Unfortunately my husband became ill and faced the possibility of going blind because of a brain tumor and if blind wound be unable to work.
As a result we filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy to get our finances in order if he could not work following surgery and set up a 5 year payment plan for all of our unsecured creditors - $60,000 worth.
I had my pay garnished over a period of 5 years to pay every creditor we owed.
During that time we couldn't get credit - I needed a new car and had to pay 19.5% interest to get a car loan even though we were paying our bills off.
We just recently were discharged after paying the full amount to everyone that we owed. I requested copies of our credit reports so that I could talk to a person at the credit company and forward the discharge papers to properly reflect our payment. (they will not let you talk to them until after getting a copy of your report).
Much to my surprise I found that these credit reporting agencies show all of the companies that we paid in full as "discharged", "written off", or "bad debted" and not as being paid on or paid off.
I am in the process of trying to correct all of their records, but it is a slow and painstaking process. Why are these companies (Nationsbank, American Express, Greenwood Trust, Mercantile Bank, etc.) allowed to indiscriminately put this on your credit reports without so much as an inquiry to the consumer.
If we had filed Chapter 7 - no one would have been paid and this would be true! - but we suffered through this process for 5 years with limited income to be sure they were all paid and this should have been reflected appropriately!!!
How can this be fixed with credit reporting agencies so it doesn't happen to others???
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