mean by the bumpage thing? [/QUOTE]

That's when you pull your report so often generating soft inquiries that the hard inquiries begin to fall off. The problem is that the cra system couldn't handle the storage of these softs (I had as many as 142 softs) so they just started deleting positive accounts along with the majority of softs.

Its created a serious problem for some people losing there oldest positive TL's.

I wasn't pulling my report to bump off inquiries. I hadn't thought of that one yet. I do, however, pull it daily through credit watch. This could of had something to do with it.

Does this mean that they can delete these positive accounts legally?

Does the law really state that positive accounts have to stay on a credit report for at least 10 years? Or, do the CRA's have discretion when the account is closed?

I am not sure what to do about this. Removing 20 positive accounts from my report caused some serious damage.

I have talked to Credit Watch and they have changed their program. If you sign up now, you can only check your credit 4 times a year. What happens now is after you check your credit after a said number of times, you will get an error code which requires Equifax or CSC to remove the soft inquiries. They said they have never heard of accounts dropping off because of it but they must know something otherwise why would they change the program?


By the way, the law does state positive information shall stay on your credit report for 10 years as negative information shall stay on for 7 years.

I say, make a good faith effort to resolve the issues with the CRA or creditors and if they blow you off, sue'em in small claims. In my case the CRA is in Texas and I'm in Minnesota. If that doesn't work I will file a federal case. The CRAs like to settle cases before going to court anyway because they are almost always violating the law, or can't prove their case.

I have scanned the text of the FCRA (http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra.htm#605) for the information you have indicated, but I did not find any clause that stipulated that positive credit had to be maintained for ten years or for any other period of time.

Please direct me to the clause that stipulates that a credit repository must retain positive information for a specific period of time.

It's in their policies. They are a business and can be sued for not following their policies. They state that positive accounts will be reported for 10 years. Let them explain it to a federal judge, "we don't really know what happened to his credit accounts"? They are responsible for the accuracy of the credit report and if they can't even figure out what is being deleted or reported how can they assure my report is accurate. I sure can't trust them.

If you file a federal lawsuit, which in my state costs $150, I can subpoena the president of CSC and Equifax and others to make them explain how they maintain the accuracy of the credit reports and how they could account for the loss of all of my positive accounts even though they are still being reported by the creditors?? I can guarantee you they will settle and fix the item because they don't want to go to court. It is their intention to make you jump through hoops and sometimes it costs money.

The FCRA doesn't always spell everything out. Sometimes you sue them for negligence which is what I am going to do.

Like I said. They have until the end of the week and then down to the federal court house to file my case. Small claims won't work for me because CSC doesn't have any local offices here in Minnesota.

Well, I have no confidence in your case mostly because of the difficulty of proving damages, but I do wish you the best of luck.

I'm not going for money. I don't need to prove damages. I am proving negligence.

Shylock, show me the FCRA section that allows the CRA to pick and choose what they report - I've never seen it.

A CRA has NO right to refuse the reporting of any account, unless it's a derogatory account and benefits the consumer.

Damages in "real" court do include "mental anguish" and you can go for punitive damages as in the 5 mill verdict against TU.

It's small claims where you have to show up with credit card bills or cancelled checks. Once COULD file in small claims too, the cost of mailing counts and should keep the judge from dismissing for failure to show damages. But federal court is the way to go.

CRBkiller wrote:

"I'm not going for money. I don't need to prove damages. I am proving negligence."

What do you want for their negligence? Their children? :)

I think money is the only thing you can get, unless you're going for a court order to make them "do" something.

My goal is to get a court order to make them "do" something.

What will you do if the judge for the matter rules that they were negligent and awards you $1 for damages and tells everyone to pay their own attorney's fees and that's the end of it?

Its only $150.00 to file the case and I still have the power of the subpoena. Either way I get to be a torn in their back. Even though I have given CSC until the end of the week, I have been contacting the creditors whose accounts were dropped and getting the oldest accounts added back. So far two have been readded and have faxed me the UDF. I am doing a two prong attack.

CSC's defense so far is that all of the creditors deleted them at the same time. I actually have their conversations on tape saying that. Then they say that I must 've had multiple files and somehow the second one got lost. Also on tape. Then I have Equifax Credit Watch on tape saying that if you check your credit report every day through Credit Watch that it creates to many inquiries and they have to have Equifax or CSC delete information to keep the file short enough. That is why the changed their Credit Watch offering to only allow you to check your report and score 4 times a year! Sounds like they are causing the problems!

Shylock wrote: "What will you do if the judge for the matter rules that they were negligent and awards you $1 for damages and tells everyone to pay their own attorney's fees and that's the end of it?"

Unless the judge is a moron and presides over Kangaroo Court, he has to award reasonable attorneys fees as per the FCRA. He also HAS to award actual damages.

And, ANYONE can file in federal court and request a JURY trial. The Jury ALSO has to follow the law, HAS to award actual damages, and MAY award punitive damages. As we recently saw with the 5 million dollar jury verdict against TU, anything is possible.

Of course the judge and jury can ignore the law. That's what appeals are for.

CRBKiller, so what is it you want?

I sure hope it's not just the correct reporting, since that'll REALLY teach them a lesson!

Christine wrote the judge has to award attorney's fees under the FCRA. Can someone please tell me what the FCRA has to do with this case? Is there an identifiable violation of the FCRA? Can someone quote me the clause violated? Thanks.

I think this is it


§ 617. Civil liability for negligent noncompliance [15 U.S.C. § 1681o]

(a) In general. Any person who is negligent in failing to comply with any requirement imposed under this title with respect to any consumer is liable to that consumer in an amount equal to the sum of

(1) any actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure;

(2) in the case of any successful action to enforce any liability under this section, the costs of the action together with reasonable attorney's fees as determined by the court.

Any person / who is negligent / in failing / to comply with / any requirement / imposed / under this title / with respect to / any consumer / is liable / to that consumer...


Specifically what requirement has Equifax failed to comply with?

Complete and accurate reporting.

I think damages are extremely easy to prove in this case. Your credit score is a MAJOR factor for getting any type of credit. Bad credit scores = bad interest rates = higher cost to the consumer. Not exactly a tough thing to prove.

If:

You purchase a product from Equifax.
You pull your credit file as much as you like, which by the way, is what they advertised.
After pulling it a while, your file gets split.
GOOD Tradelines in your credit file get deleted because Equifax can not handle the amount of inquiries from getting your credit file as much as you want (which again, is what they advertised)
Your credit score plummets.

I would think if the problem wan't fixed in a "reasonable" amount of time, it would be a great case to take to court. That is gross negligence.

§ 607. Compliance procedures [15 U.S.C. § 1681e]

(b) Accuracy of report. Whenever a consumer reporting agency prepares a consumer report it shall follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom the report relates.

§ 609. Disclosures to consumers [15 U.S.C. § 1681g]

(a) Information on file; sources; report recipients. Every consumer reporting agency shall, upon request, and subject to 610(a)(1) [§ 1681h], clearly and accurately disclose to the consumer:

(1) All information in the consumer's file at the time of the request, except that nothing in this paragraph shall be construed to require a consumer reporting agency to disclose to a consumer any information concerning credit scores or any other risk scores or predictors relating to the consumer.

§ 618. Jurisdiction of courts; limitation of actions [15 U.S.C. § 1681p]

An action to enforce any liability created under this title may be brought in any appropriate United States district court without regard to the amount in controversy, or in any other court of competent jurisdiction, within two years from the date on which the liability arises, except that where a defendant has materially and willfully misrepresented any information required under this title to be disclosed to an individual and the information so misrepresented is material to the establishment of the defendant's liability to that individual under this title, the action may be brought at any time within two years after discovery by the individual of the misrepresentation.

Just to bolster your case you might want to bone up on state laws regarding Consumer Reporting in your state (if applicable).

You could probably tie the two together.


Best of luck!

Oh, make sure that you send a dispute to the CRA first and let them hang themselves some more. I think they could try to get away with saying that you didn't give them a chance to fix it (I know you did, but send a letter anyway).

Originally posted by PAE
§ 607. Compliance procedures [15 U.S.C. § 1681e]

(b) Accuracy of report. Whenever a consumer reporting agency prepares a consumer report it shall follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom the report relates.You would need to prove that their PROCEDURES are lacking and that this caused your report to be innacurate, your single individual report doesn't matter as long as the CRA has in place and follows a reasonable procedure for making sure that they report accurate info.

§ 609. Disclosures to consumers [15 U.S.C. § 1681g]

(a) Information on file; sources; report recipients. Every consumer reporting agency shall, upon request, and subject to 610(a)(1) [§ 1681h], clearly and accurately disclose to the consumer:

(1) All information in the consumer's file at the time of the request, except that nothing in this paragraph shall be construed to require a consumer reporting agency to disclose to a consumer any information concerning credit scores or any other risk scores or predictors relating to the consumer. They must disclose to you EVERYTHING in your FILE (notice it says file singular, not files plural)

§ 618. Jurisdiction of courts; limitation of actions [15 U.S.C. § 1681p]

An action to enforce any liability created under this title may be brought in any appropriate United States district court without regard to the amount in controversy, or in any other court of competent jurisdiction, within two years from the date on which the liability arises, except that where a defendant has materially and willfully misrepresented any information required under this title to be disclosed to an individual and the information so misrepresented is material to the establishment of the defendant's liability to that individual under this title, the action may be brought at any time within two years after discovery by the individual of the misrepresentation. You can sue the CRA in just about any court according to the FCRA, unfortunately the FCRA doesn't give you the right to MAINTAIN your suit in the court it was filed in, this means that if you go to trial, the defendant (^) can file a motion to remove to another (read more expensive, less lenient) court (i.e. if you file in small claims court, the CRA can have the case moved to sate or federal court).

Well, I received no notifications but 2 of my accounts are not showing now. I did put in a dispute regarding an old Providian account. I also have a current, never late, Providian account. Both of them are gone!! Their 30 days isn't up so maybe they are still working on it . If both stay off, can this be dealt with by just asking them to put the good account back on?

In response to a dispute questioning the accuracy or completeness of any item the credit bureau shall delete that item or correct it.

If they deleted it because it was inaccurate, incomplete or they were unable to verify the information you may just be SOL.

Be careful what you dispute with Equifax. If you wouldn't be happy seeing it disappear, don't dispute it.

Report the deleted Providian account lost/stolen.

Providian will close the old account number, report it on your credit as lost/stolen and open a new account number propogating your credit profile with your entire credit history since account inception.

Maybe.

You CAN contact the creditor to try'n find out why an account was deleted and sometimes they will re-report. Whether that can be accomplished depends entirely on the creditor and your persistence.

Some purge the account info a few years after an account is closed, and if you dispute an old late the entire account disappears.

They are not required to report positive information for ten years. You might notice the actual wording of the statute says something along the lines of positive information may be reported for ten years and negative information may be reported for seven years. *May* is the key word here. No where does it say it *must* be reported for this time frame...for either the positive or the negatives.

Unfortunately I had this happen with Equifax as well. My two oldest tradelines pulled a disappearing act for no apparent reason. My score nosedived by forty points. I was highly ticked off about it and called to complain and thought long and hard about what type of case I could file and came to the conclusion that I do not have a cause of action. There is no requirement to report anything...just if they do report something, it has to be complete and accurate.

Just my two cents...


L

After several letters, I finally was able to get Equifax to re-insert the 20 deleted positive accounts that I started this thread about. At first they refused to add the accounts stating that my excessive inquiries merged these accounts off. However, I explained to them that it was the fault of their credit monitoring service that caused me to check my credit report so many times. Their credit watch service was not notifying me of changes to my report like they advertise. I gave them two choices in my final letter:
1.) Re-insert the deleted accounts immediately.
OR
2.) Refuse to insert them and let a judge decide who is at fault and if any damages are due to me.

Three different people from Equifax immediately contacted me the next day and chose option number 1. Also, they refunded my $60 subscription fee to the credit monitoring service (And left my subscription active!).

I noticed that Equifax deleted several inquiries on my report in order to accomodate the 20 accounts they had to re-insert.

If anyone else experienced this problem, I can give you the contact information for the person in their legal department who resolved this issue for me within 24 hours. She also promised to monitor my report periodically to ensure that this does not happen again.

Apparently, merging accounts off of a credit file due to excessive inquiries is not something Equifax wants to go to court over. I think that they would not have had a leg to stand on. Hurting a persons credit score because they dont have enough room for the data is not a valid excuse in my opinion.

Thank you very much for the update. I also had a client who got his deleted accounts reinserted by the local affiliate who handles his files. The only explanation they gave was that "Equifax dropped the accounts."

If you don't want to post the contact info, I'd sure appreciate it e-mailed to christine@bayhouse.com

I'm convinced that they'd lose in court over this. They DO have an obligation to report everything a data furnisher reports to them - UNLESS they know that it is not accurate.

Here is the contact info for the lady @ Equifax who re-inserted my accounts:

Ms. Banks
Equifax
Atlanta, GA
800-846-5279

Don't bother her too much or they might disconnect the number...LOL