A spokesperson for a trade group representing the nation’s major credit reporting agencies (think TransUnion, Equifax and Experian) states that 98 percent of all the credit reports in the United States “have no material errors.”
That sounds great, doesn’t it?
When it is taken into account, though, that the so-called “Big Three” reporting agencies deal with scores of millions of reports, that seemingly paltry two percent of American consumers who do have material errors in their files suddenly looms large.
In fact, it is significant, indeed. In fact, a recently released Consumer Financial Protection Bureau-authored report on credit reports indicates that more than 40 million Americans have reports that are problematic for the unpaid medical debt they cite.
There is a problem — a very big problem — with that, namely this: Reportedly, the past-due information contained in many reports is simply inaccurate. The CFPB states that consumers with medical debt in arrears being indicated in their credit reports are more than twice as likely to argue that such debt was fully satisfied than are consumers with others types of past-due entries.
What rankles many consumers in Texas and nationally is the apparent inclination of medical providers to hand over an account to a debt collection agency before it has been fully processed and acted upon by an insurer.
As many people know, that can take months. During such processing period, the consumer is often looked to as the primary payer on an exceedingly large bill, when the reality is actually quite different.
And by the time an insurer steps to the plate, an account is far too often already in collection status.
That can obviously wreak financial havoc in a person’s life across a truly wide dimension.
Experienced debt-relief attorneys know such stories well and routinely counsel and aggressively represent clients with challenging levels of medical debt and other types of payments allegedly owed. Consultation with a proven consumer-protection lawyer can reveal meaningful strategies for dealing with debt and aggressive debt collectors, especially actors who are proceeding on erroneous information.