Car Buyers Beware When Buying from a “Buy Here Pay Here” Dealer

POSTED BY: Mark F. Anderson | News

Buy Here Pay Here car dealers sell cars and trucks to persons with bad credit or no credit. The dealers are called Buy Here Pay Here because they finance the cars themselves. There is no credit check as with traditional car sales in which the dealer places the loan with an auto finance company such as Ford Credit or any of the other of hundreds of auto finance companies. The BHPH dealers typically sell older cars often with mileage exceeding 100,000 miles. Some of the cars belong in a junk yard. The dealers will sell a car with little or no...

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Big Three Credit Bureaus to Remove 5.5 Million Tax Liens

POSTED BY: Mark F. Anderson | News

The Wall Street Journal reports that Equifax, TU and Experian are planning to delete tax liens from American's credit reports. The changes will go into effect in April 2018. The changes are a result of class-actions alleging that the tax lien information they bureaus report is not all that accurate. Anyone with tax lien information on their reports will obviously benefit making it easier for such persons to obtain credit.

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New ID Theft–Millions of Persons who Apply for Credit Who Don’t Exist

POSTED BY: Mark F. Anderson | News

The Wall Street Journal on March 6, 2018, has a report on the latest ID theft scam. A fraudster applies for credit for someone who does not exist. Fraudsters start the process of  creating a fake person in the records of the credit bureaus by asking a creditor for credit using a fake name and a social security number that has not been assigned or a number assigned to a child whose identity has not not made it into the credit files. Such fake numbers are known as "credit-profile" numbers or CPNs. Once a creditor grants the fake person credit,...

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Consumer Bureau Drops Investigation of Equifax Data Breach

POSTED BY: Mark F. Anderson | News

Here's a disturbing report on the Trump Administration's Pull-Back on Equifax Massive Data Breach Ever since Trump appointed Mike Mulvaney to take over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, he has been systematically moving from consumer protection to protecting payday lenders, credit agencies, and other industry groups. The latest outrage is an outrage--he is stepping back from investigating the massive Equifax data breach. Reuters reports the Consumer Bureau “has not ordered subpoenas against Equifax or sought sworn testimony from executives” and has also “shelved plans for on-the-ground tests of how Equifax protects data.” “This is frankly unbelievable,” stated National Consumer Law Center Attorney Chi Chi...

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Equifax Offers a Buggy Lock on its Credit Files

POSTED BY: Mark F. Anderson | News

Equifax announced a new way to lock your Equifax credit files thereby denying access to your credit files using your mobile phone. However, when NY Times reporters Tara Bernard and Ron Lieber tried out the lock it was not working.  The idea behind the service is that you can easily lock and unlock it with your phone. Experian and Trans Union also offer a way to lock your credit, at a cost of $20/month. The usual way to deny access to your files is with a security freeze on your credit reports. Security freezes may be a better approach if...

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