Is it possible to have too many credit inquiries showing on your report and, if so, can you have them removed?

The inquiry section contains a list of businesses that have received your credit report within the past 24 months. This can look bad to a potential Creditor. They may believe that you’ve received these lines of credit and the accounts have just not appeared on your credit reports yet. If they believe that you have overextended yourself, you can find yourself being denied credit, due to the inquiries.

I’ve never had this occur (which doesn’t mean it can’t). Be careful when soliciting credit lines. If you’re interested in buying a new car, don’t let every dealership in town request your credit report. Shop around, settle on the car you’re interested in, and THEN let them run your credit. Treat your credit report as a very special, private thing that is NOT meant to be seen by everyone in the world! Practice safe-crediting! smile

Most potential Creditors disregard inquiries over 6 months old, since by that time, the account should have appeared on your report, if you really did receive the credit.

I was told that my letters to the Credit Bureaus must contain the specific law that required them to remove disputed items that cannot be verified. Your letters do not state the laws in them. Do you know if this is necessary?

My letters refer to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which is enforced by the Federal Trade Commission. To my knowledge, this would be the only law that would need to be referred to. Laws in other states may be different, but, in Texas, this seems to have been sufficient.

I am trying to buy a house and I have a bankruptcy and an item in collections. Is it possible to clear that up?

Negative items that are outdated (7 years for negative items, 10 years for bankruptcies), inaccurate, unable to be verified, or that don’t belong to you MUST BE REMOVED, according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Unless your bankruptcy, or collection item, is outdated, or somehow inaccurate, the items cannot be removed.

In Understanding Your Credit Reports, you stated negative entries should only remain on your credit report for 7 years from “date of last activity” (or 10 years, in the case of a bankruptcy). What exactly is the meaning of “date of last activity”? Is there a legal definition for this? If an account goes from onecollection agency to another to another does all that time count as “date of last activity”?

Okay, I went to Experian to see what their definition was and this is what I found: “The original delinquency date is the date you first missed a payment - the original date the account became late - and after which you never again brought the account current.” This would be the “date of last activity”.

http://www.experian.com/ask_max/max120402a.html

Also, I found the following at another site, though I’m not sure of its validity: “Re-aging of debts is strictly illegal and is more than sufficient grounds for filing of a lawsuit. The DLA is defined by Congress as being a date 30 days after the last payment missed was due.”

What should a bankruptcy look like on a credit report? I have some entries, which show as “included in a bankruptcy”, and others, which were also included in the bankruptcy, that show notations for 30/60/90 days late and account balances.

Okay, I’ve never filed a bankruptcy (knock on wood), so I’ve never actually seen one listed on a credit report. I did a bit of hunting and found a site called “411 Bankruptcy”, which states: “After the discharge, you are entitled underfederal law to have the balance of each discharged debt reported as zero. The history of delinquencies can be reported, but the balance must be zero. If it is not so reported, dispute the debt.”

https://www.411bankruptcy.com/creditrepair.asp

Note: I know very little about bankruptcies, but I believe the key here may be the discharge of the bankruptcy.

I’ve researched one of the Creditors listed on my report and they don’t seem to exist. Is this good or bad?

Creditors must be able to verify the item in question. If the Creditor no longer exists, then there is no way for them to prove the negative information provided to the Credit Bureaus and the item will be removed. (Yay!)

Do I need to send a separate letter to each Credit Reporting Agency?

Yes. You should tailor a letter for each Credit Reporting Agency and the items which appear on each report they have provided.

The Credit Bureaus provided a form for disputing entries with my credit report. Should I use it?

You can use their form. I choose not to, because it’s easier for me to type everything in one letter. Plus, by writing your own letter, you’ll have more space to say what you need to say.

Can I dispute everything in one letter or should I put each dispute in a separate letter?

As far as I know, there is no reason you should not dispute all negative entries in one letter. For example, you have 3 outdated entries and 2 incorrect entries. Write one letter disputing all 5 entries. If you’d prefer to write 2 letters, one for the outdated entries and one for the incorrect, you can do that, too.

When corresponding with the Credit Bureaus, how much information should I provide?

The rule of thumb is to make the Credit Bureaus responsible for verifying credit entries; therefore, you don’t want to confirm negative entries for them. If you’ve been the victim of identity theft, though, you’ll want to tell them EVERYTHING. Use common sense.

Is my spouse liable for my credit card debt?

In community property states, a Creditor can claim that if you were married at the time the debt was incurred, both you and your spouse are liable regardless of whether or not you and your spouse were joint account holders.

Community property states are: Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin

from wikipedia:

In a community property jurisdiction, most property acquired during the marriage (except for gifts or inheritances) is owned jointly by both spouses and is divided upon divorce, annulment or death. Joint ownership is automatically presumed by law in the absence of specific evidence that would point to a contrary conclusion for a particular piece of property. The community property system is usually justified by the idea that such joint ownership recognizes the theoretically equal contributions of both spouses to the creation and operation of the family unit.[1]

Division of community property may take place by item, by splitting all items or by value. In some jurisdictions, such as California, a 50/50 division of community property is mandated by law;[2] in others, such as Texas, a divorce court may decree an “equitable distribution” of community property, which may result in an unequal division of such. In non-community property states property may be divided by equitable distribution. Generally speaking, the property that each partner brings into the marriage or receives by gift, bequest or devise during marriage is called separate property (i.e., not community property). See division of property. Division of community debts may not be the same as division of community property. For example, in California, community property is required to be divided “equally” while community debt is required to be divided “equitably”.[3]

Property that is owned by one spouse before the marriage is the separate property of that spouse, unless the property is “transmuted” into community property. The rules for this vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.