One of our members is struggling with a lien on his credit report. He has documentation proving the lien was released by the original creditor. Sadly, the credit bureaus have obviously ignored the documentation and continue to ruin his otherwise good credit.
Thanks for all your great info….I have a question…
You said that maximum is 7 years but I have a bad record for 9 years and 5 month as of today which I had no knowledge of. It just popped up.
I do not recall any debt I had in 2000. I was working overseas in
1998-2003. I requested for investigation. The result of reinvestigation came back with the “released of lien” 5 years ago on record.
But when I contacted Equifax they said that it will be on record indefinitely unless the party that initiated the lien (City recorders) sends a letter or document to remove it.
What is going on? I can understand if I owed something, they would do this but the record shows that it was released. Why would they not remove the record when it states that it was released?
And why the “Release of lien” is only stated on the result of
reinvestigation and not on the initial credit report?
This is obviously the result of sloppy record keeping on the part of the credit bureau. Sadly, as a result, you will have to suffer the consequences by having to engage in additional work, effort, (perhaps money) to correct their error and fix credit report.
That being said, we have to accept the system as is and plow forward. Here are some next steps to consider:
(a) try to obtain documentation from the original creditor who is the city recorder here. If you provide documentation, the bureaus will sometimes – but not always – update their records based upon that documentation.
Assuming you get that documentation you should send the information via snail mail to the bureaus. (Do not use their online dispute system because it limits the amount of information you provide for your dispute. In other words, the online system is all ‘zeros and ones’ and allows for no explanation – which is obviously needed in your case.)
(b) If option a fails above, you may consider more aggressive tactics like debt validation. This is targeted directly towards the original creditor who is reporting the negative information. Often the original creditor will contact the bureaus and direct them to remove or update the bad credit mark.
I hope this helps – best of luck!
You can learn more about hiring a professional credit law firm or you can call 1-800-230-1954 and get a free credit consultation – RIGHT NOW!
Tags: lien on report after released, lien released still on credit, paid lien not gone