How do you dispute inquries?

Hi FYI

Are the inquiries soft or hard ones? If soft, then I think there is nothing you can do, businesses can pull soft inquiries, these inquiries do not affect your score though. If these are hard inquiries then you have to dispute them directly with the creditors.

Nelly

sorry to respond to this one FYI
but don't you know the answer to this from being in business?
this makes me think.... why am I here when I follow your advice and others with experience on collection debts here...
why is a collector asking how to clear up your credit and how to dispute inquiries..have you never made inquiries?..
not asking out of disrespect but just wondering why you are in the biz and asking this question..makes me worried here...

Why would I know how to dispute inquries just because I am a collector? Do you think there is some sort of training seminar specifically for collectors on how to repair your credit? More likely if there was any seminar for collectors to attend it would be on how to become a better collector.

The things they teach collectors or at least where I work is to follow the rules, follow the rules, follow the rules and whatever you need for the project you work on. That's it.

Being a collector does not make me an expert on credit repair which is why I asked my question to the forum in hopes that someone would be able to teach me somehting new. That is the purpose of a question right?

hmnnn..

sorry I touched a nerve but your response kind of answered my question...

most people are drawn to this sight because they have become a part of this "debt collections" world that they know nothing about..

you stated in earlier post that you work for a small company that made 2 million in Dec from one office you work out of...

I would have assumed that any company with these numbers would have highly trained employees who are well versed in every aspect of the collection and credit process..

hope someone here can help you and good luck!

From what I have been told you can dispute anything on your credit report with the credit reporting agency suh as Equifax. They will remove the item for thirty days while the company that reported a delinquincy or made a hard inquiry attempts to prove its authenticity. If they do not , which in many cases they don't, it stays off for good. If they do validate it, it goes back on. You should only dispute a couple of items at a time however, as not to send up any flags.
Beware of credit repair companies that dispute everything at once. It comes off, you pay them and it comes back in thirty days. Meanwhile you will never get a refund.

First back off of FYI.Most collectors do not have hard core knowledge of the Fcra. They are mainly geared in reporting and answering disputes. Fyi inquiries are difficult to dispute with credit bureaus.The first two courses of action are to sign up with truecredit.com and pull the report update feature daily. This will in time overload reports with softs and bump hards on transunion & equifax. Next for any inquiries you do not recognize send them a letter asking for their permissible purpose to pull your report per Fcra and demand either proof of this or deletion of inquiry.Pm me for a useful shortcut that sometimes works with equifax.

I agree with both FYI and Cajun that most collectors probably aren't trained in FCRA compliance, and don't know the in's and out's of credit reporting/disputes. -- It's more of a specialized department within a company. You very well know a collector's job is to arrange payment, not to consult with debtors about their credit reports; and so it is not necessary for a company to consume its resources by training employees on 'things they don't need to know.' I specifically train my collectors not to even try to handle any credit report issues, but rather to refer the customer to me in those cases.

FYI - like Cajun said you can always demand proof that they were authorized to make an inquiry. I think there's some letters to that effect in the DIY section here.

The only problem with disputing those inquiries:

I get a lot of these disputes myself, from disgruntled customers who I turned down for a loan. With all the time involved in proving authorization, believe me, I would rather just delete the inquiry than dig out old files to find their signature.

About a year ago, I contacted my TransUnion rep to find out how to delete my inquiries. It's not that easy. Per TransUnion, there are only 3 reasons for a company to ever remove its inquiries from someones credit report:

1) In the case of an internal processing error, whereby the company did not intend to or should not have pulled the inquiry;
2) Duplicate inquiries made in the same day (how often does this happen?);
3) In the case of fraud/identity theft, in which case their fraud investigation department gets involved..

In the case of #1, Transunion keeps track of these "errors" and if they find a company reporting too many of them, then they will suspend or terminate service.

My rep specifically told me that Transunion forbids the removal of inquiries outside those 3 reasons. For good cause -- suppose a company could delete any inquiry it wanted. In effect, anybody could illegally pull a person's credit without authorization, and then they could simply delete that inquiry afterwards so nobody would find out. And so, the bureaus will not let companies delete their inquiries without valid reason.


Below is the letter Transunion sent me regarding the issue:
[quote]Dear TransUnion Customer:

In order to comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, TransUnion Data Services can only delete inquiries under the following circumstances:

1. We can delete an inquiry if it is posted to the consumer????????s file as the result of an internal processing error and if the subscriber provides TransUnion a signed written request, accompanied by a signed letter from the consumer, on whose file the inquiry is posted, requesting deletion of the specific inquiry. Subscribers who routinely request the removal of inquiries resulting from consumer reports being accessed in error may be audited for compliance with their security and/or permissible purpose obligations under their TransUnion membership agreements and/or the FCRA. Excessive incidents involving erroneous access or failure to observe permissible purpose requirements may result in suspension or termination of service.

Or

2. We can also delete duplicate inquires that are posted on the same day, regardless of whether the inquiry codes are the same, if we receive a signed written request from the Subscriber requesting this. However, the state laws of Colorado, Connecticut, Texas and Vermont require records of all inquiries, including multiple inquiries by the same party. For these states, extraneous inquiries may not be deleted. As noted above, routine requests may result in an audit of your security and compliance practices.

Or

3. In the event the inquiry is posted to the consumer????????s file as a result of a fraudulent application. In this case please email or fax your request for deletion to our Fraud Victim Assistance Department (FVAD) at the following address:

Trans Union Fraud Victim Assistance Department
PO Box 6790
Fullerton CA, 92834
Phone: 1-800-372-8391
Fax: 1-714-680-7290
FVAD will contact the consumer to advise him/her of the fraud so that the consumer may avail him/herself of our fraud prevention and investigative services.


We will process your request as soon as we receive this required documentation.

Sincerely

TransUnion
Data Services Center[/quote]

They may get a bureau upset with deletion of a legitimate inquiry,but it can be recoded to a soft and satisfy both the bureau and the consumer.

"Recoding" an inquiry is a new one to me. As far as I know, I don't have an option to pull a soft vs. hard inquiry -- any pull I make will always be a hard one. And I don't even know how to go about recoding an inquiry once I've pulled it. I can log in to E-OSCAR to change my tradelines on a person's credit report, but there's nowhere for me to go to change/edit/adjust inquiries that I make.

I will contact both my Transunion and Experian rep to ask them if that's possible, and how I would do it, then I'll report back here.

Are all the hard inquiries permissible pulls? Sending you a PM on how to get hard pulls off TU and EQ, won't work on EXP

I can totally back FYI on this ..... collectors are not taught nor do they need to know anything about credit reporting to do their job effectively. I collected for a decade for the same company (a big one at that...I myself had several million dollar months and we had 250 collectors on average so that might give you an idea of our monthly collections)
We did not report to the CRA's so it was not something we even thought about. Most understood the basics on how to read a credit report but how and why things got on there or how to take it off was not our concern. We in the student loan division we taught a bit more on "how" things would be reported because of different reporting laws but other than that, nothing. I learned most "extras" over the years by reading.

I can't help but to ask your opinion socksfullofrocks...
I work for one of the largest banks in the US processing credit applications and opening new bank accounts yet I know absolutely nothing about how our collections dept works. Even though they managed to earn over $600 mil. in profits last quarter, despite the mortgage crises and all, do you think they don't know what they are doing because I was never trained in collections? I find most of the information very useful here considering nobody is charging me for it.

As for disputing inquiries...
I have had specific cases of customers complaining so relentlessly that we would have their credit inquiry removed just to get them off our back. I believe your best bet is to try to dispute them with the creditor first... very relentlessly :) !

okay.. smckaybiz

I will answer here because you asked my opinion on this and forgive me for seeming so stupid or whatever in the first place...

small details..

My husband and I ..are small business owners and today ..Saturday...our sales were great (actually surpassed 2005 totals when real estate was rockin here ..for same date)..Thank God we had lots of customers and it was a big relief to us that consumers are getting out there again and at least considering spending their hard earned money.....it was also quite a big day for us as far as credit applications were concerned..I processed a total of 21 of them and exactly 4 of them were actually approved..this week I received 2 returned checks because of non-sufficient funds and one check returned with a stop payment and check writer is claiming fraud even though I copied their driver's license two weeks ago myself..
me and hubby are small fishies in the picture ..HELLO!!!! Your big company made so much $ on last fiscal quarter?..think your estimate might be a BIT OVERATEDif so let me in on the deal~!!!!
HOWEVER
I also don't know how a collection dept works because I report to the police dept. or Dist. Attorney any in house issues... and finance company we are affiliated with obviously has their own dept..

but my response to your statement is this..you work for a bank..I am self employed..the person I assumed would know the rules is employed in the Collection industry and collects! (key phrase here in collection business..)..and sorry if I thought people employed in this industry and involved in collections should be well versed in their area..

I too also find information here very useful and am very thankful for all the wonderful people I have met and yes the information is free and there are very nice people here giving you that information and after being here you realize.. it is what it is..people helping people....

I also will to this day and have always have stated since I joined and read her posts..that I feel FYI is a very wonderful and needed member here and I am so glad that there are debt collectors on this sight to give other perspectives .. and the fact that I have questioned a few of her statements has somehow made me a bad person here on this thread..is also okay..I can deal with that..it's a dadgum forum for goshsakes!

and as a final note smckaybiz..I am very happy that the bank you work for made so much money last quarter..because my husband and I in past 6 months have lost our a#s in long term stock market investments that we kept holding onto..(portfolio included several banks who had so many write downs in profits recently)..can you p.m. me with your company? I would love to re invest in stock in your company while market is so low! thanking you in advance!

Socksfullofrocks -

Are you a mortgage broker? I'm just curious what it is that people are writing checks to you for. Problem with bad checks in my state is that our law specifically forbids creditors from prosecuting over bad checks; so a person can write me a bad check and there's nothing I can do other than charge an NSF fee.

Aside, I do think Mr McKay was just digging up old bones here. We don't think you're a bad person -- it was an honest misinterpretation. I can see why you might think collectors would be trained in FCRA/credit reporting issues, since the two seemingly go hand-in-hand. And you learned something new when you found out they're not trained for that. No harm done. I don't think FYI nor anyone else here holds that against you.

Just please don't be afraid to post things out of fear for what others may attack you. It's okay to be wrong; and we will be happy to enlighten you.

no debt..I am not a broker..but when I referred to real estate rockin in 2005..retail sales across the board almost tripled in my area because equity made us all "richer on paper" so to speak

and I can say that at this time in the real estate market..I am thankful I am not a broker..although I am friends with several people in this industry and good Lord are they hurting right now!..(in my city at least)

the n.s.f. checks were for retail goods received...my state will prosecute for three times the amount of debt plus court fees..but it is a hassle trying to get money back..normally..they have to get in trouble or receive a warrant..and in order to get out of trouble..make restitution...I don't even know why I feel guilty trying to recoup these losses..(one check was for $63.28..the other was $856.93)

thanks debt! for your response!and your understanding nature!:D

Quote:

I guess it's because the people are having a bad time and that is why their check bounced..
I don't know ..my husband gets p'o'd ..I instead feel bad for person who did this..we work hard for our money as I am sure everyone here does..I just don't want to get them in more trouble than they already are if they are willing to make amends..I am always like.."Thank you so much for taking care of this".. I don't even charge returned check fee..am just happy when they pay..thanks lone!...
p.s....luv your avatar!

Sorry for being on the offensive when I meant to be on the defense with that last post. Times are definately tough right now and although my employer makes soo much money they still had to let go over 5000 employees. It's pretty sick, I know. And as far as buying bank stocks right I would be more than happy to let you know who I work for just not so openly due to the nature of the website I've created. Either send me a private message here if possible or click here to visit my site and ask me through the contact us page.

I didn't mean to sound like such a smart@$# by spitting out such large numbers about the bank I work for nor did I mean any disrespect to the little guys out there either! Take care

Socks - I mentioned mortgage broker because you were talking about credit apps. I'm guessing maybe, then, that you work with other lenders that finance your customers? It's noble of you to be so nice about the NSF's -- but really, it's not your job to go around chasing after bad checks. In a case like yours, where someone is writing a $800+ check to buy something from you, if they can't stand 100% behind that check then they shouldn't write it.

Scott - thanks for coming back to make amends; maybe you weren't trying to be sarcastic but it seemed a little that way. And welcome to the forum!

thanks debt and also thanks to Scott too.. we are all strangers in cyberspace here..and I myself have made many statements here that I later wish I had worded differently..
but we always have a chance to at least try to explain where we were coming from at that point in time...

anyways debt...
yes my business offers a 6 months same as cash and a 12 months same as cash financing program through a certain major credit corp.--I won't promote here on site..although have been very satisfied with the affiliation..
if customers pay balance off in time.. there is no interest fee..if not interest is rolled back and re-figured at 21.9%..I always tell them emphatically if they don't plan on paying it off in that time-frame..to use a credit card or our layaway program..not to finance!!!(probably not the hard core sales pitch most are used to but just want to be as honest as I can and also make a decent living at same time)

and debt..I probably in small business that I am in ...suddenly these days have at least 3 times as many people filling out these credit applications hoping to finance and take product home with no money down..

two years ago it was a very different story..anyways I always try to chase the bad checks first..because it is usually at least 6 months later before any restitution is received from D.A. and I want to give customers who do this.. one last chance before they get into more trouble.

DID FYI CLEAR UP CREDIT OR NOT HERREE JUST WONDERUNG

Can Medical Bills be disputed ?

You can only dispute inquiries with Equifax, you can do it online on their website.