Ahhhh What to do now

Ask the credit bureau to give the results of their investigations done. Under the FCRA laws, only one collection agency can report for a debt that has been hired by the original creditor. The collection agency that has your account information will stay and others have to be removed.

Of course, that makes me wonder....should the Associates continue to be listed on my credit report since Citifinancial bought the whole company, not just the debt? Both the Associates (C/O Citicorp Credit Srvc) and Citifinancial are listed for the exact same amount. For those not familiar...Citicorp bought the Associates circa late 2000, and kept operating that under the name The Associates until circa 2002, when they completed the merge into the corporation and started operating as Citifinancial.

Also, since Citifinancial absorbed the Associates, shouldn't they be reporting the same information? I could understand changing the account number, but they also show the date opened on my account as a later date than the default, I guess because of the buy-out of the Associates...but will that not cause the thing to stay on my credit report longer (up to a year or two longer), and in fact be a form of re-aging? They also show the date of my last payment to be 3/2003...totally wrong, because I have never made a payment while the company has operated as Citifinancial!!! If anyone knows, please share!!!

Should I DV Citifinancial (who has the account listed as sold), or simply dispute the information they are reporting with all the credit agencies?

(Note: this is the account that Genesee now claims to own, but they are not showing up on my credit report. The Associates does not appear on my TransUnion report, and S&P show to own the account there).

I've decided that I'm going to DV both Citifinancial and S&P. S&P still shows up on one of my credit reports as the owner of the debt (Genesee does not show up at all as owning it).

I am going to DV Citifinancial for the following possible violations:

1) A single company cannot report more than once. Since Citifinancial bought, and IS Associates Financial, they are the SAME company, and there should only be one entry.

2) The Citifinancial entry reports last payment as 3/2003, when the correct last payment date is 7/2001 as reported by the Associates entry. I suspect this would be considered re-aging...as the 3/2003 date would be used to remove the Citifinancial entry, when in fact the orinial default was nearly 2 years before that! This should be coming off of my credit report, and my credit score improved, in 7/2008....and I shouldn't have to wait until 3/2010!

Subi-not sure if this will help or not-I'm not familiar with the whole collection agency issue yet...I have a Sears card-I only recently realized that even though it has Sears in big letters all over it, on the back in TINY letters it says that its through "Citibank". Could some of those Citibank or Citifinancials be from a store card of some sort?

No, my store cards were all paid off. This was for some stupid C-band sat dish my ex just HAD to have, and my name got put all over it! I know it is the same account, because both are reporting the same amount owed to the penny. Also, if you research Associates financial, you see that the entire company was bought out by CitiCorp in 2000, and after completely merged into CitiCorp, Associates did business as Citifinancial. So, Citifinancial was never a collection agency. They bought the whole company...accounts, building, employees, everything. Not the same as just buying the debt.

This is the same thing as SWB Wireless buying GTE and becoming Cingular, then buying AT&T Wireless and staying Cingular, only to now become AT&T Wireless again. In the end, same company!!!

I thing a DV letter is the best way to go.

Ya know I got caught up in the whole AT&T, Cingular ordeal! I originally had AT&T cell phone, then they were bought out by Cingular but wouldn't let me use my old phones, had to buy all new from Cingular... now they're AT&T again! WTH???
Make up ur mind already!
:)
Ang

The whole thing is driving me crazy, too. I was a SWB Wireless customer. When they switched to Cingular, my services didn't work, because they converted to the GTE network because it was better than theirs. They were actually really nice about getting me a new phone free of charge, etc. The AT&T buyout was worse. I had a family plan to get my daughter a phone. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law were on AT&T. Well after the buyout, we realized it would be cheaper to merge everything onto my family plan. It meant their numbers had to be moved to the Cingular network, but their phones were incompatible with that network, and phones with compatible features were not the free phones, etc. It took about 6 months to get everything perfect!

Since this thread has been hijacked into a cell phone conversation has anybody had any luck putting a cell phone contract on hold? I currently have a family plan with 5 phones with Cingular that is now AT&T and money is tight so I called them to see if I could put my contract timer on hold and reinstate it after New Years but they told me all I could do was cancel the contract which meant I had to pay the contract in full immediately. I do not get why they give you that option since it cost the same amount but it has to be paid immediately and you get no service. Also, if I do not pay will they cancel my service and continue to charge me or does it effectively go on hold since they would no longer be providing service and then I just pay a $35 reinstate fee. I think what would happen is my contract would be void and called in full after a certain period of time of not paying. If I tried to reinstate I think they would back charge me for months that no service was provided. That????????s just a guess on my part though.

With Cingular, I do know that they send accounts to be turned off after payment is about 15-20 days past due. If you still do not pay, and then try to turn your phone back on, you WILL have to pay for the months you did not have service (because the contract was in effect), late fees and such, and a reconnect charge. Cell phones get ugly if you don't pay!!! A friend of ours could no longer afford his cell phone. They wanted him to pay out the contract if he got the thing turned off, and wouldn't turn it off unless he did so. When all was said and done, he had a bill for over $1,000 that is still haunting him today!

My advice would be to see if they will let you bump down to the lowest plan possible, so that you are at least paying less each month, and may be able to keep it in good status until the end of the year. They MAY let you do that, but not 100% sure they will. Good luck!

AND BACK TO THE ORIGINAL SUBJECT:

It will be interesting to see IF Citifinancial responds, and what they respond with! I made it a point to include in the letter (in more professional language) that I know the debt was sold and they are no longer allowed to attempt to collect on it, and that no matter which of the two dates they look at (7/2001 or 3/2003) that the debt is outside of the SOL for Texas, so don't even attempt to sue me!

I'm also interested if they validate the debt, because I would like to compare their response to whatever S&P and Genesee MAY send...seeing as Citifinancial/Associates is the original creditor of record!