What a bad ruling.

Be aware- this is a sponsored post, but it's gonna put the "You don't have to write something positive about the client" rule to the test. As always, comments are welcome.

Simmons jannace stagg thinks they have done the world a favor by taking on bankruptcy law. I think they've done American citizens a huge disservice.

Because of a ruling in their favor, creditors do not have to update credit reports to state that an item was included in bankruptcy. With any luck, this stupid decision will be overturned. The rest of this entry will focus on WHY it is such a stupid ruling.

Say you are trying to rebuild your credit. For some reason, when loan officers are looking at your credit report, none of them are able to figure it out. If you have a bankruptcy, they look at it and say, "Hmmmm, all these accounts are included in the bankruptcy. Good, good. They had one mistake. Let's give them the loan at a ghastly interest rate." But say you have a mix of things listed as charge offs AND bankruptcy. Then the loan officers say, "My God! This person is so bad with their credit that they have charge offs AND a bankruptcy?!? Forget it!"

The simple fact is that "charge off" is an accounting term. It means that the bank has written off that debt. They actually get to deduct this from their income for the year. That reduces their income. See why they would want to list it as a charge off???

So, what are you supposed to do about it? Well, try this. Dispute the item on your credit report. 99 times out of a hundred, the credit issuer will tell them it's reporting accurately. The reporting bureau will throw their hands up in the air over it and declare that it must be right. First, there's such a thing as a zero balance rule. That means that with a bankruptcy, the amount listed as due must be zero on your credit report. If it's not, you can sue them. That's when you get nasty. Say it's a credit card listed as charged off. Call the company that issued the card and tell them that your account is listed as charged off. They will reply "Yes, that's true." That's when you drop the bomb. "I want to pay you the amount I owe you. Tell me how much it is." See, any attempt to collect a debt which has been discharged in a bankruptcy is illegal and you can sue the pants off of them. If they tell you how much you owe, they are trying to collect (you said you only wanted to pay what you "owe").

Now, the FTC has a problem with listing bankruptcy as a charge off. And I suspect that the lawyers listed above would argue that the FTC's statements have only addressed accounts that are open. But I have a response to that too. I am a discharged bankrupt. I'm not proud over it, but I'm not sorry either. At the first sign that I was falling, they closed the accounts and listed them as charged off. You might think this process took months, but in fact, I hadn't even missed a payment by that point on some of them. So tell me Simmons, Jannace, and Stagg- who's playing fast with the rules?