WILL U.S. GOV'T FINALLY DO SOMETHING ABOUT PUERTO RICO?
01 May 2010
Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a self-governing unincorporated territory of the United States located in the northeastern Caribbean Sea, east of the Dominican Republic and west of the Virgin Islands.
Puerto Rico (Spanish for "rich port") is composed of an archipelago that includes the main island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller islands, the largest of which are Vieques, Culebra, and Mona. The main island of Puerto Rico is the smallest by land area and second smallest by population among the four Greater Antilles, which also include Cuba, Hispaniola, and Jamaica. Read More.
BEWARE OF CREDIT REPORTING FRAUD
25 April 2010
Credit Reporting Fraud is not a new modality of crime. This type of CRIME has been taking place for several years and continue to be practiced in detriment of American consumers. Because of how easy it is to "legally" get away with it, IBSI expects the number of victims to rise even more as long as the American economy continues to be in such a terrible shape.
What is Credit Reporting Fraud?
Credit reporting fraud is committed when an entity willfully
submits inaccurate financial information to the credit bureaus about a
consumer, with the intention of damaging the consumer's credit
worthiness. This is a serious violation of the Fair Credit Reporting
Act, or FCRA (15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq).
Though affected consumers may get some degree of justice by disputing
the negative information found in their credit reports, or by filing a
complaint with the FTC, the fact remains that once the negative
information has been posted, the damages suffered by the victims is not
limited to getting a credit card or loan application denied, but
increased hardships.
A True Life Example (Open Investigation)
For example. Our client "A" had a credit score of 715 with all three credit bureaus. Client "A" decided to apply
for a home loan to purchase her first home and take advantage of tax
credits of 2009. One bank in particular, sent her a credit card,
which was lost in the mail. She called the bank to report the card
missing or stolen in the mail. The bank cancelled the credit card
account, but it began to report the card as being paid on time
with all three credit bureaus. Concerned that someone may have actually
stolen the card and was using it, she called the bank to question why
was the card appearing as being paid monthly if the account was closed.
The bank told her that they issued her a new card, but the second card
was also lost in the mail, and she told the bank to cancel the account
and not to send her any more cards.
Four months later, when client "A" was ready to close on the home loan, the bank reported her to the credit bureaus as delinquent for one month in her card payments. She called the bank where the telephone customer service agent said that they [the bank] did not report her negatively before the credit bureaus, but that they bank instead reported the account as closed with "0" balance pending. The many hard inquiries made by mortgage companies to get her preapproved for the home loan caused her credit score to go down to 695. Because of the inaccurate information provided by the bank, her credit score went down to 650.
Client "A" called the bank again to ask them to correct the information they have submitted to the credit bureaus, and again the bank told her that the only information they submitted to the credit bureaus was that the credit card account was closed and that she didn't owe anything. The day after she called the bank, client "A" received an alert from Experian.com where she was being informed that a potentially negative item was reported in her credit report. The issue: the same bank she spoke with the day before once again reported that she failed to pay her credit card payment for a second month. This caused her credit score to go down to 595. The result: Client A no longer qualifies for a home loan.
At the request of client "A", IBSI conducted an investigation to determine whether she really owed any money to the bank or not. As part of our investigation, we asked client A to call the bank, and we listened to the conversation. The curstomer service representative told client A that she didn't owe them any money, that the account was closed at her request, and that the bank didn't file any negative information about her before the credit bureaus. We asked client A to ask the bank to send her a letter certifying those facts about the account, so she could take the letter to the mortgage company. It took over two weeks and four (4) calls to finally get the fax sent. The fax showed different information than what the customer service representative told our client. In the fax, the bank says that client A's account ending in xxxx* is open, with "0" balance pending.
Looking deeper into the case, we noticed that client A has another credit card with the same bank, which she has paid religiously on time for almost three years. Client A doesn't hasn't had any negative items on her credit report for the last 10 years. However, we noticed that the bank has been monitoring client A credit report for several months, after client "A" tried to obtain a credit card from a major bank who offered her better rates, better terms, and free balance transfer.
IBSI has found client A has been a victim of inaccurate credit reporting. Whether the bank acted with malice, that is yet to be determined. Interestingly ,we also found that none of the credit bureaus has done anything to correct the wrongs committed against client "A". Client "A" filed a complaint before the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that has not been resolved yet.
Another interesting thing we found is that the same bank has acted wrongly against other customers. In most of those cases, the issues were settled out of court, or through the Better Business Bureau. The problem is that the bank continue to hurt some of its customers, as if FCRA regulations were written over toilet tissue.
IBSI Looking For Other Victims
IBSI
created a program intended to help victims of credit reporting
inaccuracies. The program seeks to help victims get all inaccurate
information to be removed from their credit reports. The program also
seek to detect, identify, expose and submit for criminal prosecution,
all entities involved in credit reporting fraud. The program seeks to
help victims to obtain monetary compensation from those entities
engaged in credit reporting fraud. If you are, have been or know a
victim of credit reporting fraud, contact IBSI Credit Help Center
at credit@ibsi-1.org.
IBSI Looking For Lawyers
Attorneys
interested in helping credit reporting fraud victims are invited
to submit their contact information to IBSI-HQ. We are
creating an Attorney Directory for those victims interested in
initating a lawsuit against FCRA violators. Listing in our directory (currently under construction) is free of charge.
Note: IBSI is also investigating other companies engaged in the practice of submitting inaccurate information to the credit bureaus in detriment of their customers. For more information about the program, go to Our Progams page.
* Account number hidden to protect the identity of client "A".