Car Repossessed being reported as two negative accounts

[Artemisns]

Hi, I have a question regarding repossession and its reporting. My husband took out a car loan in 2005. At the end of february 2008 he got hurt and couldn't work for some time and was late on car payments. In May 2008 they repossessed the car. The account was later settled for less than full balance. Now it is being reported as two separate negative accounts on his Equifax report. The accounts numbers are the same except that on one of them the first two digits have been omitted(example, first account 11223344556677, second 223344556677).

He called the creditor and the guy that he spoke with just told him that is how they report it. After that he filed an online dispute with Equifax and they really didn't do anything. And this morning I called the OC again and they told me that they will remove the account with omitted numbers and update the other. Supposedly their policy is to report repossession as two different accounts and that once the repossession happens they make a second account with first two digits replaced by two zeros, and therefore the omitted digits on the credit report. Has anyone had this happen to them? Is it legal for an OC to be reporting repossession this way? Any help would be appreciated.

[chane]

Yea, I'm pretty sure it's legal, but the most important question is how to get it removed.

You're going to want to dispute it with the CRAs. You can either hire a one of the credit repair companies or you can start here:

Basic Step by Step Beginner's Guide to Credit Repair

PLEASE do not dispute it on your own if you don't know EXACTLY what you are doing. One mistake can cement it on your credit report for 7 years. Either learn as much as you can here at this forum or contact one of the professional credit repair companies in the link above.