What is E-Oscar??

Technorati Tags: e-oscar

 

e-OSCAR is a web-based computer software that data furnishers (creditors, banks, etc.,) use to communicate with the credit reporting agencies. The system enables Data Furnishers (DFs) and Credit Reporting Agencies (CRAs) to create and respond to dispute letters.

If you are positive a mistake has been made on your credit report, it may be that the e-Oscar investigation system is the reason the mistake was verified as correct. Credit reporting agencies (CRAs) have created an automated computerized system of dealing with credit disputes.

The e-Oscar (Online Solution for Complete and Accurate Reporting) system is used even when consumers send in detailed disputes, with supporting documents. The dispute is broken down into a two or three digit code and sent to the original creditor to verify a simple code, failing the duty to investigate

e-Oscar and disputes

As of 2004 the big three CRAs; Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian-require mandated use of e-Oscar. When a dispute is sent to a CRA by a consumer it is coded from among 26 different dispute reasons such as Not his/hers, claims inaccurate and sent to the data furnisher without any human intervention. The furnisher is than suppose to investigate the dispute and respond with the dispute result to the CRA. When the furnisher conducts an investigation they will look at their files to see to assess the accuracy of the information disputed by the consumer. If they determine the information is reporting incorrectly they will send an update to the CRAs with the correct information. If the furnisher never even responds within the 30 days the CRA must delete the information.

Problems with the e-Oscar System

From the surface e-Oscar is a great idea and will enable consumers to get their dispute resolved faster. The reality seems to be quite different. Two major problems exist with e-Oscar. First, disputes are shoved into a single dispute reason code. This is unfair because often disputes have many reasons. Nevertheless it still gets put into a single dispute code by a low paid employee who is scanning the dispute letter. The second problem is very little documentation is included.

The CRAs are NOT including all relevant information like they are suppose to. The FTC’s Report to Congress on the Fair Credit Reporting Act Dispute Process notes TransUnion typically does not supply copies of consumer-supplied documentation to furnishers but added that, if the documentation can be reasonably verified as being authentic, the account is automatically updated based on the documentation, in lieu of sending an ACDV (Automated Credit Dispute Verification). So if you send a copy of an account statement or some other proof that an account item is reporting incorrectly it rarely makes it to the data furnisher. Why? Because transmitting that information is not easy or cost effective for the CRAs. It requires them to mail it or fax it which costs money. As a result, the supporting documentation is left out.

Introduction

Q: How does the CRA convey a dispute through e-Oscar?
A: The CRA will notify the data furnisher by ACDV. ACDV stands for Automated Credit Dispute Verification. The Automated Consumer Dispute Verification (ACDV) is a consumer dispute that is routed to a data furnisher (DF) from a Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA) via e-OSCAR. ACDVs are sent to the data furnisher on behalf of the consumer.
The data furnisher returns the ACDV once the proper investigation has been completed. AUD stands for Automated Universal Data form. AUDs are initiated by the data furnisher to process out of cycle modifications and updates, and are sent to the CRAs with whom the data furnisher has a reporting relationship.

Batch Interface

Large data furnishers such as MBNA or Chase get lots of disputes. Going through each dispute manually is an expensive and resource intensive process. E-Oscar’s solution is to send all the disputes over in a batch computer file. Hundreds, even thousands, of disputes can be sent from the CRA to the data furnisher at one time.
The data furnisher can then send the computer file back to the CRA with the dispute results of the entire batch. One inappropriate feature is the “reply all” function. This allows the data furnisher to select a response, saying “Account Verified” and respond to all disputes at once.

So if 20 disputes came in, the data furnisher could respond to all 20 disputes with the result “Account Verified” without even looking at any of the disputes! That’s right, the data furnisher is able to respond to all disputes with a single click without even conducting an investigation or even looking at the dispute.
In fact, this is a feature e-Oscar is very proud of and has a section on their web site all about it.

Here s a quote taken from e-Oscar’s web site:
The Batch Interface is an exciting product offering that allows Data Furnishers with large volumes of

Automated Consumer Dispute Verification (ACDV) requests to receive a batch file in an XML format

Once the file is delivered, each Data Furnisher can further automate the development of responses to

ACDVs. The development effort by the Data Furnisher to achieve the benefits of the Batch Interface, will

vary depending on the Data Furnishers internal business and compliance requirements.
For example, one Data Furnisher may choose to auto-populate the response fields automatically for staff

review prior to submission. This business plan would save your staff the time and potential errors of data

entry. Another Data Furnisher may elect to automate only certain response types.
For example, A Data Furnisher might only automate “delete” responses and require that staff review

responses on all other disputes.(emphasis added)
The FCRA states that the furnisher must perform a reasonable investigation. However if the data furnisher is able to automate the investigation process without even looking at the incoming disputes, doesn’t that seem like a violation of the FCRA? How is this considered a proper and legal investigation!?

How long does the furnisher have to conduct an investigation?

A common misconception is that the furnisher has 30 days to perform an investigation of the dispute. This is not true. The 30 day clock begins when the CRA receives the dispute letter from the consumer. The CRA then needs time to send the data furnishers’ response to the dispute to the consumer once it is complete. Therefore the furnisher has around 15-20 days to conduct an investigation.

What happens if a furnisher does not respond?

This is often a desired outcome. Depending on what type of dispute it is, the CRA might update the account in favor of the consumer, or it might delete the trade line off the credit report.

Are You Facing Foreclosure? The Foreclosure Fairness Mediation Program can help!

Technorati Tags: foreclosure,HAMP program,mandatory foreclosure mediation,Wall-street,loan servicers,foreclosure fairness mediation program,department of financial institutions

In response to the subprime mortgage foreclosure crisis of 2007, the Obama administration passed legislation to create the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). The HAMP program was supposed to help homeowners facing mortgage foreclosure with loan modifications.  HAMP was touted as a government ‘knight in shining armor’ for those facing foreclosure.  Under HAMP, mortgage servicers (lenders) are provided with the opportunity to enter into contracts with the Federal Government to modify homeowners’ mortgage loans in a particular and uniform fashion and receive incentive payments in return.

The first big mistake of the HAMP program was that the government actually trusted the banks to participate in HAMP program almost exclusively on their own terms and by their own free will.  For example, in the HAMP Handbook for Servicers of Mortgages from the US Treasury requires participating servicers to actively solicit borrowers to participate in HAMP before referring a loan to foreclosure or conducting a scheduled foreclosure sale. Of course, the banks were reluctant to go outside of their traditional foreclosure models because those models usually lead to the borrower being cheated out of a legitimate chance to refinance with affordable terms and additional earnings for the bank once the defaulted loan is securitized and sold on Wall-Street.

The second blunder of the HAMP program was that the incentives for the loan servicers weren’t enough to get them on board if they weren’t doing loan mods prior to the HAMP program.  The latest mortgage news is that the government has worked out a settlement deal with the five biggest banks accused of mortgage foreclosure malfeasance.  For a comprehensive report on just how ridiculous the government settlement with the banks go to here.  The five banks involved in the fraudulent activities and are required to pay approximately $25 billion to states, individuals and the government are :

• Bank of America
• Citi-Bank
• Wells Fargo
• Ally/GMAC
• JP Morgan Chase

The agreement settles state and federal investigations finding that the country’s five largest mortgage servicers routinely signed foreclosure related documents outside the presence of a notary public and without knowing whether the facts they contained were correct.
Because of this litigation and the abject failure of the HAMP program, more than 30 states have implemented their own mandatory foreclosure mediation programs.  The states that are participating in mandatory mediation are:

• California
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• WA. DC
• Florida
• Hawaii
• Idaho
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Kentucky
• Maine
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New York
• New Mexico
• Ohio
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• Vermont
• Washington State
• Wisconsin

In Washington State, the Governor signed into law the Foreclosure Fairness Act of 2011. The law provides Washingtonians facing foreclosure the opportunity to be referred by a housing counselor or an attorney to mediation with their lender to review available options to keep their home. This mediation is mandatory for all lenders before they foreclose on any home in Washington State.

If you live in one of the state listed above, contact your state Attorney General and ask about a similar program.

How to Raise Your Credit Score in 2-3 months

Technorati Tags: credit repair,secured loan,secured cd loan,raise your credit score

When I was a kid, my uncle told me something that I will never forget.  It was a simple truism that has stuck with me since he said it.  I came home from school one day and my uncle had come by to visit us. He lived in a different state, so I rarely got to see him as much as I would have like to. 

My mom had already gone to work because she worked swing-shift.  My Uncle was in the kitchen when I got home.  I had brought a free lunch form home from school for her to sign and needed to return it to school the next day.  Fearing she would forget to sign it, I asked my Uncle to sign it for me.  When I handed it to him he looked it over and looked back at me and said, “Kirk, there’s no free lunch.”  Puzzled at his statement, I retorted, “yes there is, all you have to do is sign the form and I get free lunch at school.”  Again, my Uncle said, "No boy, there’s no free lunch, someone is paying for this – it might not be you, but someone is paying for it.”  “Nothing in this world is free.”

I told that brief story because as I grew up and started living my life I learned that his words were very true.  Nothing in this world is free – and that includes raising your credit score.  There are lots of ways to improve your credit and all of them take time – there are no super-fast ways to increase your fico score outside of becoming an authorized user on someone else’s account (I wrote an article on that a few months ago) or purchasing seasoned trade lines.  Both methods work, and both can raise your fico score fast.  However, becoming an authorized user can be difficult if you don’t have a family member or friend who is willing to do it, and purchasing a trade line is flat out expensive. 

Furthermore it is difficult to know which companies are reputable and which ones are scams. 
The method I am going to share here will cost you approximately $500 - $1,200 but it doesn’t involve dealing with family or a shady trade line seller who might take you for a bunch of your hard-earned money.  Just follow the steps below and you will see a significant increase in your fico score in 2-3 months, possibly even sooner!

Step one: Purchase a CD for $1000.00 –$1200.00. A Certificate of Deposit allows the owner to deposit a certain amount of money, (usually a minimum of $1000) as an investment for a fixed length of time, ranging from three months to five years. CDs are federally insured and pay higher rates of return than simple savings accounts.

Step 2: Ask the loan officer how long it will take them to process the CD.  Once you find out, come back to the bank after the CD has been processed and ask for a loan using the CD as collateral.  The bank will cut you a check in the amount of the Cd. Deposit the check into your saving account and arrange with the loan officer to allow for automatic withdrawals in the agreed upon monthly payment for the term of the CD. That’s it. 

Rates vary, but typically, the borrower will pay a premium of several percentage rates to borrow their own money. In other words, if the CD is paying 6 percent, for example, the cost of borrowing might be 9 percent.

Secured loan method

1. Deposit $300 – $500.00 into your bank account. 
2. Take out a secured loan for that exact amount.
3. Either deposit the money immediately into a saving account and arrange for automatic monthly withdrawals to pay back the loan or take the money and make monthly payments on your own (if you trust yourself to make the payments on time every month).

OR. Take that money from the first loan and go to another bank and do the exact same thing, taking out another secured loan.  Do this with as many banks as you can manage. I suggest no more than three or four.

Remember, you absolutely must be disciplined and organized enough to make your payments on time each month or this will blow up in your face.  I suggest you organize it so the money your using to do this is exclusively for this and this ALONE.  This is going to raise your fico score fast.  In six months you are going to see big jump in your score. 

Know and understand the factors that affect your FICO score. 

 

·         Payment History: 35% Capacity/Utilization

·         Amounts Owed: 30%

·         Length of Credit History: 15%

·         New Credit: 10%

·         Types of Credit in Use: 10%

Look at the factors listed on the pie chart above.  The chart represents the factors that generally make up how your credit file is scored.  You will see that your payment history makes up the highest percentage (35%).  In any analysis of the fico algorithm, payment history usually carries the most weight of all the factors that make up your score. It is important to point out that these figures provided by Fair Isaac are supposedly for the “General Population,” and because there are different score cards, as mentioned above, the relative importance of each category can be different depending on where the fico system categorizes you. 


Each of these categories also represents some very typical thresholds for disbursement of better or worse interest rates and for approval. For example, a person with a 400 credit score would probably not be approved for any kind of loan, whereas a person with a 775 would not only be approved for most any loans, but they would also probably not require much (if any) documentation and would get the best market interest rates available. Some lenders will vary the above categories, but the concept is almost universal: the higher your score, the better your interest rates and the increased likelihood you will be approved—because your score represents a numerical figure that indicates how likely it is that you will repay a credit obligation. 


So, what goes into a score? Obviously if you've ever seen a credit report, the bureaus have lots of information about your finances and credit history, as well as personal information. Still, many people are unfamiliar with how each of these items weighs in with respect to credit scoring, and for a very long time consumers were left COMPLETELY in the dark about how FICO scores are calculated then, due to many FTC complaints by customers, FICO released a little bit of information. While this information is vague, there is a great deal of research that has expanded upon this knowledge base. A basic breakdown of how FICO Scores are calculated is as follows:

Another important point to make on this subject is that score cards can change. For example, if someone right out of bankruptcy pays their bills on time for two full years, they may see their score as high as 720+, but a few months after that their score could significantly drop as they are placed back among people who pay their bills on time always, since now they will seem relatively worse than the others in their score card. Over time as one's financial circumstances remain static and their payment behaviors remain the same, the likelihood of score card 'jumping' is significantly reduced.  Because of the different impact of each category, and because different score card profiles will often result in varying credit scores, the cleanest credit report is not always the highest scoring one. 

 

Corporations too big to fail...Also too big to sue.

Supreme Court biased toward big corporations

Technorati Tags: consumer protection,too big to fail,supreme court,social justice

Anyone paying attention to the Supreme Court over the last decade would have noticed a trend toward more conservative decisions in general but more specifically with regard to matters involving big-business and corporations.  The current Supreme Court has 5 justices who regularly decide cases based upon conservative ideology, and 4 who are arguably liberal, but considerably less liberal than the most liberal justice (Sandra Day O'Connor" in recent times.
Liberal organization, Alliance for Justice called the current court, “the court for the 1%.”  They have released the above video that features several cases that showcase unfair treatment of the “little guy” by big corporations such as Wal-Mart, and other cases where the Supreme court sided against the individual. The Court is lead by openly conservative Chief Justice John G. Roberts. Many liberals think that the current conservative Court is turning back the clock on decades of progressive jurisprudence with it’s 5-4 majority decisions on nearly every controversial issues involving civil rights, voting rights, regulating big business practices, and the 1%.

The United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States, in 2010. Top row (left to right): Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Bottom row (left to right): Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, and Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The video is hosted by editor and publisher of The Nation Magazine, Katrina vanden Heuvel.

Related articles

• Money, Politics and the Roberts Court (counterpunch.org)
• Citizens United 2.0 To Go Before US Supreme Court (crooksandliars.com)
• Supreme Court won't allow challenge of surveillance law to move forward (grumpyelder.com)
• Sandra Day O'Connor steps carefully in NY gun case (crainsnewyork.com)

Zombie Debt: Help stop the haunting!

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I have lived most of my adult life in Seattle, Washington. I have experienced life as a stable, working member of the community, and I have also fallen on times so hard that I had to live in my car and depend upon food banks to feed myself. If you visit food banks and emergency homeless shelters enough, eventually you will meet some very interesting people. I once met a brilliant young man who was an Oregon State University law-school drop out. He told me (as we sat on the sidewalk eating turkey sandwiches we had just scored from a homeless shelter) that he dropped out of law school in his 3rd year because he couldn’t stay focused, and could not get help to treat his ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) condition. I remember thinking what a waste of a good mind.  If only he could have gotten the medical attention he needed, he could have finished law school. I don't know what he would have been doing had he finished law school, but I 'd bet he would not have been sitting on a corner eating a food-bank sandwich with me!

I’ve met a wide variety of people who exists as virtual ghosts, living in the underbelly of Seattle; they live under bridges, in alleys, in abandoned or foreclosed homes. ”Ordinary” people see the homeless but rarely acknowledge them - as if they exist on some other time-plane that makes their presence not quite physical. If you do take a minute and speak to a homeless person, or someone at a food-bank you will immediately notice that they are quite real, and as the Pemco Insurance commercial says, “a lot like you- a little different.”

Another thing I have noticed is Seattle has a large number of homeless persons who aren’t natives of Washington State. I am amazed by the number of people who have casually told me they came to Seattle because they heard the social, and low-income services administered by non-profit organizations were the best in the country. I don’t know this to be true from experience, as I have never needed to access social welfare programs in any state other than Washington, but I am convinced that Seattle has some pretty awesome low-income social service organizations here. I have featured two such agencies in this blog-post.

Below is a link to a video I found at the ‘Solid Ground’ website - a great non-profit organization in Seattle Washington, on how zombie debt is increasingly being used by collection agencies to unlawfully collect time-barred debts from consumers, and how it disproportionately affects the lives of low- income persons.  The video is part a campaign to get our state legislators to pass HB 1069. Poverty Action says HB 1069 is being considered by the legislature right now. This legislation would prevent debt buyers from:

• Suing debtors for time-barred debt (outside the statute of limitations);
• Suing debtors without sufficient proof that the debt buyer actually owns the debt;
• Not having proof of assignments of the debt to indicate a chain of title for the debt.

Zombie Debt: Help stop the haunting! The video was produced by Marcy Bowers of the Statewide Poverty Action network http://povertyaction.org/. Both organizations are committed to helping the poor through social service programs and housing assistance. Solid Ground has been around for a long time here in Seattle. Formerly known as the Fremont Public Association, the non-profit is widely acknowledged for their work helping low-income individuals and families. They also help the homeless overcome economic crises and develop skills and resources they need to get back on their feet. They offer over 30 programs and services to help needy families and individuals.

The Poverty Action Network is more focused upon building grass-roots campaigns that address issues such as consumer protections, basic needs, racial equity, and Immigration and Refugee justice. Poverty Action was founded in 1996 as a response to the federal government’s passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act or “welfare reform.”

Poverty Action says they are Washington state’s largest anti-poverty organization.

Related articles

• 7 steps to avoiding zombie debt (thewiseme.com)
• Zombie Foreclosures: Reanimated Mortgage Debts (sgtreport.com)
• Old debt, uncollectable and not taxable (dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com)
• The Walking Debt……Zombie Mortgage Appocalpse (kswiggins.wordpress.com)
• The Worst Part of Being Homeless: ‘No One Sees Me’ (alternet.org)

How to get assistance from the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau

 Mortgage Assistance – CFPB

The CFPB can help you get connected to a HUD-approved housing counselor. At no cost to you, the counselor can help you work with your mortgage company to try to avoid foreclosure. A housing counselor can help you organize your finances, understand your mortgage options, and find a solution that works for you.
Here’s what to do:
Have this ready when you work with your mortgage company or housing counselor to discuss a possible work-out solution.

• Mortgage loan number (account number)
• Any additional paperwork from your mortgage company
• Recent pay stubs
• Recent tax return
• Household expenses (bills including food, utilities, car payments, insurance, cable, phone, credit cards, car loans, and student loans)

Call the CFPB at 1.855.411.CFPB (2372)
If you would prefer to look for mortgage help online, HUD provides a list of foreclosure prevention resources arranged by state. Military members or veterans can call us or visit the VA’s home loan website to get personalized assistance.
Foreclosure prevention and loan modification scammers target homeowners who are having trouble paying their mortgages. These scammers might promise “guaranteed” or “immediate” relief from foreclosure, and they might charge you very high fees for little or no services. Don’t get scammed. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Call the CFPB if you think you may be the target or victim of a scam.

Legal aid

If you believe you are in need of an attorney, or if you have been served with a notice of foreclosure or other related legal complaint, there might be legal representation available at little or no cost to you. Find legal aid in your state.

Mortgage Assistance – FTC (federal trade commission)
The Federal Trade Commission has help for homeowners in distress.  They have useful suggestions and some resources that might provide you with the help you need.
To learn more about mortgages and other credit-related issues, visit www.ftc.gov/credit and MyMoney.gov, the U.S. government’s portal to financial education.
The FTC works to prevent fraudulent, deceptive and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop and avoid them. To file a complaint or get free information on consumer issues, visit MyMoney.gov or call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357); TTY: 1-866-653-4261. Watch a video, How to File a Complaint, at ftc.gov/video to learn more. The FTC enters consumer complaints into the Consumer Sentinel Network, a secure online database and investigative tool used by hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.