Every day, thousands of consumers are harassed by debt collectors, and many of them have their rights violated by these collectors. The good news is that you can use those violations to have the debts eliminated and your credit repaired in the process. If you know the law, your credit repair process won’t have to rely on generic dispute letters or luck. Let the debt collectors do it for you and you can have your credit repaired, legally and permanently. Here is how…
Debt collectors are governed by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). One section of the Act clearly states consumers cannot be contacted at inappropriate places, like work. I can’t tell you how many collection agents violate this section of the law. There is a caveat however. They may contact your work unless they know your employer does not allow it. Simply write the debt collector notifying them that you cannot be contacted at work and make sure you send it Certified mail, return receipt requested. Should they contact you at work after that, they are in violation of the FDCPA and in a position where negotiation of the debt is usually a piece of cake.
Why these mistakes are common Most debt collector’s phone systems are set up on an automated dialing system. These systems handle thousands of client cases. When your name comes up, the computer automatically dials the numbers it has on file. When you put in a special request (like not calling your work) your file has to be pulled manually and dialed by hand. This rarely happens and therefore, violations commonly occur and leaving the door wide open for you to sue to have it removed.
Negotiate to delete the trade line for their violation. Once the debt collector has violated your rights, simply send a letter with a copy of the following.
* The copy of your original letter where you said you could not be contacted at work
* A copy of the Certified Mail receipt you received which is proof they were notified
* A new letter demanding a deletion of the trade line from your credit report. You may include that you intend to file complaints with the FTC, BBB, Attorney General and you can add that you intend to sue for damages as well.
You will find, once they are caught red handed, negotiations become very easy.
How To Remove A Bankruptcy From Your Credit Report
Credit report repair can be a long, tedious process and one of the hardest items to get removed is a bankruptcy.
In order to remove a bankruptcy, you must remove everything else from your credit report first, here is why…
If you have a bankruptcy and several accounts under it entitled “included in bankruptcy” the credit bureaus will simply assume it’s accurate since you have accounts that are covered under bankruptcy protection.
The First Steps: Go over your credit report very carefully. If you live at an address other then the address where you filed, have it removed. Debts are often tied to addresses.
Then, dispute and remove every account showing as “included in bankruptcy”. This shouldn’t be hard since creditors have very little incentive to verify the information. Why would they? They can’t get paid on it.
This process can take several months be patient, I promise it will pay off. Let’s look at how bankruptcy files are stored; it is the key to successfully removing it from your credit report.
How your bankruptcy is filed and stored. After two years, your file is moved from the local court at which you filed, to a central storage facility. If you go to your local court and request to see your file, they will have to order it and have it brought back to the court.
Have them order it. The time it takes to arrive is about a week. Once it arrives they will put it in a special place and notify you that it has arrived.
Let me back up for a moment. Once you order your BK file, wait about 3 days and then send a dispute to the credit bureaus. They will then call the “storage facility” where your bankruptcy file should be – and discover it won’t be.
It will be either in transition back to your local court, or already there and waiting for you to come view it.
Stall tactics are key. Once your file arrives back to the local court, they will start calling you to come view it. It is very important that you delay as long as possible. Remember, credit bureaus have 30 days to verify any disputed debts and it’s very important you keep your file in that “holding room” for as long as you can.
Tell them, you’re extremely busy at work, but will be there Monday. Call Monday and inform them you had an out of town meeting and promise to be there Friday. What you’re trying to accomplish is keeping that file on hold the entire 30 days while the credit bureaus tries to verify its existence.
