Consumer law is wonderful. It is like a body guard who comes to the rescue when a bully mistreats a smaller friend.
Enter Collection Agencies, Credit Bureaus and Creditors—these are the financial bullies who routinely violate consumer rights.
Most of us have had the displeasure of having to deal with these “bullies” in an attempt to correct errors on credit reports. It is so frustrating because they act with impunity and don’t play fair.
Is it fair, for example, for a charge-off to be redundantly put onto a consumer’s credit report? If you defaulted on a credit card in January of 2012, your credit report should reflect that… That’s fair.
But what if it reads C O (Charge Off) again in February? What if it repeats it in March? Quite likely it will read charge off month after month, year after year. The redundancy has the effect of lowering one’s score as much as 200 points, and up until now is very difficult to remove.
That is NOT fair. And now it is not legal, either!
We implore you to check your credit report. (A consumer-based one will not work here). You must look at a report that is furnished directly by the bureaus; Equifax, Experian, and Transunion. If you are a client of the Heritage Group, we will do this for you.
So, how does this put money in your pocket? If there is one defaulted-on debt that is listed on your report by each of the bureaus as a charge off, and it is listed more than once, you have the right to collect award monies from each bureau that lists it as well as the creditor that authorized it!
Each violation carries with it a $1,000 fine that goes directly to the consumer. So for each charge off incident, there is a potential reward of $4,000! (Each bureau that lists the CO has to pay you a thousand dollars and the creditor who authorized it must pay you a thousand dollars as well).
Two Charge-offs? That’s $8,000. Three is $12,000, potentially, and so on.
So what are you waiting for? If you think you have charge-offs on your report, check them right now! If it is listed more than once, It could mean cash in your pocket!