I blogged a month or so about credit bureaus. Guess what, there’s more!

We’ve been paying off all the negative garbage, and have it all finished. Really. It took six months or so. We watched our credit scores rise, then POOF. Nothing.

Checked the reports again. SOME of the items are still there, showing balances. Seriously, what the heck?

Between us, we have six reports – one each, from each credit bureau. Mine, for example shows a certain joint account as “paid, zero balance”. My husband’s shows the same account as owing almost $9000. Same credit bureau.

I called them all. Well, two of them. One only accepts disputes online or by mail. One had a voice message which said to please go online or mail them any disputes. The third one actually sent me to a representative. In India. Her name was Sue. Right.

Anyway, she checked. She said she’d enter a dispute. This will be the FOURTH dispute for this account, over a two-month period. Apparently, so they say, they call the creditor and ask the status. Fine and dandy.

So, what? The creditor tells them that a JOINT account is ONLY paid on MY report? And they believe that? Doesn’t anyone see this?

So they mark it as “investigated” and “no change”. Seriously? It was paid TWO MONTHS ago!

Furthermore, the bureaus apparently do not communicate with each other…at all. Their reps tell me that some creditors report to one or two bureaus, some to all three, and so forth. Fine, I GET that. But why would a creditor tell each bureau something different, if/when they report to more than one?

How in the world can one account state, in turns, that an item is “paid”, “derogatory”, and “charged-off” – IF the creditor makes the reports? Does the creditor not know the status? If they don’t, they should just mark it all as “unknown” or, better yet, “paid”!

Again, who thought up this whack system? Who made the credit bureaus gods? And Fair Isaac – well, he’s just plain wrong. And vindictive. And a host of other things that I probably shouldn’t print.

We went to court today – my son is home!

However….

The judge declined to close the case until February. He wanted us to be able to receive certain services from the state, free of charge. Nice, huh? Of course, there’s a twist:

The child support modification, pending in another county because my son’s father thinks it’s his bound duty to protest an extra $100 a month, is now put on hold until this case is closed. In February. Three more months.

Doesn’t sound very long, right? Except I filed for this modification in June 2008. At this time, that’s about 16 months already. Even better, this all per state law.

How dumb is this?

Of course, in 17 years I’ve asked for a support review exactly twice. The first/last time it took almost three years. And, let’s not forget, when the state decided to take my son it was just six days before they informed me that they were redirecting support back to the state. Of course, they’re too unorganized to actually carry that out. And, my son’s father has stopped paying support.

Guess he thinks that one-hour lunch with his son, and his paying for his textbooks – oh, and his promises to pay for future college tuition – makes up for NEVER being here to play ball, to laugh, to cry, to teach, to change a diaper, to tuck into bed; I guess he thinks it makes up for NEVER so much as sending a birthday card or a Christmas gift or even picking up the phone and making a call.

Oddly enough, that one visit was two months ago. There’s been nothing since. Nada. Yet he has the balls, pardon me, to hire an attorney to fight a $100 increase, I suspect because he knows my son hasn’t been living at home for seven months.

I’d like to know where he was when we had so much trouble, and finally resorted to military school – to the tune of $20K or so. Where was he all those years when we had no health insurance and had to pay all medical out-of-pocket?

Did he ever stop to think that, if he’d been any kind of father at all, maybe my son wouldn’t be having such difficulties now? With this man, it’s all about shirking his duty, letting his responsibilities slide. It’s all about him, what a surprise!

So because of some obscure state mandate, we have to continue to wait. Even longer. Again.

There’s another component to this as well: those “free” services that were mentioned. That means family therapy, and my son’s individual therapy. We had a brief session after court, that’s one; another is scheduled for a month out, that’s two. Of course, the holidays intervene so I’m guessing we might have another session after the first of the year. So that’s three, total.

We could likely get by without this, or we could, as per our insurance, change therapists or – gasp – use mine. Total cost to us: $90. The other “service” is my son’s counselor. I haven’t met him, although I know his name. Haven’t seen any of his reports either – I imagine everyone else has seen them, but they’re probably deemed too confidential for his mother to read. At any rate, the guy has blown off the last 3-4 appointments, so it hardly seems a cost benefit for us to continue to use him.

But let’s say we did; the cost would run about $100 a month, so $300 altogether, plus the $90, which comes to, oh, let’s round up: $400. Meanwhile, since I have to wait on the modification hearing, I’m losing out on over $2000 of back support, as well as ongoing support. Nice, huh? The state sure takes care of things.

And let’s not forget the stress of waiting and having to deal with more incompetent individuals. Doesn’t matter to the state though, SOMEone, in his infinite wisdom, has legislated that things must be done according to the least common sense possible.

Unfortunately, we pretty much expect the least of our government, and gee – that’s what we get.