Advice if a Repossession is Reported Twice on Credit Report - The Bills.com Blog

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Advice if a Repossession is Reported Twice on Credit Report

Monday, Sep 15, 2008

Question: If my car was repo'd and the original loan co has it marked in my credit report as written off/reposession how come a different co has it on there as owed to them and not only does the balance show exactly what was owed at time of repo w/ no auction credit at all but new co has added $2500 more to it and is keeping it fresh every month even w/ no action on my part at all what should i do? repo was voluntary and about 3 yrs ago. thnk you for your advice.

Answer: In the debt collection business, it is common practice for lenders to sell accounts to third party debt purchasing firms who then take over the collection of the debts. Frequently, accounts are sold with out-of-date and incorrect information, and without all of the pertinent documentation, which leads to purchasers reporting inaccurate information to the credit bureaus, as may have happened in your case. The first thing that I would recommend you do is contact the original lender who repossessed the vehicle to inquire if it sold your delinquent account to a third party collector. If the lender confirms that it did sell the account, you should request that the lender contact the purchaser to correct the account balance the new creditor is reporting to the credit reporting agencies. If the original lender states that it has not sold the account, you should ask them about this second listing on your credit reports to see if they can provide any insight as to why the account is now appearing twice, once with incorrect information. Once you have spoken with the original creditor, you may want to contact the creditor which is reporting the account incorrectly on your
credit reports to determine who they are and how they are connected with this debt. You should also inform the creditor that the balance and delinquency date they are reporting are incorrect, and ask what procedures they have in place to correct such errors. Hopefully, the creditor will be willing to correct this erroneous information voluntarily, saving you the trouble of disputing the account with each of the credit bureaus directly. For more information about credit, credit reporting, and credit scoring, I invite you to visit the Bills.com credit help page.

If you find that this new creditor is unwilling to correct the inaccurate information voluntarily, your next step would be to dispute this derogatory listings with the three major U.S. credit reporting agencies—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The first step in the process of disputing any credit item is to obtain a copy of your credit file from each of the agencies to determine which agencies are reflecting this inaccurate information; you can request a free copy of your credit report from each company by visiting www.annualcreditreport.com. Disputing a listing on your credit profile is as simple as writing a letter to the credit bureau in question explaining why the item is inaccurate and why it should be removed from your credit report; you should also include
any documentation which corroborates your claim, such as a statement from the original creditor showing the correct account balance after the repossession sale. The Federal Trade Commission offers a free guide to disputing erroneous items on your credit report, which is available on its website . The company listing the account has thirty days to challenge your dispute; if they do not challenge the dispute within that timeframe, the account should be removed from your credit report.

One point I should clarify is that, if a creditor has filed a lawsuit and obtained a judgment against you for the balance of a debt, the account can appear on your credit report twice, once in the “derogatory items” category, and once in the “public records” listing. I do not think that is what happened in your case, since an account and a corresponding judgment should have roughly the same balance and list the same creditor as owning the account. However, before disputing this account with the credit bureaus, you may want to double check to make sure that the item about which you are concerned is not a public record stemming from the original debt.

I wish you the best of luck in resolving this credit reporting error, and hope that the information I have provided helps you Find. Learn. Save.

Best,
Bill
www.bills.com/blog/

Also, make sure to get a free financial health check-up with Bills IQ!

User Comments

1. Posted by soulshine on Tuesday 8th September 2009 12:15

I did a voluntary repossession back in 2003 or 2004. Experian has it listed on my credit report 3 times. Twice as the same company, same dates, same amount..everything the same. Then again under a different company name because another company bought this respossession. I have disputed this 3 differrent times and all I get is "we have determined this account belongs to you". I understand that, but I need one of these removed from my credit report. What else can I do to get this removed???

2. Posted by Bill on Tuesday 8th September 2009 12:36

Please see Repossession is Reported Twice on Credit Report to learn the steps you can take to get this corrected.

3. Posted by Sandra P on Tuesday 13th October 2009 17:26

Can they use two different account numbers and different dollar amounts? If not, how do you get them to remove it?

4. Posted by Bill on Wednesday 14th October 2009 17:15

If the same debt is reported twice on a credit report that is illegal, and one of these accounts must be removed. Please see the bills.com debt self-help center and see the dispute listing sample letter.

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