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Nearly one in four credit reports contains an error
serious enough to seriously damage your credit, according to a watchdog
consumer group.
U.S. Public Interest Research Group's 2004 survey
titled, "Mistakes Do Happen: A Look at Errors in Consumer Credit
Reports," also concluded that almost 80 percent of the 200
reports reviewed contained some mistakes.
So, we asked Bankrate readers to tell us if they've
had problems with their credit reports. They responded -- with a
furor.
Our readers told us of some lengthy battles with the
credit bureaus and agreed to share their exhausting attempts to
get rid of items that should never have been on the reports or should
have been removed years ago.
'Wait, that's not me!'
Angela Mall wanted a piece of the American dream: a new home. But
she discovered a problem when she received her credit report. A
credit bureau had her confused with someone else.
"As it turns out, the credit bureau has mixed
me up with another person and the person's Social (Security number)
was one off from mine," she writes.
Mall did a little checking around. She called the
credit card companies and found out that they had the correct information.
But, she says, the credit bureau, TransUnion, had transposed the
Social Security numbers not once, but 15 times.
"I have spent hours on the phone trying to correct this. I told them the urgency of this and the closing date. I called two weeks later and they had no record that I needed this taken care of urgently."
Samir Mujagic says all three credit bureaus have melded
he and his sister into one person. He believes it has to do with
the fact that they have similar names. Still, he says, their Social
Security numbers, birth dates and genders are different.
"So, basically, I am a person with several credit
cards, loans, etc., but only one job."
'You've got it ... dead wrong!'
Last September, Bill Pizer decided to get a free copy of his credit report but was shocked to find a charge from his deceased father on it.
"I contacted Experian, who did an investigation,"
Pizer writes. "They ruled that the information was correct
as stated with the creditor. So I contacted the creditor directly.
They updated their records, and I wrote to Experian again. They
promptly wrote back and told me that they already investigated this
entry and it was deemed to be correct."
'I haven't moved!'
Two years ago Dave Elliott got a letter from American Express that
told him that his credit limit was being lowered because of problems
on his credit report. Elliott decided to take a look for himself
and got a copy of his reports from all
three credit bureaus. He found two major problems.
"One was that I supposedly lived at an address
for a few months that I never lived at and at another for a few
years, all during the time that I have been married, and I have
lived where we do since 1988, and have been married since 1990, and
we have never moved. County records show that, yet none of
the credit agencies will remove the false information," he
writes.
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