Court Ruling Requires Credit Bureaus To Wipe Away Bills Incurred Before Bankruptcy

In the following new article in the Wall Street Journal, Jane J. Kim describes the recent court ruling in California requiring  credit bureaus to remove debts incurred before the filing of a chapter 7 bankruptcy. Up to the present time, debtors have had to rely on creditors to remove the debts after a bankruptcy filing. Hopefully, Bankruptcy Courts in both Oregon and Washington will quickly follow suit. So that the burden of credit report cleanup can be placed firmly on the credit bureaus

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Posted in After Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy in the News  |  By: Thomas McAvity

False Credit Card Entries after Bankruptcy

The last thing anyone needs to be doing after filing bankruptcy is paying debts that they do not owe. The whole idea of bankruptcy is to get a real fresh start. Unfortunately, errors on credit card bills resulting in fresh debt are getting to be pretty commonplace. That being the case, you should always look at your monthly statements. The question is what do you do when you find an unauthorized charge on your bill?

 Contesting errors on your credit card bill may seem a bit daunting, but there are procedures for helping you get things back in order.

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Posted in After Bankruptcy  |  By: Thomas McAvity

How Long is the Bankruptcy on My Credit Report?

Credit reporting agencies usually report bankruptcy information for a period of ten (10) years. This does not mean that your credit rating will remain low for much of that time. Credit scoring takes into account the age of derogatory info, and discounts the value of that information as it ages.  Moreover, because you eliminate all of your unsecured debt in a bankruptcy, your income to debt ratio improves exponentially. 

You should review your credit reports at least every six months to make sure that no innacuracies appear on the reports. For people who have finished a  bankruptcy, the most common error involves creditors failing to update their reporting to reflect that the debt was discharged in bankruptcy and has $0 due.

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Posted in After Bankruptcy  |  By: Thomas McAvity

Avoid Unecessary Fees

Money Magazine once published a great article titled, “35 most outrageous fees (and how to avoid them)“. I thought the article was really educational, and highly recommend it to everyone I know. The sections of the article regarding bank fees and  closing costs were particularly useful.

Posted in After Bankruptcy  |  By: Thomas McAvity