Found out my credit score dropped 60 points because of an old library card

I was sitting at my kitchen table last Tuesday evening, checking my credit score on Credit Karma before applying for a car loan, and I saw it had dropped from 720 to 660. I nearly spilled my coffee everywhere. I started pulling up my reports from TransUnion and Equifax, trying to figure out what happened, and there it was. A collections account for $14 from the public library in Austin where I lived five years ago. Apparently I returned a book late in 2019 and they sent it to a third-party agency without telling me. I called the library first thing the next morning and they admitted it was a mistake in their system. Three weeks later the collection was removed and my score bounced back up to 730. Has anyone else had a tiny bill like this somehow end up on their credit report?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_fiona2d ago

A tiny bill somehow ending up on your credit report" is exactly what happened to my buddy Tom. He had a $10 gym membership fee from a place he canceled years ago, got sent to collections for it, and his score tanked 50 points. Took him two months and twenty phone calls to get it fixed.

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jessicaw541d ago

Dispute it directly with the credit bureau asap, they'll remove it fast.