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Expert: John Hall - 2/19/2006


Question
I have been working on repairing my credit for almost five years
now. Looking bank on it I think I would have been better off
filing for bankruptcy. I now have almost everything paid off that
is reported as a negative item. I have a few judgements on my
report and I also have the original collection item listed on my
report. I am not sure if it is true or not, but I was told that the
credit reporting agency could only report the judgement or the
collection account, but they could not report both. I was able to
get the duplicates deleted from experian, but Transunion
advised me that it was not their practice to remove the collection
account even if they were included in a judgement. Can you tell
me if they are in correct in reporting both? If they should only
report one or the other can you get me some advice on how to
get them to remove one or the other.

Thanks,
Sawmber Aguirres

Answer
The law that governs credit reporting is the Fair Credit Reporting Act and I am not aware of any legal requirement for a creditor to remove an entry regarding the account even though the account is also indirectly reported as a civil judgment.  There just isn't a whole lot you can do here.   These credit reporting agencies tend to not be very cooperative unless they are forced to do so.  Best bet on this is not to worry about it that much -  The duplication in this case, in and of itself, will not have that much of an effect on your FICO score.   You might insist that they include a narrative statement from you that states that this is duplicative of the same account that was reduced to judgmnet.  You have a right to have that included if you want.

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John Hall

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Law school graduate, Juris Doctorate (J.D.) Degree; Over 25 years of experience throughout the United States in bankruptcy law matters (Chapters 7, 11, and 13 of the United States Bankruptcy Code) primarily representing individual debtors with consumer debt or small businesses; Experience has included all aspects of debtor/creditor relations.

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