A woman warns users to keep an eye on their credit score after hers dropped 24 points overnight allegedly due to a six-year-old billing error from her phone company.
In a TikTok with over 245,000 views as of Friday, content creator Jenn Marie (@_jenn_marie) explains how her credit score dropped significantly because of the collection error.
“This is your annual reminder to check your credit score constantly,” Jenn begins.
Jenn recounts she received a notice telling her her credit score had gone down 24 points overnight. The reason? Her phone company, Verizon, was attempting to collect on a six-year-old debt of $107, a bill that was an internet cancellation fee for her and her military wife once they moved out of a region supported by Verizon’s internet, she says. Verizon had waived the fee at the time, and Jenn assumed this information would be on file for her account.
“That would be in my notes, right? But I called Verizon and it’s not in the notes because they sold our debt to a debt collector and erased all of our data,” Jenn reveals.
“All of our notes, all of our previous bills, everything is gone, there’s no proof of anything,” she continues.
Jenn says she then put in a dispute and called the debt collector, telling them she’d do a pay-for-removal to pay the debt once they removed it from her credit score. According to Investopedia, pay for removal, or pay for deletion, is an agreement with a creditor to pay all or part of an outstanding balance in exchange for that creditor removing negative information from your credit report. But in Jenn’s case, the debt collector refused.
“They were like, ‘Oh, we can’t do that,’ and I was like ‘OK, I’ll see you in court,’” she says.
Jenn explains that the debt collector hadn’t contacted her about the debt since they bought it from Verizon ‘a month ago,’ yet gave her credit a severe hit.
“You can’t ping my credit to get my attention, it’s against the law,” she tells them.
Soon after, the debt was removed from Jenn’s credit.
“Not two hours later, I got a notice that it was taken off of my credit report,” she says.
But despite the debt being removed, there is a chance Jenn’s credit will still be affected.
“There’s no guarantee that I’m gonna get all those 24 points back cause credit is a scam in the United States of America,” she says. “But check your credit report because companies will scam you at every turn.”
@_jenn_marie No one should be able to ruin your life over $107. #creditscoresareascam #creditscores #calitalism #debtcollectors #verizon #experian
♬ original sound – Jenn Marie
As the video ends, Jenn sends a final warning.
“Debt collectors are ruthless and they will try to bypass the laws thinking that you’re too stupid to figure it out,” she concludes. “So make sure you’re checking it.”
In an update video, Jenn shares that three days after winning her appeal and having the debt removed from her account, her credit score went back up to its original score before the collection notice and it left no derogatory marks on her credit.
“This is why paying attention to your credit score is super important,” she says in that video. “Because if I hadn’t noticed that, I couldn’t have taken care of it, and the longer it was in there the worse it could’ve gotten.”
@_jenn_marie Replying to @Jenn Marie Update on my credit situation! #credit #creditscores #debtcollector #checkyourcredit ♬ original sound – Jenn Marie
In the comments of Jenn’s original video, users shared their grievances with the credit score system.
“[My credit score] dropped 90 points because I PAID OFF my student loans. Like I guess I was supposed to stay in debt?” one person wrote.
“That’s honestly what they want,” Jenn responded.
“My credit score dropped 100 points after I paid off my car and it has not went back up, it’s been a year,” a second user wrote.
“My credit score will remain a mystery for as long as possible,” a third viewer declared.
“We paid off a credit card and a personal loan and our credit score dropped 70 points. Live laugh love,” came another response.
It is common for your credit score to take a dip after paying off a loan, a bill, or closing an account. According to Equifax, this is because removing the debt affects your credit mix, the length of your credit history and/or your credit utilization ratio. For a user with a perfect payment history and low card credit balances, paying off a car might still dip their credit score as their credit mix (the different kinds of credit they have) is now negatively affected.
According to NerdWallet, to keep a credit score from falling, users should pay their bills on time, watch out for credit report errors (like Jenn’s), be careful not to open too many new credit accounts at once, and practice patience, as your score can always bounce back if you have good credit habits and most derogatory marks fall off your score in seven years.
The Daily Dot has previously reported on Jenn’s content, covering her experience of a USPS worker in Washington refusing to take her absentee ballot after saying he had the “right to refuse service to anyone.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Jenn Marie via TikTok message and Verizon via email for more information.
