Credit, Debt & Identity
Credit reports, disputes, collectors, judgments and the rules that govern all of them.
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Reading a Credit Report and Spotting What Is Wrong
Federal law gives you access to the file each nationwide credit bureau keeps on you. Reading it in order, section by section, is how you find the entries that are actually wrong.
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Disputing a Credit Report Error and Escalating It
A credit reporting dispute is a statutory process with a deadline attached. This is what you send, what the bureau and the data furnisher must do with it, and where to go when the result is wrong.
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Credit Scores: What Moves Them and What Cannot Be Removed
A credit score is a model reading your credit report. Change the report and the score follows; try to change the score directly and there is nothing to push against.
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Child Identity Theft and Credit Files for Minors
A minor should have no credit file at all. Finding one usually means someone used the child's identifying details, and the fix runs through the bureaus, the creditors and a report you file yourself.
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Debt Validation Letters and What a Collector Must Prove
A debt collector has to tell you what it thinks you owe and to whom, and has to stop collecting if you dispute in writing until it sends verification. Those duties are narrower than most people expect.
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Time-Barred Debt and Why Paying Can Restart the Clock
When the limitation period on a debt runs out, the creditor loses the ability to win a lawsuit but not the debt itself. A payment or an acknowledgment can restart that period in many states.
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Debt Settlement Companies and What They Cannot Promise
A debt settlement company negotiates reduced payoffs with your creditors. Federal rules control when it may take a fee and what it may claim, and neither is as flexible as the sales pitch suggests.
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Judgment-Proof: What Creditors Can and Cannot Reach
A creditor with a judgment can garnish wages and levy accounts, but federal and state law put much of a low-income household's money and property out of reach. Being judgment-proof describes that situation.
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Repossession: Notice, Deficiency Balances, and Redemption
A lender with a security interest can usually take the collateral back without going to court, but only without a breach of the peace, and only with notice before it sells and accounts for the proceeds.
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Credit Repair Organizations and the Rules They Must Follow
Federal law regulates businesses that sell credit improvement services. It controls what they must tell you, when they may take payment, what they may claim, and how you cancel.
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Authorized Users, Cosigners, and Joint Account Liability
Three arrangements look similar on a statement and are completely different in law. One creates no liability at all, one creates full liability, and one splits ownership and debt between two people.