> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On > Behalf Of Erik Reuter
... Couple of things to keep in mind. The credit reporting companies *have* to investigate if you challenge something on your report. They have a limited time to do so, which IIRC is 30 days. In that time, if they can't prove you owe the money, it comes off your credit report. When we bought the rest of my wife's father's house (after she inherited 1/3rd of it), I found a couple of strange supposedly unpaid accounts on my report, which I challenged. They were gone within a week. IIRC, I did this entirely via the web. The two were on different reports, so this worked for me with two agencies. Cancelling your credit card probably won't help. I can't quite recall what company it was, but some outfit charged me an annual fee, which they claimed I had authorized, on a card that I had cancelled many, many months earlier. Imagine my surprise when I received a bill for a card I had long since cancelled! The credit card company told me that if I authorized the charge, they could still bill me for it even though I didn't have the card any more. The statement I received showed that I had had a zero balance before the new charge and zero credit available, and the minimum payment was equal to the new charge. I couldn't quite believe it. They reversed the charge when I said I hadn't authorized it, but then they sent me a form to sign, saying the same thing. The accompanying letter said that if I didn't sign and send it back within something like 10 days, they'd reinstate the charge. Oh, and a third thing. No matter what the outcome of a credit reporting agency investigation, you have the right to attach a brief statement to any entry in your credit report. For example, we got stuck with a very large American Express bill when my former business partner, uh, misbehaved (I don't want to go into it). Couldn't pay it on time, so eventually I submitted a brief explanation that's still attached to that negative item on my credit report. I don't think it changes the score, but it helps a great deal if you're dealing with someone who has some discretion regarding credit, I'm told. And finally, another small horror story, for those who enjoy such things. I used to use Goamerica's CDPD wireless service. When I signed up, they offered unlimited usage, no roaming charges, for $149 a month, IIRC. When we started Opion, Inc., I gave Goamerica my company credit card (a *real* company card, where the bill went to the company, not me) to pay the bill. At some point, Goamerican began charging for roaming, which they defined as any use of the service outside your local phone *exchange* (not area code) and one or two other exchanges that you could name. However, I didn't even know they did so because notifications went to a Goamerica e-mail account that I never used (they told me I didn't need to, so I didn't) and to the billing address, which was our bank in Virginia. So I was running up a very large bill without realizing it. The real kicker is that somehow, Goamerica failed to *ever* successfully bill my company card, as far as I know. I suspect that what happened was that they billed at the end of the month, when our credit available was too low to cover the charges. (Our company cards had a credit limit shared among the executives, so we never quite knew if they'd work or not.) Instead of doing anything about the failure, they apparently let the balance roll over to the next month, thus making it even more unlikely that it would be approved. I cancelled the service not long after leaving Opion. A few *months* later, I received a bill for more than $5,000 -- for all the service since we launched Opion, and even for the months after I cancelled. Took me a while to figure out what had happened. They couldn't explain why they had even allowed the balance to grow so big. Meanwhile, Opion had sold out to Intelliseek and shut down... and of course my company credit card was long since cancelled. Goamerica kept annoying me, trying to make me personally responsible for the bill (and I was really glad that we had *real* company cards, instead of the kind where you personally guarantee payment). Eventually, I started giving them my former partner's home address, phone, etc., telling them that they needed to talk to the company. No idea what happened, but they eventually stopped bothering me. I suppose I should take a look at my credit reports to make sure they didn't stick me with the liability... Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
