I fell into hard times in 2007 and defaulted on a personal loan with American General Finance (who has since rebranded to Springleaf Financial Services, Inc.). When my finances improved, I reached out to their hired collection agency, negotiated a settlement, and paid the agreed amount. Springleaf was obligated to update my credit report to reflect the paid nature of the account, and the new $0 balance due, among other things. When they failed to update the three major credit bureaus in a timely manner, I filed a dispute with them. When contacted by the credit bureaus, Springleaf illegally certified that the information I was disputing was "accurate" when it did not yet reflect the paid nature of the account. This is a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. To certify information as accurate, when it in fact is NOT is a clear violation of the law.
I then contacted the hired collection agency who informed me that it was out of their hands, and that only Springleaf could update that information (as Springleaf was the one reporting it to begin with). I once again filed a dispute with the credit bureaus, which Springleaf once again ignored, and illegally certified the information as accurate. It wasn't until some time later that they finally updated all of my credit reports. However, they still did not completely and accurately update the accounts, which still report some inaccurate information to this day.
When I contacted Springleaf about their violations of my rights, and the inaccurate reporting, their Senior Attorney Mr. S. Michael Gray, sent back an extremely rude letter outlining how I was a deadbeat client, and that my letter meant nothing to them. He closed out with a statement that they would refuse to respond to any additional correspondence from me.
Companies such as these have an obligation under the LAW to take information disputes seriously, and to only report accurate and complete information.By quickly rebuffing the credit bureau disputes, they broke the law again.
Despite my attempts to have Springleaf resolve the matter, they have chosen to ignore me. Thus, I am filing legal action against them and making sure the public is aware of their abusive tactics. I can tell you with some degree of certainty that they are abusing my rights because I turned out to be a bad client for them. I took my licks, and eventually paid the debt, more than could probably be said for a great number of their defaulted accounts, yet they still wish to treat me like trash.
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