Deleting COLLECTIONS after bk

I am looking for some advice as to how to get Equifax to delete a collection account.

I Filed Ch7 BK in August 2001. In June 2002, a $75.00 collection was sent to/bought by Collection Company of America. This bill was included in my BK.

It was listed on all 3 CRA's and Equifax is the only one who has not deleted. They verified it was in my Bk, Changed the balance to zero and added inluded in Bankruptcy.

I disputed again on the phone pointing out the dates. Today, I receive their letter stating that they have changed the date of last activity. There have been no changes at all.

In addition, they are reporting my credit limit on a Target card as $42.00 when it is $200.00. That also came back verified as $42.00 as correct. What gives with these people? Do they bother to really investigate?

What should I do now? Any advice would be appreciated.

Sam, finally moved your posting from the moron section. Sorry, been real busy. But I figure better late than never, it's a very common problem.

I hope you got this collection deleted by now.

I just talked to the Collection Company of America and found it very interesting that they also don't delete collections after they are reassigned.

Here's how I would approach your account. I'd ask whether they bought the account or whether they are acting as agency.

The next question is WHO assigned or sold this account after the discharge. Were they notified of the discharge? Should they have known?

This account might be lowering your credit rating and scores because it was assigned AFTER the discharge.

According to Fair Isaac, they rate a collection according to the DATE PLACED not the DLA. And you lose points for discharged accounts.

4/21/03 - Glacier Financial re-ages Bally collections (http://forum.creditcourt.com/discus/messages/207/1543.html)

I'm still waiting for Mr. Tegtmeyer's response, explaining WHICH date he uses to age accounts.

It's ok to make calls, it helps if you can record, and then follow up with a call summary.

Note the fax to TU, which was promptly ignored. I'll try to find out in discovery if TU ever informed Glacier how to age accounts. They really should have shut down the Glacier account. Their refusal to follow the FCRA couldn't have been more "willful."

If you have to sue, you want to be able to sue the bureau(s) AND the collector - Do NOT dispute as "not my account" - be 150% factual.

In this case I'd dispute as:

"Assigned to collections after discharge, please delete."

If my client didn't need deletion for a mortgage, I would have disputed with the bureau first and waited to see if Glacier deleted.

From my first contact to the receipt of the deletion letter, it took ** 5 ** DAYS, not months. And that included a weekend.

Note that I did everything by fax/phone - no such waste of time and money as certified mail!

If you want to go for a $1,000 FDCPA violation, and you really intend to sue if they don't pay up, you want to wait for the bureau results before calling the collector and getting the deletion letter.

And, it's just less work and if you're not in a rush, it can't hurt to get as many violations as possible.

Christine,

Thanks for responding! I did finally get the collection account deleted from Equifax. It didn't happen until July. After my third dispute with them I finally called and demanded to speak to a Manager. I couldn't even get this "manager" to comprehend that the account was included in my BK, assigned to a collection agency 8 months later even though the dates they were reporting PROVED MY POINT.

They told me they would re-investigate and finally they delete. However, these same idiots will not report my credit limit on my Target account. All they report is the most I have charged which is $42.00. (Who gets a $42.00 credit limit??)

They have already "verified" this information twice. I have also "verified" with Target that they "are" reporting my full credit limit.

I asked Target to send me a statement (paid the balance off) so that I could prove the credit limit with a letter.

So much work, so little time.......

I hear you - you took almost as long to respond as I did!

My Equifax experience with limits is that they'll fix it when you send the statement, and next time the creditor reports they revert to the "high balance" and no limit.