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
I believe you can receive your credit report FREE, from all three reporting agencies, once per year. If you want to get it more often than that then yes, they’ll charge.
That freecreditreport website, the one with the catchy jingle? Yeah, if you sign up for their reporting service you can get it free. So people can sign up, get their report, and then sign right back down again. And BOY do they try their darnedest not to lose you once you signed! But I did that one year.
I think you should totally out the company that took your money and ran for eight years. If you signed up to have it monitored from three agencies and they only checked one, that’s FRAUD with big letters.
I hope you’re able to get your balance moved now that the incorrect debt is off your record.
I havent’ noticed a change in my interest rate because my credit sucks frogs (medical bankruptcy a few years ago). The thing that makes me REALLY MAD right now is that my car insurance company sent us a notice that now CREDIT SCORES will be considered as part of insurance risk and the rates “adjusted accordingly.” Apparently all the major insurance companies are doing that now. So my 20+ years of good driving with no accidents or tickets chargeable to me? Means nothing against my lousy credit. I’m cutting my insurance company loose (haven’t like them anyway but I’ve been lazy) and going for a smaller one that does not factor credit rating in. But I would love to know why I’m being penalized on insurance I am REQUIRED BY LAW to have, for something other than as relates to the operation of the vehicle.
/rant
Colleen, you should ask the reporting agencies to note that it’s a disputed item also. As I recall, they’re required to contact the entitiy reporting the item for proof if you dispute it and remove it if that proof doesn’t come within a certain length of time.
Unlike you, Colleen, I am very bad with money. But I also learned the hard way that credit agencies are quite irresponsible and abuse their public trust. These guys make a fortune on other people’s information, and do not share that info with the people involved until they are mandated to do so by law. In most cases, the damage has been done at that point, and there’s no un-ringing that bell.
As an amendment to Arinee’s observations, while I don’t have it at hand, you can also legally obtain your credit reports once a year for free through the agencies directly. That’s the law.There’s a federal agency that facilitates this. No need to go through the for-profit jingle folks, no matter how cute the guy in the commercial is in green tights!
Oops, looks from the link like you’re ahead of me on that one.
My biggest regret with the Obama administration to date is that credit card reform was watered down so quickly, and ended up almost worthless.
Stay on top of this stuff, Colleen. These people are vampires, no scruples whatever. It is possible to survive dealings with them, but you must be vigilant.
All great posts!
I decided to pay for a monthly monitor because I had someone try to steal my identity TWICE. I even had my bank account wiped out. We had to deal with the police, and whoever it was bought plane tickets in Tennessee. The people actually went to the airport to get the tickets, and the police were waiting for them. They claimed I was their aunt, except I have no black nieces and nephews.
Another attempt was a shopping spree: everything from Fredericks of Hollywood underwear (I was mortified) and a huge amount of office equipment delivered to Virginia Beach, where I have never lived.
So, I am a tad paranoid!
The company I have been using is My Credit Profile. I can only caveat this by saying that perhaps they monitored all agencies when I signed up, but they don’t now. It appears they only monitor Experian. If I want a service that does nothing but monitor Experian, I can go directly to Experian!
Bode, yeah, there’s a lot of companies that will give you a free credit report ONCE and then will badger you to BUY after.
These agencies need stronger regulation. When we make a mistake we pay for it. When they make a mistake, we pay for it, too!
Link updated: It now links to the Federal Trade Commission info about getting a free credit report.
To make things more confusing, there is no one standard measure of creditworthiness. FICO is the most common (and I believe the most important, but I could be wrong). But there is also something called VantageScore; and the three major credit reporting bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) each have their own proprietary credit scoring system. If memory serves, the three credit reporting bureaus do not give you a FICO score with a free credit report.
I was the victim of identity theft before it was hip. I got burned in 1992, when I was just 22, a recent college grad, and only working part-time. I went to use my debit card at the grocery store, but it was rejected. I learned that someone had gotten my account number and spent $200 of my money (they probably would’ve gotten more if I’d *had* more), $150 of which I got back. Trust me, at that time in my life losing $50 was as bad as losing a kidney or a lung.
Good luck getting things ironed out, Colleen. I truly feel for you, having been there myself.
Bill, AAAGGGHHHH! It’s bad enough to get robbed when you have money, but when you have none is adding injury to injury.
Yeah, you have to pay to get your FICO score, which I think is a rip off.
I currently use Equifax which provides alerts if new accounts are opened in my name of if there are any credit inquiries made. They are provide alerts if any account balance increases by a specified amount or percentage. I have been satisfied with their service.
I hope they are covering everything but as you discovered, you don’t know what you don’t know.
I can’t find what I pay per year for it but I seem to recall it was around $140 but I will know for sure in January when the next bill comes due.