Blog regulars know that I am careful with my money, and often post tips for my fellow creators.
I check my accounts every single day using software which shows my investments, credit, loans, payments, net worth – every penny in every account. Using graphs and charts, I keep track of spending trends and budgets with the click of a button.
I use a credit monitor service for which I have been paying for years. I check my FICO score, and watch my credit reports every single week. I am careful with my money, and while I love to have nice things like everyone else, I’m not above making a dime squeak when I need to. I’m acutely aware that the uncertain freelancer life can have me dining at the Four Seasons one day, and nibbling ramen noodles the next.
I can’t recall the last time I paid a bill late, and while I have more debt than I would like due to a couple of ramen noodle income years, I’ve been more than responsible with my money.
Alas, like many Americans, I woke up one day to find one of my credit card companies had quadrupled my interest rate. I assumed this was due to the bad economy, and was doubly annoyed when the company cut my limit. I’ve never paid them late. I asked them to lower the rate, and they refused. It’s not wise to dump all your credit these days, so I cut up the card and put it in a drawer as I made arrangements to pay off the bill ASAP. It’s not a huge debt, just annoying.
The interest rate is so huge only huge payments will cut the debt, so I decided to transfer the balance to an account with a lower interest rate. Confident in my good credit, I applied and was denied due to a bad mark on my credit rating.
I nearly fainted. WHAT bad mark? Has someone been into my accounts?
I went over everything, unable to find any record of unauthorized use. Then I contacted my credit monitor service. Again, nothing.
Getting my rate jacked up and denied credit all in one month is not a mistake. So I contacted my credit monitor again. After an entire hour on the phone, they finally admitted they don’t actually get their information from ALL the credit report agencies. I would have to contact all of them individually and check it out myself.
I’ve been paying for this credit monitor service for eight solid years, and only TODAY they tell me they don’t REALLY monitor my credit? They get their info from only ONE agency. The other agencies may have completely different info.
If that’s the case…what the heck am I paying them to monitor my credit for?
I contacted the other credit agencies, and yes, two of them had a very alarming bit of info on my report: debt on property I do NOT EVEN OWN!
I had to contact the city in which the property is registered. After a couple of hours, a clerk informed me that they had the proper paperwork on file showing I have no property there and no debt on it. And yes, admitted the clerk, it is very common for credit agencies to make this mistake. I would need to pay the city $10 for the certified paperwork and SASE which I would then have to forward to the credit agencies.
I had owned this property MANY years ago, but the credit agencies do not know that it was sold and paid off.
1) Credit monitor services are not what they seem. The one I have been paying for for eight years did nothing for me AND has let a false record sit on my credit unchallenged for years.
2) You can’t trust one agency to have your entire record. You have to check them all.
3) Buyer beware, and seller beware, too. The court records which show you paid your mortgage, or taxes are not always getting that info from the courts to the credit bureaus. Experian had my correct info, the other bureaus did not.
I had a similar problem when my mortgage was sold from one bank to another. The new bank failed to make contractually required tax payments to the city. I only caught them because I saw a report on TV advising consumers to not trust their mortgage statements, but to check directly with the Commissioner of the Revenue. I complained, and the matter was resolved. But ONLY after I caught them.
4) You are better off sending out for your once yearly free credit report than paying for a monitor service which does not actually monitor all your reports. (Link updated to Federal Trade Commission info.)
I expect to have my paperwork in two weeks, and then it will take a couple of months to clean up my credit (we pray). But in the meantime, I am stuck with a big old debt on my report which doesn’t exist, and which has quadrupled my interest rates.
If something like this can happen to someone like me, it can happen to anybody. Since I have not applied for credit in years and do not have car or home debt, I might have gone many more years unaware of this mess, thanks to a credit monitor service which is useless.
And to add insult to injury, every single credit report agency I spoke with today put the hard sell on me to subscribe to their service directly!
These yahoos have INCORRECT info on me which is being used to my detriment, and to make sure it doesn’t happen again, they want me to pay them $10 PER MONTH for a subscription to their PERSONAL service! To subscribe to them all would run nearly $400 per annum.
I just paid for a service which will give me all three reports for a flat fee, one time only. If I want it six months from now, I will order again. And save a lot of money.
c
