Your credit health may be hurting after noticing LCS Financial Services on your credit report. Since LCS Financial is a collection agency, this might mean your account has gone to collections for some unpaid dues. Be it in the process of collection of the debt or you feel that the entry is in error, it is pertinent not only to know your rights but the proper modalities for addressing it. Here is a laid-out plan on how to remove LCS Financial from your credit report.
Understanding the Role of LCS Financial on Your Credit Report
LCS Financial is a third-party debt collection agency that buys overdue debts from creditors and tries to collect the amount from clients. Once a creditor sells off your debt to LCS Financial, it will be reported to credit bureaus, which will bring down your credit score. The presence of a collection entry on your credit report signifies that you owe money to, and the collection agency now owns the debt from, one of your creditors. The entry can remain in your credit report for as long as seven years after the debt is paid off and can negatively affect the credit score significantly.
It must always be kept in mind that the presence of these debts would not mean the debts are valid or the entry is valid. Mistakes occur, and the collection accounts are typically errors. If you feel that an entry by LCS Financial is erroneous or you have paid the debt yet it still shows up on your credit report, you have the right to dispute it. According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), you are a consumer, and as such, you deserve to dispute any inaccurate information obtained in your credit report. This collection includes debts not owed, debts incorrectly attributed to you, debts with incorrect amounts, or debts that you’ve already paid off.
CreditSage will guide you through the dispute process to make sure that your credit report only reflects accurate and fair information. The first step of the process is to validate the data entry. Review your credit report and collect any documentary evidence that may buttress your case and may include payment receipts, or any correspondence entered into with LCS Financial. If there are discrepancies, these can be disputed with credit bureaus; alternatively, you can hand over this process to CreditSage, and it will streamline the process for you, thus greatly enhancing the chances for successful results.
Steps to Dispute LCS Financial on Your Credit Report
Resolving an inaccurate entry belonging to LCS Financial needs to be approached in a clear and methodical way. Following these steps ensures that the problem is approached efficiently and chances are better for having the entry removed from your report.
Hit Your Credit Report
The first step in disputing any entry is requesting copies of your report from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. These bureaus give you one free report per year at AnnualCreditReport.com. Identify the amounts of the debts, the dates opened, and which creditors were involved with these entries from LCS Financial.
Verify that the Debt is Valid
While disputing an entry, it is important to verify that such a debt actually exists. LCS Financial may have simply purchased the debt from a creditor for collection. For you to really initiate a dispute, you will have to determine and explain whether the debt is indeed your debt and whether the amount due is accurate. Misreporting errors usually occur on the basis of incorrect amounts, debts attributed to wrong parties, and the likes. There should then be no items that disclose any paid debts or debts too old to be reported on your report, such as those over the statute of limitations.
Send a Dispute Letter
After ratifying the veracity or validity of the debt, any irregularities noted should be laid before the respective credit bureaus in a formal letter addressing the dispute. This letter should state the particulars of the dispute, any proof submitted for this dispute, and the request to issue an investigation on the entry. The bureaus must initiate an investigation into your dispute within 30 days by law. CreditSage can help by drafting a solid dispute letter and verifying all required information is included. Your dispute should also be as clear and concise as possible. This can ease the resolution process and minimize the possibilities of erroneous handling.
Follow Up on the Dispute
After sending the dispute, you need to follow the follow-up process with the credit bureaus and LCS Financial. They are required to respond to you in 30 days either explaining why they have not deleted the entry or, on the contrary, canceling the disputed entry. If the dispute wasn't resolved in your favor, you have the right to appeal or to escalate.
Common Reasons for LCS Financial to Appear When You Run a Credit Report
Understanding why LCS Financial appears on your credit report will warrant the correct approach to handle the issue at hand. They are all common, with different approaches applied in their handling.
Unpaid Debt Transferred to Collections
This is one of the prime reasons for the appearance of LCS Financial on your report; in essence, a creditor has sold your unpaid debt to this agency. Once an account has become seriously delinquent—generally after 180 days or more of non-payment—the creditor may write it off as a loss and sell the account to a collection agency like LCS Financial. This is then reported to credit agencies and severely impacts one's credit report. This means, if that is the reason LCS Financial is showing on your credit report, you would have to somehow work it out with the agency on settling or negotiating the debt. This could include one option of paying the given amount in full or negotiating for a reduced settlement or payment arrangement.
Sometimes, LCS Financial may appear on your credit report simply because of inaccurate reporting. There could be several other reasons leading to this, including:
- Debts really do not belong to you;
- Paid the debt, but it is still reported as unpaid;
- The amount/creditor name is wrongly listed.
In such a case, there is an issue of misreporting since in this case, the burden is yours to dispute the claim. The end result of this fact will ensure that your report remains positively consistent to maintain your viability.
Outdated Debt
Another reason why LCS Financial may appear is that the debt is outdated and past the statute of limitations. A 'too-old-to-collect' account (usually more than six years old) should not appear on your credit report, but refer to all examples supplied by LCS Financial. However, it happens that LCS Financial still carries the debt and requests payment for it even past the statute of limitations. If you believe the debt is beyond the statute of limitations, the onus lies upon you to properly document such a debt as unenforceable. Showing proof of the dates of the original debt or the date of the last payment can support claims that the debt has apparently been rendered ineffective.
The Impact of LCS Financial on Your Credit Report
The existence of LCS Financial on your credit report can heavily influence your overall credit score. In general, lenders see debt collection accounts in an entirely negative manner. They will make getting a loan, securing a good interest rate, or even renting an apartment that much harder. Now let us take a closer look at how these accounts affect your credit report.
Reduced Credit Score
The very occurrence of having a collection account on your credit report leads to nothing short of a credit score drop. A collection account indicates that lenders see you as unable to pay your bills on time so you have to assign it to a third-party agency to settle the debt. For lenders, this can be a huge red flag thus placing you as a high-risk borrower. The extent to which your credit score will be affected will depend on multiple factors such as the rest of your credit history and the amount of your outstanding debt. However, it is enough that just one collection account pops up to notice a significant drop in your score.
Reduced Chances of Getting Credit
An account in collection on your report could be enough for potential creditors to think twice before advancing a loan to you. Most lenders evaluate your repayment capacity based on your credit score and credit report. A history of collections makes you appear a higher-risk borrower to lending agencies, which could result in high-interest rates or denial of credit altogether.
Elevated Interest Rates
If you are still lucky to be approved for some form of credit with a collection account listed, you may find that the interest rates that come with those credits are definitely elevated. Having the perception that a borrower is of higher risk, the creditors are likely to burden such a borrower's loans and credit lines with a higher cost.
Potential for Further Negative Marks
If the LCS Financial collection account is not closed and is still reflected on your credit report, it can lead to further negative marks such as late payments, which will further damage one's credit health down the road. The longer the account is kept outstanding in collection, the longer it can continue to drag your credit score down.
How CreditSage Can Assist You with LCS Financial Removal From Your Credit Report
If getting an entry wiped out from your credit report is proving to be a tussle, acquire services from a credit repair company like CreditSage to get incredible backing assistance. CreditSage specializes in matters concerning disputes and errors on your credit report while providing hands-on help with making sure your credit health is continuously improving.
Processes of Professional Disputes
CreditSage is a well-established credit repair company that is well acquainted with the ins and outs of helping their clients fight disputes. Luckily for you, they will be taking care of everything including pulling your credit report and preparing and sending dispute letters to the credit bureaus concerned. They will smoothen the process by ensuring that all necessary documents are sufficient to go with your dispute.
Time-Saving and Stress-Busting
In disputes regarding erroneous credits, it takes time and is tiresome since one has to keep making calls and have a lot of communication with collection agencies. But with CreditSage, you do not have to go through this. You can focus on more relevant things while they take care of finalizing disputes with the credit bureaus and agencies like LCS Financial for a better chance of success.
Legal Protection
CreditSage takes it up as its responsibility to protect your rights throughout the dispute resolution process. According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, one has the right to dispute inaccurate entries on the credit report, and CreditSage makes sure that all the regulations contained therein are adhered to. Definite action against LCS Financial will be taken if it wrongfully reports your debt in your name, according to the law.
Accuracy is Ensured
CreditSage works hard to ensure that your credit report is correct. If there is a mistake made by LCS, they will work on your behalf to correct it in order to make your credit health accurately represented. Although for LCS Financial, removing an entry is a tough process, you do not face it alone; let CreditSage help you dispute the errors with a view toward a healthier credit profile. This article will summarize the best way to dispute LCS Financial entries while improving your credit health. CreditSage will help you in challenging LCS Financial about your credit profile; they will ensure that it will be leading to a true and fair credit report.