Credit reporting, Insurance companies, Rackets, Credit scores fallacies, Accountability, Transunion, Credit reporting entities create the problem and make money doing it, Consumers are victims

“Well, here we go again. Bank of America, a very large bank based in Charlotte NC is punishing it’s credit card customers for it’s lack of business acumen. This is a prevalent theme in modern day american business. Exorbitant salaries are paid to upper management, with “golden parachutes”, and when they don’t do their jobs properly, who gets punished. The customers and employees. Bank of America has a policy that appears rather arbitrary and unfair. Despite perfect payment records, credit card rates are being jacked up. Despite the fact that there have been recent congressional hearings into credit card companies and banks regarding their practices of affecting FICO scores and raising rates and heightened consumer awareness, Bank of America callously impacts good customers.”…Citizen Wells February 13, 2008

“Golden West Financial (WB), a longtime FICO skeptic, is one of the few mortgage lenders to minimize its use in recent years—and it credits that decision for its below-average mortgage losses.”  “The way we do business is a lot more costly, and cost was a big reason many competitors embraced credit scoring,” he says. “But some of our best borrowers had low FICO scores and our worst had FICO scores of 750.”…Bloomberg February 6, 2008

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”…George Orwell, “1984″

I did not start Citizen Wells to report so much on Barack Hussein Obama and corruption in our government.

My original intent was to report on injustice in general and our educational system.

One of the areas I would have preferred to address is credit reporting and its impact on the public.

I am very knowledgeable about the subject.

After my lengthy IT career I was involved in small time real estate investments and renovations. As a byproduct of that activity I dealt with a lot of lenders and consequently had to stay on top of my credit report and score.

What I learned during that process was shocking. The total lack of accountability of the major credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian and Transunion as well as the companies reporting credit data.

I have owned a cell phone since the early nineties and the cell phone companies were some of the worst at reporting and correcting errors. After getting attorneys involved in one situation and after much time had elapsed, I actually received an apology from one of them. It was their error, I had pointed it out earlier with extensive documentation. Ironically I was sitting in the office of my coastal real estate agent at the time. She had helped with some of the real estate transactions.

My life has changed and I rarely deal with credit issues.

I have one credit card that I use and pay off every month. I just received a credit limit increase from them.

Last year I received a notice from State Farm of a rather large increase to my home owners insurance policy. I called and was informed it affected the entire state. My neighbors recommended Farm Bureau, I went with them and they saved me money on my auto and home owners policy.

I paid for both in advance.

I just received a statement for my auto insurance for 6 months. It went up some.

They pulled my credit report. I have not checked it in a while since I have not borrowed money.

They found a problem and used that as justification for an increase.

I did not authorize having my credit report being pulled.

It turns out that they can anyway.

I did some research.

Under some circumstances they are allowed to. This is a grey area which I will explore further.

So naturally I atempted to get my free credit report.

I was unable to do so. I think I know why now. They have not updated my current address even though I have been living here over 3 years.

Instead of writing them for a copy, in the interest of time I signed up with Transunion for a trial credit monitoring, score and report.

I had no intention of paying them $ 17 per month for this. Back in the day I used one for approx. $ 35 a year. But I needed it then.

I logged on, immediately found some errors and attempted an online dispute. This was not allowed.

I next dialed a number provided. A lady from India or Pakistan (I assume & I should know….IT background). She was difficult to understand (God bless her) and kept asking for my “mailing address.” I kept explaining to her that I had a physical address that I received some mail at and a billing address as well. They had an old billing address and I pointed it out. I finally spoke to a supervisor, apparently also from the area of India. She spoke better English but still didn’t get it. She next wanted to go over every item in the report. I explained that I just wanted to dispute a few. In the past this was done simply online or with a easily understandable human.

I explained that it was their responsibility to keep the information accurate. They did not even have my billing address on file even though they had the credit card info.

At an impasse, I stated that I was extremely dissatisfied with Transunion, nothing personal against her and said goodbye.

I next canceled my Transunion service. The credit report cost $ 1 and saved me some time.

This of course is all a racket and has gotten much worse over the years.

I will next confront Farm Bureau Insurance and explain what has happened. I will ask if they want to get the attorneys involved.

Regardless, I will contact officials of the state of NC and hopefully, with so many republicans in power here, get an appropriate response.

This may take a while.

To be continued.