Credit Report Errors? Or Deliberate Misreporting?

You just got a copy of your credit report and it is full of errors and accounts that aren’t yours. Your first reaction is to get mad at the credit reporting agency for being so stupid and ruining your life. But hold on a second there pardner…

Before you direct your anger at the wrong place, you need to understand that the credit reporting agencies rarely make errors. The report you have in your hand is from a credit reporting agency. They don’t make up stuff and put it on your credit report – they just report what is reported to them. If there is an error on your report, it didn’t come from the reporting agency.

But sadly, credit reports are often full of reporting errors! And the fact is that many of these reporting “errors” are done deliberately! That’s right – these “errors” are often put there ON PURPOSE! They’re rarely the result of the credit reporting agency making a “mistake” and “accidentally” reporting incorrect information on your report.

Why would someone purposely report incorrect information to the credit bureaus? There are a number of reasons why, and it often surprises people to learn that any creditor who is registered with the credit bureaus can report any information about you that they want. And as soon as they do, the credit reporting agencies will add this information to your report without question.

Any Creditor Can Report Anything They Want!

So why would a creditor report incorrect information about you to the credit bureaus? Well, in a word, MONEY! It’s profitable to report incorrect information, and where there is profit, there is somebody seeking it.

Common Examples of Deliberate Misreporting:

Your bankruptcy becomes final and your creditor is notified by your attorney that you have been released from your obligation to them. After awhile, your creditor “somehow forgets” about this and reports your old account as past due again. “Oops!”

• Your bankruptcy attorney gets busy and “forgets” to notify your creditors, and all that bad reporting stays on your report. “Oops!”
• During your divorce, certain accounts are assigned by the judge to be the sole responsibility of your ex-spouse. But when the creditor can’t collect from your “ex” they “accidentally” report this bad account to the bureaus under your name. “Oops!”
• You have a common name “Joe Smith” and there is a “Joe Smith” in your State who is bouncing checks. The collection agency can’t locate the check-bouncing “Joe Smith”, so they “accidentally” report every “Joe Smith” in the State as the check bouncer. “Oops!”
• You have a past due account with a creditor. After some time, you finally manage to pay them back what you owe them, and they agree to report your payment to the credit bureaus. But after you leave, this creditor figures that since it took you so long to pay up, that they don’t need to be in a hurry to report the new info to the bureaus. “Oops!”

Granted, some of these “mistakes” really are just careless errors on the creditors’ part. But many of these “mistakes” are deliberate attempts to hurt your chances of ever borrowing money again, or worse yet, are blatant attempts to collect from you again!

BUT THAT’S NOT FAIR! DOESN’T THE LAW PROTECT ME?

Yes, the law does protect you. If these creditors are caught doing these things against you deliberately, they could be fined and punished by the government. But this rarely happens, because you – the consumer – would have to push the issue (costs money for lawyers and to file complaints) and then you’d have to “prove” that they did this to you on purpose. Good luck “proving” that. A good, convincing “Oops!” and an apology, and the creditor is off the hook, and you’re out all those attorney fees.

The government sometimes goes after these predator-creditors themselves, but they usually only take action against overtly blatant consumer fraud, involving large dollar amounts, and they rarely take on those little “pukey” creditors who do an occasional “Oops!” with relatively small dollar amounts involved.

So, it’s really going to be up to you to proactively take charge of your credit report and get things corrected yourself. There’s lots of articles on this website to help you with your disputes.

Keep It In Your File Forever!

One thing to keep in mind whenever you’re dealing with credit reporting. Whenever you get an agreement with a creditor – maybe you’re settling an account, paying off an old debt, having someone remove an error for you – make sure you get the agreement in writing from the creditor, and KEEP THAT WRITTEN AGREEMENT IN YOUR PERMANENT FILE FOREVER! The chance of that “oops” showing up again are very high, especially if the “oops” was done by that creditor on purpose in the first place.

Related Articles:

• Watching Your Credit by Ordering Your Credit Reports
• Seven Steps to Disputing Bad Credit – A Do It Yourself Job
• How to read a credit report to improve your score
• Credit Repair - The Process, and How to Detect Scammers
• Where To Get Your Free Credit Report
• Using Bribes and Threats To Get a Good Credit Account
• How Many Credit Accounts Should I Have?
• Credit Scoring In Plain English
• When You’re Sinking In Debt, A Credit Counseling Service Can Get You Out Of The Quicksand
• Using Credit Repair Services and Avoiding Scammers