Credit Bureaus: Ruining Lives Forever

Anybody who filed taxes back in 'the old days' remembers how frightening it was in the 70s and 80s. The IRS was the most feared of institutions. They could hold your life hostage for making even the most trivial of mistakes. They could seize your assets and garnish your wages. They charged exhorbitant interest rates on what they claimed you owed, yet paid you no interest when they made a mistake.

It was impossible to escape the IRS.

The same thing is taking place today, except the institutions holding us hostage are the credit bureaus. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Even if you have the most pure credit report in existence, there are dozens of rogue collection agencies out there today. They buy your accounts from other institutions where you have late payments and sell them to other collection agencies. Then they put a negative on your credit report.

No matter to them that you have satisfied the original bill from the company you had an account with. They never look back once they have your name and social security number, and they never give up. Sometimes they say you owe more than you do, hoping that you will blindly send them money in the hopes that they will remove the stain they themselves manufactured.

If you look at www.ripoffreport.com, you will see just how many lives have been ruined by Palisades Collections, LLC. They are a subdivision of Afni, Inc. Here is an example of the many complaints against this company:

"Today I received a letter from a collection agency called Afni, Inc. alleging I owed $63.00 from 11 years ago - 1996. Verizon has provided my phone service for the past 10 years and I don't believe I have ever missed a payment. They never once mentioned I owed them a cent from 1996 and even sent me a refund for overpayment when I moved out of Verizon's service area in 2006. When I called Afni, Inc, a particularly rude young female told me she wasn't interested in anything I had to say. "

The above quote came from the third entry on the first page of more than 60 pages Google returned when asked "AFNI,Inc". This was a consumer complaint board which is one of thousands of forums and websites devoted to helping consumers deal with these rabid collection agencies.

Once one of these agencies pings your credit report for even a few dollars, the FICO score could drop as many as 50 points! Yes, I said fifty points. And getting that removed is almost impossible, even if you have paperwork to show that the debt is fabricated.

Going to myfico.com should be a good way to remedy this situation The Suze Orman's FICO® Kit Platinum, which costs $49.99 offers all three credit reports and FICO scores plus other features. For those people in need of help removing bad entries to their credit reports, this tool offers to 'Find and dispute errors on your credit report.' Great! But wait! TransUnion worked just fine and the tool generated a dispute letter to send. The same thing happenes with Equifax. Then - the wall called Experian.

In one instance I spoke with a woman who had been divorced for seven years, had legally changed her name and address, but Experian had eight-year-old data. No matter how many different routes she tried, she was unable to get these simple, basic errors corrected. How can that credit agency claim to give a FICO score when the name and address of the person aren't even correct?

The FICO representatives 'are unable to help', and Suze Orman's FICO® Kit Platinum representative will not issue a refund. Evidently, everybody is powerless to stop the big three credit bureaus.

While banks are currently on the grill for not lending, the banks depend upon the big three credit bureaus for all their data when making decisions. As far as I was able to ascertain, there is NO regulation over these institutions.

Yet these three entities, TransUnion, Equifax and Experian have the power to determine whether you get the loan for a house, a car or an education.

While the President and Congress are putting together consumer protection regulation over credit cards, it would be good if they took a look at the credit bureaus conspiring to ruin American lives.