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Preview: 40 Million Mistakes

February 8, 2013 1:39 PM

A Steve Kroft investigation looks into the accuracy of the credit reports that American consumers rely on for credit cards and loans. Watch Kroft's report on Sunday, Feb. 10 at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT.

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by mattlistro1 February 11, 2013 3:02 PM EST
I own a company called Nationa Credit Fixers: www.nationalcreditfixers.com. I applaud your reporting - please feel free to contact me if I may be of assistance.

:)
Matt
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by tyethomas February 11, 2013 12:21 PM EST
We have been fighting the credit bureaus for years. Finally, someone validates our concerns. Please email me at tyethomas@gmail.com if you need help clearing up mistakes on your credit report.
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by runwayjmj February 10, 2013 8:08 PM EST
I enjoyed your program because after 15 years, someone else finally took the initiative and filed a report. I have an extremely common name, John Michael Jones. Two things you didn't mention is that the merchants can pull up my name 12 different ways, while I can only legally use the one name on my social security card, effectively giving them control over my given name and authorization to alter it. They can marry my real social security number to aliases they assign at will. and secondly, if this was any other system, it would be guilty of conflict of interest. A system used by merchants to qualify and report poor credit, paid for by the same merchants, and NOT used to report satisfactory and excellence. I could go on and on, how I worked with Kay Bailey Hutchinson to repair the FCRA, how I have been working fro two years with John Cornyn's office to address the FTC, CFPA, and CRA's activities. I have recently used the BBB to get more done than anything. Please feel free to contact me should you wish to add some teeth to the original report and substance to the argument.
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by trwcreditgroup February 10, 2013 7:56 PM EST
That is what I have been shouting from the roof tops for 6 years that the Credit Reporting Agencies blatantly ignore the Federal Law when being when a consumer tried to correct inaccurate information on their credit reports. I have personally helped hundred and hundreds get these items fixed permanently using our proven 100% legal credit report repair and verification services. Check us out at http://www.trwcreditgroup.com
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by inspiration1929 February 9, 2013 3:55 PM EST
p.s I offered to give the credit company copies of my certified slips and I was told no. Please tell me what I can do?
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by inspiration1929 February 9, 2013 3:50 PM EST
Hello Mr. Kroft I hope that you will respond or can help me I have been trying to clear my credit for years. What happen is that other credit collection buy the collection and add 7 more years and it is not right. This is where I am at today. On 12/22/2011 I sent out letters to several companies by certified mail and they never responded. I got frustrated and did nothing else and still they have never respond. I am now 63 and I can't do anything because they will not remove anything. There are names that I have never used. They have a social security number variations of the last four as 9394 that is not mine is 0667. A spouse listed as william. my decease husband's name is clifford and 9394 is the last four of his social and he died in 1998. the letter that I sent that the collection was this: To Whom It May Concern:
I am sending this letter to you in response to a notice I received from you on (date of letter). Be advised, this is not a refusal to pay, but a notice sent pursuant to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 USC 1692g Sec. 809 (b) that your claim is disputed and validation is requested.
This is NOT a request for "verification" or proof of my mailing address, but a request for VALIDATION made pursuant to the above named Title and Section. I respectfully request that your office provide me with competent evidence that I have any legal obligation to pay you.
Please provide me with the following:
What the money you say I owe is for;
Explain and show me how you calculated what you say I owe;
Provide me with copies of any papers that show I agreed to pay what you say I owe;
Provide a verification or copy of any judgment if applicable;
Identify the original creditor;
Prove the Statute of Limitations has not expired on this account;
Show me that you are licensed to collect in my state; and
Provide me with your license numbers and Registered Agent.
If your offices have reported invalidated information to any of the three major Credit Bureau's (Equifax, Experian or TransUnion), said action might constitute fraud under both Federal and State Laws. Due to this fact, if any negative mark is found on any of my credit reports by your company or the company that you represent I will not hesitate in bringing legal action against you for the following:
Violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act
Violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
Defamation of Character
If your offices are able to provide the proper documentation as requested, I will require at least 30 days to investigate this information and during such time all collection activity must cease and desist.
Also during this validation period, if any action is taken which could be considered detrimental to any of my credit reports, I will consult with my legal counsel. This includes any information to a credit reporting repository that could be inaccurate or invalidated or verifying an account as accurate when in fact there is no provided proof that it is.
If your offices fail to respond to this validation request within 30 days from the date of your receipt, all references to this account must be deleted and completely removed from my credit file and a copy of such deletion request shall be sent to me immediately.
I would also like to request, in writing, that no telephone contact be made by your offices to my home or to my place of employment. If your offices attempt telephone communication with me, including but not limited to computer generated calls or correspondence sent to any third parties, it will be considered harassment and I will have no choice but to file suit. All future communications with me MUST be done in writing and sent to the address noted in this letter.
This is an attempt to correct your records, any information obtained shall be used for that purpose.
Best Regards,
Your Signature
Your Name
I still have my certified clips Last week I contacted the credit companies and I was told by law I must give the credit collection companies 30 days to respond.
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by medicalquack February 9, 2013 11:11 AM EST
Good reporting and will be anxious to watch as I have blogged about this for a couple years now and it has to to with "flawed data" and what I call Algo duping. It extends beyond credit too and there are companies that function giving credit information like E-Scoring that don't call themselves credit agencies. They operate under loopholes of the law and you and I cannot see, dispute etc. anything they send to companies.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/08/e-scoring-credit-algorithms-invisible.html

We are "Algo Duped" as I call it and many professors agree with me on this as it's all about math and code. I have a series that I started in October of 2011 called "the attack of the killer algoirthms" and have used every day examples of how this hurts consumers. You read more here and the same videos are visible on every page of my blog under the left hand education side.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/02/attack-of-killer-algorithmsdigest-links.html

Same and more information is on another page called "Algo Duping 101" and it is definitely the use of technology against consumers. One more post of interest is how I explain this using queries and algorithms "out of context" and this is growing as data that does not belong together is being queried and sold as criteria saying is has value. It is being used out of context against consumers and data is flawed without value.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/11/big-dataanalytics-if-used-out-of.html

The way to fight this and bring some transparency in, license and tax the data sellers, been saying this for 2 years. We don't know who sells what kind of data to who and money from such a tax could help fund the NIH and the FDA for goodness sakes and I have made them aware of this. I write to the FTC but again not having people with some "tech" experience allows this to continue to happen as it gets marketed to the extremes on the web where people can't tell the difference. Here's my latest post and I have many more, all the links within are my prior posts.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/02/time-has-come-to-license-and-tax-data.html

This is a big rip against consumers, all done with formulas and math and steroid marketing and oh yes get the FICO story as their medication compliance program based on credit reports is pure bunk.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2011/06/fico-analytics-press-release-marketing.html

An now, FICO bought a business to get into the revenue cycle software business of health care and I am guessing they plan to use the "bunk" software in healthcare now as well. Using a credit score combined with other data mined off the web for medication compliance scoring..bunk and again it's a case of algo duping to the hilt.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/11/fico-buys-cr-software-and-gains-access.html

Do watch the video on my blog "all about context" to where NYU professor Siefe will cue you in and he tells you straight up how you get sucked in and I'll look forward to watching on Sunday!
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