Bankruptcy Credit Report Errors

Post Bankruptcy Credit Report Errors Need Credit Report Lawyers.

At Consumer Justice Law Firm, we help you recover from the harmful consequences of bankruptcy credit report errors by upholding and protecting your rights under the law. We do everything the law allows to hold credit reporting agencies accountable for the reckless way they handle your data.

GET JUSTICE for Bankruptcy Credit Report Errors!

We fight to make consumer reporting agencies

  1. Fix mistakes, errors, and inaccuracies in your reports
  2. Pay you money for any harm they cause
  3. Pay your legal bills (you pay $0 out of pocket)
A woman reviews her bankruptcy credit report. It conveys the need to work with Consumer Justice Law Firm to recover and thrive.

What Are Bankruptcy Credit Report Errors?

Bankruptcy credit report errors are mistakes, discrepancies, and false data that show up on consumer reports (like credit reports) after you’ve filed for, and been approved for, bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy gives you a plan of action for eventually getting back on solid financial footing. Of course, it’s not without a cost, including a ten year reporting period for bankruptcy on your credit report. But, most people can expect to see improvements in their credit scores long before the reporting decade comes to close.

However, bankruptcy credit report errors can make it impossible to get ahead.

4 Common Types of Bankruptcy Credit Report Errors

Bankruptcy credit report errors include any inaccurate, misleading, or false information, including the following:

  1. the continued reporting of delinquencies
  2. showing discharged accounts as charge-offs
  3. incorrectly reporting hefty balances on accounts that should have a zero-dollar balance
  4. failing to accurately reflect your debt-to-income ratio after bankruptcy
  5. reporting bankruptcies that should have aged off your report after the ten-year reporting window

What Causes Bankruptcy Credit Report Errors?

Bankruptcy reporting errors are usually caused by a combination of two things:

  • Data entry failures at the financial and lending companies that hold your accounts. Once an Order of Discharge is entered, the companies holding your debts should update the information in their internal systems. This means things like zeroing out balances owed, marking charge-offs as discharged, etc. By failing to update your data, debts continue to be reported as though the bankruptcy never happened.
  • Bad review protocols at consumer reporting agencies, like the big three credit bureaus- Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Algorithms are in charge of compiling and reviewing your data, which means that reporting discrepancies and errors go unchecked and investigations into discrepancies or disputes are inadequate.

How Bankruptcy Credit Report Errors Harm You

  • Credit Score Stagnation or continued drop. Instead of a steady state or a slowly improving score with time, your score can end up headed in reverse.
  • Mortgage denials. You may have moved on and taken steps to get a place of your own, but bankruptcy credit report errors can cause unfair denials.
  • Rental denials. Whether you’re looking for a long-term rental for housing, a vacation rental for fun, or a car rental for commuting, you can be falsely flagged as a rental risk.
  • Car loan rejections. Even if you’ve saved for months, selected within your budget, and paid every single bill, loan, and debt on time since filing for bankruptcy, you can be unfairly turned down.
  • Job loss. Whether you’re a new candidate or a current employee, if a healthy credit report is part of your assessment, you can be let go or passed up due to bad data.
  • Credit denials. Home equity loans, personal loans, and lines of credit through a bank or lender can be denied, despite the promise of a fresh start.
  • Store account refusals. If you apply for a store card or account with a favorite retail brand, you can be refused rather than rewarded.
  • Insurance denials. When you seek insurance or other financial products, a solid credit rating is usually critical, and you can be denied for falsely failing to meet the standard.
  • Worse loan terms. Even if you’re approved for a loan, inaccurate or misleading data can mean that you get stuck with worse interest rates and bad loan terms.
  • Mental and emotional distress. From missing out on long-awaited opportunities to losing sleep due to worry or being plagued by anxiety, the toll these errors take is real.

Learn more! Check out The Consumer Justice Blog to learn more about credit reporting errors of all kinds, along with top insights into other consumer reporting, debt collection, identity theft, and employment law issues.

3 Steps To Take After Discovering Bankruptcy Credit Report Errors

STEP 1  Talk to a lawyer

You have the legal right to accurate credit reports and consumer reporting agencies (such as Experian, Equifax, and Transunion) have to investigate and fix their mistakes, but the system itself is broken. Investigations are frequently inadequate, and stalls, delays, and unfixed errors are common. A lawyer clearly sets out your rights, guides you through the dispute and recovery process, and gets you compensation.

STEP 2  Dispute the errors

Carefully review your credit reports and financial statements and dispute any inaccurate, misleading, false, or unreportable data. If you’re working with us, we’ll handle this process for you. If you’re not, file your disputes via certified mail to preserve your legal rights. (If you’re reported deceased by the Social Security Administration, there’s a more involved process.)

STEP 3  Make them fix it

If you know the data in your credit report is wrong, never accept their nonsense when they say they’ve investigated and confirmed that it’s right. This is a common outcome of shoddy internal investigations and does not meet their legal obligations to do the right thing. But a lawsuit usually gets the job done.

How An Attorney Leads You from Bankruptcy Credit Report Errors to a Full Recovery

Correcting bankruptcy credit report errors shouldn’t have to be a complicated and convoluted process, but it frequently is. Working with an experienced attorney gives you the best shot at a full resolution and maximum compensation.

6 Key Things a Bankruptcy Credit Report Attorney Knows

  1. We know the law. We know the laws that protect you and how to go after these careless mega-corporations using every possible legal option available.
  2. We know the problems. We’ve seen, heard, and handled every type of credit report error, including bankruptcy credit report mistakes, and put our full knowledge and resources into everything we do.
  3. We know the tricks. We know the tactics used by these companies to delay doing anything to fix credit reporting mistakes. They’d rather convince you it’s a lost cause. We know otherwise.
  4. We know how to navigate the process. We help you gather necessary data and evidence, craft and file legally sound disputes, and advise you of your rights and best practices along the way.
  5. We know how to file a lawsuit. If your bankruptcy credit report errors aren’t corrected or the fallout persists, we file a lawsuit to hold companies accountable.
  6. We know how to get you money. If you’ve been harmed by bankruptcy credit report errors and you’re entitled to compensation, we know how to maximize it.

Pro Tip! Don’t underestimate the peace of mind that comes from knowing every next move is the right move toward recovery. Working with us is a smart move.

What is the Fair Credit Reporting Act?

Credit reporting errors are the consequence of a fast and furious data industry that depends largely on the ability of monstrously large corporations to gather, process, and report data for tens of millions of individuals on a rolling basis.

In the balance between speed and profit, accuracy is the first thing to go. And you pay the consequences. Because credit reporting errors are part of a persistent, systemic problem, and because they cause genuine harm to consumers every single day, the federal government passed an important piece of legislation to protect you- the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

We rely heavily on the FCRA to build the best possible cases and get the best possible outcomes.

Your Rights Under the FCRA

This federal law gives you the right to

  • review your credit reports for free
  • know which data in a credit report was used to deny you an opportunity
  • dispute post bankruptcy credit report errors
  • file lawsuits against the responsible parties
  • seek compensation for harm suffered
  • make the wrongdoers pay for your legal costs and fees
  • also, when it comes to bankruptcy, the FCRA gives you the right to a clean slate after ten years from the date the bankruptcy is filed or discharged

In fact, the FCRA plays such a critical role in protecting consumers from credit reporting errors, the lawyers who help fight these mistakes are frequently called FCRA lawyers.

Now You Know! The FCRA used to guarantee free access to your credit reports once annually, but since approximately 2020, you now have weekly access.

How to Dispute a Bankruptcy Credit Report Error

  • Review your credit reports for incorrectly reported accounts, debts, and statuses.
  • Gather any evidence and documentation you have to support your dispute, including your Order of Discharge.
  • Write a thorough and clear letter explaining exactly which information in your credit report is wrong and why.
  • Mail your letter, along with copies of the supporting documents, via certified mail to the credit bureau reporting the errors. This preserves your rights and leaves an easily traceable trail. Avoid using online dispute platforms if they make you waive your legal rights.
  • Keep a copy of the letter and documents for your file, along with the mail receipt.
  • Track the days. They have 30 days to respond.
  • Don’t give up. If they don’t respond, don’t investigate, don’t fix the errors, or claim that their investigation confirmed the bad data, you need a lawyer NOW.

One of the most important and least known facts about fighting post bankruptcy credit report errors is that you don’t have to pay out of pocket for legal help.

Under the FCRA, you are not expected to spend your own money or take on debt just to dispute credit reporting errors and demand corrections of your data. You didn’t create the problem, you shouldn’t have to pay to fix. The law makes the companies who made the problem pay to fix it.

At Consumer Justice Law Firm, we respect this fee-shifting provision for the role it plays in our legal system. It is as an equalizer, bringing justice to everyone, including those who otherwise couldn’t afford to work with an attorney. The law has cleverly carved out a way to center equity and fairness in legal representation for consumers harmed by big business data errors.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can creditors continue to report your bankruptcy after ten years?

No. The Fair Credit Reporting Act is clear that ten years is the maximum length of time you should expect to see your bankruptcy included on any consumer report in your name. This is true for your records at individual retail, financial, or credit companies and for your credit reports with any of the credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion).

This ten-year period is called the reporting period and your bankruptcy is said to have “aged-off” of your reports at the end of this time. If your credit report continues to report your bankruptcy after it has aged-off, the you have a right to dispute this error and have it corrected.

Who is responsible for updating my credit report when I file for bankruptcy?

The individual financial and credit companies who hold your debts at the time of bankruptcy are responsible for updating their records according to the Order of Discharge and in accordance with the requirements under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

However, because our consumer economy, including the tracking and purchasing of consumer data, is so massive, there is a frequent problem with misreporting accounts in bankruptcy and unfairly reporting aged-off bankruptcies.

For this reason, while the legal answer is that companies are responsible for following the law and reporting accurate information, the real answer is that you should stay on top of every detail of your credit report, dispute any unfair or illegal data point, and work with an attorney if you’re not getting anywhere.