Not His Debt, But it is His Problem

May 22, 2007 5:00 PM

I tried searching high and low on here, but nothing I found quite matches the problem. My boyfriend has to move out of his living situation here in Seattle ASAP, but mysterious and questionable debts on his credit report are making this impossible...

He makes a good living, pays his bills, and THOUGHT he had good credit, until he was declined by the first place he looked. He checked his credit report (as he does every year) and there are several things in collection that he has NO idea where they came from or what they are for (the collection agencies won't even tell them what companies these debts are allegedly from). He is in the process of appealing these with the reporting agencies, but in the meantime he is having a difficult time finding a place to rent. Does anyone have any advice on how he can rent a place while in this appeals process? Is there some sort of paperwork he can present? How about advice on how he can efficiently clean up his credit and/or take legal action if fraud or ID theft is suspected?

posted by evilcupcakes to work & money (13 comments total)

As soon as he disputes the item on the report with the CRA, it should be marked as disputed. Your score, at least, will then not be affected by that item.
posted by wierdo at 5:26 PM on May 22, 2007

the collection agencies won't even tell them what companies these debts are allegedly from

this sounds pretty weird. you sure he's not taking you for a ride?
posted by desjardins at 6:04 PM on May 22, 2007

There may be some real scam possibilities here.

A scammer could have a deal with a landlord, or be a landlord, and when someone applies to rent a property, a bunch of bills in collection are reported instantly to a CRA, the applicant is regretfully declined and told his credit check has failed.

In turn, he goes to his report and finds a bunch of bills about which he can get no information, including, crucially, the date of report to the CRA. He has to move immediately, and so has tremendous incentive to pay the phony bills.

I think it might be worth going to the state Attorney General and making a complaint, and then going to the landlord he tried to rent from, and telling that landlord about the strange bills that just showed up, without accusation, and mentioning just in passing that he has gone to the authorities. It's a very long shot, but the phony bills might just disappear.
posted by jamjam at 6:05 PM on May 22, 2007

this sounds pretty weird. you sure he's not taking you for a ride?

Yes, I am sure.
posted by evilcupcakes at 7:19 PM on May 22, 2007

You might want to call the credit reporting agencies themselves and talk to their fraud departments.

He should pass along the stories to the prospective landlords. If he's been checking his report each year, then he should have the old copies of his report. He can show those, and if that conflicts with what is now showing, should make it easier to explain that this is some kind of fraud.

Whatever you do, do not pay it if it's not your account. The collection agencies will try to get you to believe it's a way to "get rid of it", and people will often fall for that.
posted by cashman at 7:28 PM on May 22, 2007

Some of this sounds very familiar to me. I'm in the process of buying a house, and when the bank ran my credit report, it showed I had a mortgage in Maine and an overdue bill at a hospital I'd never been to.

Someone with a similar name lives in the town where I went to college for four years. That was enough for Experian to consider her name as one of my aliases and tack some of her data onto my credit report. However, it was only Experian, not the other two credit reporting agencies. I tried to initiate a fraud claim through Experian's website. Too bad they wanted me to verify I was who I said I was by entering data about the mortgage I didn't actually have. So instead, I had to contact a real live person. But once I did that (and was on hold for a very long time) everything was cleared up quickly and the mortgage application wasn't delayed.

What I'm getting to is, was the weird data only from one or two of the reporting agencies? If so, have your boyfriend show potential landlords that the data on the other reports is correct, and that he is disputing the incorrect data from the third agency. Good luck.
posted by saffry at 8:22 PM on May 22, 2007

Sounds like your boyfriend has been the victim of identity theft OR the victim of credit reporting errors (i.e. someone with the same name has shown up on HIS report).
posted by amyms at 11:03 PM on May 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

Check craigslist for people looking for subleasers. Could only be temporary, but probably the easiest solution for a place to live immediately.
posted by almostmanda at 4:38 AM on May 23, 2007

I agree with almostmanda that if getting out is that urgent, he's going to have to find an in-between solution while he deals with the credit problem, because that's not going to go away in a week or two. Or he's going to have to try renting from a private landlord rather than a massive property management company, where he can make his case and maybe offer extra deposits until his report is cleaned up.

It is my understanding that the credit agencies (and sometimes collections agencies) are a lot more responsive if you have filed a police report for identity theft. I think some larger police departments even have a special number for just that, probably a quick call to the information line would get him the information he needs. Possibly, once armed with that report, even the large property management companies will be more amenable to working something out.
posted by Lyn Never at 5:35 AM on May 23, 2007

It is my understanding that the credit agencies (and sometimes collections agencies) are a lot more responsive if you have filed a police report for identity theft.

This is correct.
posted by cashman at 7:02 AM on May 23, 2007

FDCPA FCRA
FDCPA FCRA

Basically, write to the companies/collectors on your credit report (using a trackable system). Demand "verification" of the debt. They must send you this within 30 days or remove the entries from the credit report. If they do not, there are summary fines. And you can sue for extra damages.

You can also write to the credit reporting agencies (this is the FCRA part) and dispute the negative items. However, that just means they have to "verify" with the creditor. Although they are supposed to get real verification, they accept a simple restatement of the debt because they are lazy and outsource most of their "verification" to data entry slave pens in Jamaica and other low-wage gulags.

FDCPA is where the verification has to be real and relates to the actual source of the problem, the creditors who say they hold a debt against your bf. It has to be actual documents signed or attested. Simply saying something like 'well, we see it in our database' has been rejected by courts, and some companies ended up paying dearly (MBNA for one) when they tried to use this. They get away with this reporting to credit agencies, but not direct to consumers.
posted by meehawl at 7:04 AM on May 23, 2007

Sounds like your boyfriend has been the victim of identity theft OR the victim of credit reporting errors (i.e. someone with the same name has shown up on HIS report).

Seconding this - he needs to contact the reporting agencies and get the creditor information, dispute the collections. Then probably contact the creditors and if necessary, file an ID theft with the local PD.

Good luck.
posted by Carnage Asada at 9:10 AM on May 24, 2007

It is my understanding that the credit agencies (and sometimes collections agencies) are a lot more responsive if you have filed a police report for identity theft.

This is correct.

Also seconding this - I investigate ID theft for a mortgage lender. After your bf files the report, he can expect some contact from various people to gather details. This is required to resolve the matter - if he does his part with research he can expedite the process by having all available info on hand.
posted by Carnage Asada at 9:14 AM on May 24, 2007