Equifax Credit Bureau

Hi !
I have a friend who had some credit inaccuracies on his
credit and he was speaking with a manager from Equifax who admitted under direct questioning that Equifax is a Members owned datebase! Which means many of the national companies are members who contribute to this database of information which affects each persons credit. This in information is placed in your credit file whether true or false because a member company submitted. This is one of the many reasons why Equifax is one of the worst.

Guacho

[masterduke]

Gaucho, Thanks for the info! It seems to be a given that these "companys"(equifax, etc) really are just fronts for the mega powerful trust entitys that ultimately control all of the credit/finance activities. They really call the shots. All the way down to the little creepy debt attorney/slimeball judge in the local district court, slamming tens of thousands of people a day across this nation.

[charlesa6]

Yeah, that's what they good @ screw people's life.

[REDCLOUD]

Equifax is a publicly traded company owned by its sharholders;

Read their 10K here:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da...-1873_110k.htm

This in information is placed in your credit file whether true or false because a member company submitted. This is one of the many reasons why Equifax is one of the worst.

Not true, it is done by adhesion contract when you sign a credit card agreement, car loan, or home mortgage or any kind of finance agreement.

FYI it is possible to terminate the adhesion contract but difficult. It is also possible to control the data in the file.

[masterduke]

Redcloud, Have you Terminated the adhesion contract? And how do you control the data in the file? As it seems that most of the time these reporting agencies seem not care one wit as to the accuracy of the data they will have reported in their files.

[REDCLOUD]

Redcloud, Have you Terminated the adhesion contract? And how do you control the data in the file? As it seems that most of the time these reporting agencies seem not care one wit as to the accuracy of the data they will have reported in their files

In certain case , yes I have, in small claims court. I should have said manage the data not control. You cannot directly affect what is reported. Small claims court is a powerful weapon.

Everyone should remember when dealing with credit bureaus, these are businesses, not government agencies. As such, I suggest you sue them in small claims court as often as they make a mistake.

[masterduke]

Thats very interesting that you have sued them in small claims court. Would like to hear about that adventure! Thanks for the information.

[charlesa6]

Yeah, I concur, more detail about the small claims battle, and success.

[REDCLOUD]

I have sued all three credit bureaus in small Claims Court, Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union for various things and won on several occasions against each of them. I have also sued Citi card, Americreit, Bank of America, Verizon wireless, T-Mobile, and several others for various dings and hits to my credit report.

it is important to understand what a credit report is and what a credit report is not before attempting to sue in small claims. Credit reports are a genuine product of the computer and space-age. I'm not sure if it's true or not but I was told by an engineer at TRW how TRW got into the credit reporting business. TRW was a product of the megamergers in the 1960s. The driving force behind it was an engineer named Cy Ramo who collaborated with another engineer named Woolridge to acquire Thompson tools thus TRW. It originally started out with government contracts and that did a lot of the management of the Apollo program for NASA. Supposedly Cy Ramo played golf in Houston in a country club frequented by man named Chilton who owned the Chilton credit reporting agency. When the Apollo program was winding down TRW found itself with large data banks of computers and tape storage drivesand a sizable amount of cash. the story goes that at a golf game in Houston Ramo and Chilton hatched the idea to store Chilton's massive credit files on Ramo's tape drives. TRW bought Chilton, and thus was born to modern credit reporting industry. There had long been a credit reporting industry of sorts in the United States prior to this, that existed primarily in insurance underwriting and risk management industries. Credit "associations" existed as far back as the 1800s that had helped evaluate underwriting risk. I don't know if the story is true or not but it sounds good. According to the Equifax annual report it has been in existence since the 1890s, and is now publicly traded company. Trans Union was previously a railroad in Chicago and is owned by the Pritzker family that owns Hyatt hotels. TRW has subsequently been sold to Gus PLC, a British company that is publicly traded in England.

The Gus PLC web site for Experian can be found here
http://www.gusplc.com/gus/businesses/experian/overview/

The Equifax information can be found here
http://www.equifax.com/corp/investor...005/board.html
and here:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da...-1873_110k.htm


Not as much is available about Trans Union
http://www.transunion.com/content/pa...nyOverview.xml


The first thing to understand about credit reports is that you do not have "credit". In fact you do not have anything in the sense that you own or possess something. These companies maintain data files on adhesion contracts between you and companies that you borrow money from. When you sign a credit card agreement mortgage loan car loan or the like each of these agreements has a clause in it that allows the lender to report data to a credit reporting company. The lender and the credit reporting company in turn have a contract between themselves to change data about you, thereby creating adhesion contracts between you and the credit reporting company. most courts have generally refused to directly terminate these adhesion agreements between you and the current reporting company but that is a different story.As everyone here knowsthe credit reporting companies do not maintain accurate data. In an attempt to regulate this Congress has passed a few pieces of "consumer" legislation. these are the Fair Credit Reporting Act and The Fair and Accurate Credit Reporting Act of 2003, The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and some various truth in lending legislation. Most states have followed suit and enacted various corresponding legislation. the Federal Trade Commission is charged with monitoring these businesses and most states assign the Attorney General to monitoring these businesses. These acts deal with what credit reporting agencies and debt collectors can and cannot do and what information can be generated and used by them. The Fair Credit Reporting Act's limit claims to $1000 thereby allowing access to small claims court but limiting the amount is you can claim against them for damages. It is this provision and I've used as a basis for filing claims in small Claims Court. The good news is that this means they cannot send an attorney to represent them and is just you against the credit reporting agencies representative with the judge listening. Most small claims Judges hate these guys as much as you do, remember their paying mortgages car payments, credit card payments too.

As an example, I sued Experian for 23 late payments posted to my credit report by Nations Credit, who changed its name to the Loan Servicing Center, who is now SPS. they were sued by the Federal Trade Commission for screwing up over 50,000 accounts of loans that they serviced and were forced to refund the payments to most of these people, I was one of them. I said Experian copies of the FTC judgment the refund and I got the case law cases and they refused to remove the lates from my credit report and instead insisted on reconfirming the lates with this idiot entity that couldn't get it right the first place. I filed a summons and complaint against Experian in small Claims Court alleging that they violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by posting an accurate information by credit file. I gave them a subpoena asking for a copy of all the information exchange between them and the loan servicing Center, the contract they had with the loan servicing Center, and all the contracts they had between the credit cards on micro report, the mortgage is a micro report, and the car loans on my credit report. I asked the court to order Experian to remove these 23 late payments. I looked up information for Experian on the Secretary of State's web site and got the agent for service who was the Corporation company, a national agent for service for many large corporations. I filled out the summons and complaint in quadruple,went to the clerk of the court, paid the fee got stamped got a case number, carried a copy to the corporation company, and mailed a copy to Experian. I brought the served documents back to the clerk of the court with a notary stating that personal service up and made to Experian's agent. a few weeks later I got a call from someone at Experian wanting to settle. I explain to them that I wanted them to remove the 23 lates from my credit report. and she said that they had verified information and could not but would pay me $500. I said I really wanted the lates off due to the fact was not late and I had a Federal Trade Commission judgment stating otherwise. We could not settle and she said she would see me in court. This person called me from the Texas office of Experian. When we got to court the judge asked us to exchange data. When I asked her for the data in my subpoena she refused to give it to me. Fortunately I had anticipated this, , and had brought a motion for contempt with me. I went to the clerk and filed my motion for contempt, the clerk handed it to the judge and the judge called Experian employee forward. Unbelievably the employee began to tell the judge that the judge had no authority to require the release of the data because of his proprietary, the judge stopped her and said you can either produce it or spend the night in jail. She chose to produce it, we set a time to reconvene, she reproduced the data, I prove my case and the judge ordered all the lights taken off my credit report.I have attached an example of the summons and complaint subpoena and motion for contempt.

I've done the same thing and gotten late payments removed by suing Americredit, Citi card, T-Mobile, Verizon wireless, GE Credit, Home Savings, World Savings and several others. I have also settled credit card debtby compromising the amount due, and including in the payment on the back of the check a statement to the effect that all contracts between myself and the credit reporting company are no of void and that no further reporting to credit reporting agencies will be allowed upon acceptance of the settlement payment. I have then sued in small Claims Court and won to not have the credit information removed and an order issued barring future reporting upon my credit report.

[charlesa6]

Bravo!!! Somebody get to do it, and put those mondos in check.