In
a recent Los Angeles Times column (Sunday,
February 15, 2015) someone wrote into Liz Weston about how she applied for a
store credit card six months earlier, and apparently the creditor input the
wrong address from her application.
When she called the store to make
her first payment, she was told she needed to wait until her card arrived and
had her account number before she could make a payment. But due to the wrong
address the card and later statements never showed up and it was referred to collection.
She wanted to know what grounds she
had to dispute this.
I found the reply satisfying. The
writer was told the Fair Credit Billing Act requires a creditor to notify the
account holder their rights to dispute errors. In addition statements are required
to be sent when there is activity, such as a payment due. Based on the wrong
address none of these requirements appear to have been met.
On that basis she could argue that
the lender was in violation of the federal law by mailing to the wrong address,
and her credit score was therefore damaged.
Once the store was notified of the error
of the wrong address, it should have called off the collection and fixed the
problem.
At this point it would be
appropriate to contact the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at www.ConsumerFinance.gov for help in
resolving the dispute with the creditor.
In addition it was recommended that
she contact the credit bureaus and order copies of her reports and dispute any
negative information.
More information and help can be
found at www.Credit.com which was created
by Gerri Detweiler. The last step would
be to hire a consumer law attorney that can be found at www.NACA.com if the lender refuses to remove any
derogatory information.
Hopefully you never need this information,
but here it is in case you do.
Rennie
