Thursday, November 10,1988
The Battalion
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1ENT:
ient reported that she I length of time bad credit affects
oral annoying tciiireditfiles.
“A lot of students cannot afford to pay
.•r student reportec-heir debts, and they don’t,” she said,
cone and annoyiE ; ‘And that is so unfortunate because
■’re starting their lives as adults, and
WHILE INTOXlOheir credit rating is going to stay with
icer stopped a ver hen> for the next seven years,
an “erratic mai®: Bt’s going to cause them to not be
ill Street anddecifcible to buy a home. It’s going to cause
>oked intoxicated. fy||i not to be able to buy a car. It will
ITOXICATION: :ause them so many problems once they
responding toaejrajuate from college. They’ll feel like
t the Flying Tomaich®’re responsible and have good jobs,
hat a Bryan manaiyutjthat won’t make any difference, be
rated. sausc their past refiects irresponsibility.”
■onsumers have several options when
ent reported that sktjUj®g to improve or dispute information
the Cain Hall stud; jn their credit records, Morgan said. If
^^^^^^^^^■rror is reported on a credit history,
^ne Icredit bureau must reinvestigate the
H within 30 days, Morgan said.
robb
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8 inches tall and
ids. She was wi
na on her head, a
rt and dirty bluejss:
>e Station PoliceDs
ime Stoppers nee;
ify the person(sirt>:
robbery. If you tot;
it could be helpfii
rrs at 775-TIPS,
i call. Crime St®
ju a special coded-;
t your identity. If
an arrest and gran;
fter 30 days, if the company in ques
tion has not responded, the information
is ;'. tomatically deleted from that per
son s file. However, if the company does
respond after the 30 days, the infonna-
tior is immediately re-entered into the
credit report, Morgan said.
■Consumers also have the option to en
ter into their files a 100-word statement
explaining their side of the story if the
creditor does not agree with the chal
lenge. They also can confront the credit
grantor with the allegation, Morgan said.
“A consumer can go to the credit insti
tution and say, ‘Hey, you’re causing me
to not be able to get credit anywhere.
What can I do to get you to take this off
of my file,’ ” she said. “A credit grantor
can then request payment in turn for hav
ing the information deleted from the
credit bureau file. That way, the bad debt
will never show.”
Morgan said that one of the most inef
fective ways of trying to improve a credit
record is to participate in a credit clinic
plan. Credit clinics are companies that
advertise that they will improve a per
son’s credit for a fee.
“They can’t do anything for you that
you as a consumer can do free of char
ge,” she said. “They cannot provide any
service to you that is not already your
right by federal law to do free of charge.
“What they do is make you send them
a copy of your credit report. Once you
get the report, the credit clinic person is
going to tell you to dispute everything on
that report. Then they hold yours until
they get hundreds of disputes from dif
ferent consumers, and they package
those disputes, and overload the credit
bureau with them all at one time.
“They overload us with disputes so
there will be some that we cannot possi
bly respond to within the 30 days re
quired. So some of the disputes end up
being deleted from the consumer’s file.
What they fail to tell you is that when we
do get to your report — and we will — it
goes right back on your file.”
Another option for people having
problems with paying bills or improving
credit is a credit counseling service. Al
though A&M does not have a credit serv
ice, the Consumer Credit Counseling
Service of Brazos County is a free serv
ice that will help people with their bud
get and debt problems, Neil Barnhill, fi
nancial counselor for the service, said.
Clients complete a worksheet that lists
living expenses, income and debt, Barn
hill said. The service then makes a bud
get for that client by analyzing his debt
and income.
“We try to minimize their monthly
payments and make a budget for them
that will equal their monthly income,” he
said.
No “typical” person is predestined for
credit trouble, Barnhill said.
“There are lots of people who are
over-extended due to no fault of their
own,” he said. “Marital separation or di
vorce, major medical expenses, loss of
income and loss of job are all circum
stances where people continue having
living expenses and debt, but they don’t
have enough money to cover it.”
To help its clients, the service works
with merchants and credit bureaus so
they understand that the client is seeking
help to repay debts.
“Because we’re funded by the mer
chants, we’re able to stop consumer har-
rassment in some cases,” he said.
“We’re able to reduce most monthly pay
ments from anywhere from 15 to 25 per
cent. That doesn’t mean they don’t have
to repay debts, but that they have a
longer period of time in which to pay.”
Although the service cannot reduce
payments on student loans, auto loans or
home loans, it can reduce payments on
other loans, and help clients budget the
remainder of their income, Barnhill said.
After a budget is made for a client, the
counseling service sends payments to all
of the client’s creditors.
Benefits of completing the counseling
service’s program are numerous, Barn
hill said. Because the service reports
only a 3 percent failure rate, most cred
itors are willing to extend credit to peo
ple after completion of the program, he
said.
“We can help consumers re-establish
credit,” he said. “If someone comes on
our program and has us make the
monthly payments to the creditor, then
after the program is over, we’ll get a
copy of their credit file and go over it
with them.
“We’ll make sure that the creditors
show that all their accounts are paid in
full. We’ll put a notice in their file say
ing that they completed our program sat
isfactorily. When creditors see that nota
tion in their file, the client will
automatically become a good credit risk,
because only about 3 percent of the peo
ple in our program ever have a financial
problem again.
“We will also write letters to two of
the creditors of their choice and ask if
they will reopen the client’s account. We
become a second credit history for these
clients — we actually become a credit
reference for them.”
Although it has been in operation for
less than four months, the service has
380 clients in Brazos County, Barnhill
said. The average client is 31 years old,
married and has two dependents, he said.
Many A&M students, faculty and staff
members also have participated in the
program.
“One thing all clients have in common
is a sincere desire to repay their debts,”
Barnhill said. “They do not want to de
clare bankruptcy to get out of debt trou
ble. They simply don’t have enough in
come to pay off debts, and so they come
in to see if we can help them.
“In school, there are very few courses
available to teach financial planning.
And unless that person is fortunate
enough to have that taught at home,
usually they don’t know how to do it. So
what we try to do is educate them so that
they can balance their budget and know
that what money is coming in is going to
equal what money is going out.”
Several problems indicate impending
financial trouble, Barnhill said.
“When people are having problems
meeting their monthly payments each
month, and they can’t even make the
minimum payment, that’s when they’re
starting to have problems,” he said.
“When they start considering taking out
consolidation loans, we need to talk to
them. They should certainly come to see
us before they consider bankruptcy.
“Almost one-half of the people who
declare bankruptcy could have paid off
their bills in three years if they would’ve
come to us. There is a stigma associated
with bankruptcies so that creditors don’t
really want to have anything to do with
you if you’ve declared bankruptcy. And
you don’t really learn anything from
doing it that way either.
“When you go through our program,
you learn how to budget your money and
how to plan. They don’t ever want to get
in a bad financial situation again, so
they’ve learned a good lesson.”
Announcement
to be made today
on ‘supercollider’
WASHINGTON (AP) — Texas
will learn Thursday whether a $1.1
billion bond package approved by
Lone Star voters will pay off and
bring the “super collider” and its
thousands of scientific jobs to a site in
Waxahachie.
The Energy Department said late
Wednesday that Secretary John Her
rington would announce the decision
at a Thursday morning news confer
ence on where the giant nuclear parti
cle accelerator will tentatively be
built.
Texas and six other states are in the
final running for the $4.4 billion atom
smasher.
Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, made
a final pitch for Texas’ proposal in a
phone call to the department Wednes
day afternoon.
Rock or Rockelle Ac
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COLLEGE STATION. TEXAS 77S4C
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exans split tickets; vote for Bush, Bentsen
ALLAS (AP) — More Texans voted
etum Lloyd Bentsen to the U.S. Sen-
’ ■ than voted to send George Bush to
White House, but voters didn’t limit
^ JjBir ticket splitting to the top of the bal-
'I he GOP gained two seats in the
• Texas Supreme Court and two in the
•m 4"|* State Senate. Democrats picked up two
| seats in the Texas congressional dele-
gation and held three on the Supreme
Court.
the Comptrollero!i “ The P 60 ^ have s P oken >” Bush told
Supporters Tuesday night.
e comptroller wilt But tke chorus heard in Texas
DepartmentthitB inds a sIi 8 ht shift awa y from the
pped state’s Democratic history.
Internal Revenue bi
transactions resu]it;.tJF orn Phillips, the Republican elected
„ Bief justice of the Texas Supreme
ds said if the bankt: P° lirt ’ said the court may not have
ential liability ei;.^ cked (wo-party status, but, “If it was
delayed taking one and a half, now it’s at least one and
pBe-quarters. ’ ’
judge had notedfe;P ut Bush ’s convincing win over Dem-
as not before the K 0crat M ' c 'hael Dukakis was tempered by
id merely inherits: Be " lsen s even rnore resounding defeat
the merger °^‘ s Senate race opponent, U.S. Rep.
|pau Boulter, R-Amarillo.
BfWith 99 percent of the Texas vote
itfixiiited Wednesday, Bush had 56 per-
1 |cent to 44 percent for Dukakis. Bentsen
|1 f \ I (ills beating U.S. Rep. Beau Boulter, R-
'J^'^^'Ahiarillo, by a 20 percent margin.
fYlOl A Bentsen aide described the Election
UX llldlDay outcome as bittersweet for the 67-
™ar-old senator, who Dukakis tapped as
his running mate in hopes he’d help cap-
llizabeth Cantu tor ^ Tex as’ 29 electoral votes.
was found shot to §“0° the one hand, there’s gratitude to
hd he had beensk the people of Texas. On the other hand,
;h only one wotthere’s not,” Jack DeVore, Bentsen’s
tal. Ptog-time press aide, said.
^Democrats increased their presence in
the 29-member Texas congressional del
egation from 17 to 19, with Democrat
Greg Laughlin ousting incumbent Mac
Sweeney in a District 14 rematch. Swee
ney beat Laughlin, a West Columbia at
torney, in 1984.
Laughlin said his unsuccessful run at
Sweeney taught him to be better orga
nized, and aid from the national Demo
cratic organization also helped.
“People knew me better and I worked
at getting better known in the district and
listening and meeting people,” Laughlin
said.
The Democrats also picked up the seat
vacated by Boulter. Former state Sen.
Bill Sarpalius defeated Larry Milner for
the District 13 seat, a primarily rural dis
trict in the Panhandle.
House Speaker Jim Wright, a Demo
crat, was not opposed.
Republicans will have eight represen
tatives, after losing Sweeney’s and
Boulter’s seats.
The GOP also lost a seat in the state
House, but gained two in the Senate.
“I think we made enormous progress
in the Texas Senate,” said Gov. Bill
Clements. “I think you’ll be surprised
what will happen in the Texas Senate. I
can see the winds blowing a change in
that direction.”
Races for the state’s high court were
marked by a battle over how much cam
paign money judicial candidates should
accept. Phillips set a $5,000 limit on
campaign contributions and criticized his
Democratic opponent, Ted Robertson,
for not doing the same.
The composition of the Texas Rail
road Commission was not changed by
the election.
Republican Kent Hance, appointed by
Clements to fill a vacancy created by
Mack Wallace’s resignation, was elected
to serve the remaining two years of that
term. In the process, Hance became the
first GOP candidate this century to be
elected to the commission, his first
statewide race.
Voters also re-elected Democrat Jim
Nugent to a six-year term on the com
mission, which regulates the state’s oil
and gas industry.
The state board of education retained
the Democratic edge given it four years
ago by then-Gov. Mark White. As part
of the 1984 education reform measure,
the 15-member board became an ap
pointed body until voters decided last
year they wanted to resume the election
system.
On Tuesday Texans re-elected four
board members, including three Demo
crats.
The only incumbent to lose, Paul
Dunn of District 15, was unseated by the
GOP’s Monte Hasie, who charged dur
ing the campaign that Dunn failed to
keep residents of their Panhandle district
informed of the board’s work.
Texans also overwhelmingly approved
three constitutional amendments, one to
ensure that federal highway fund re
imbursements to Texas are spent on
highway projects, another to establish a
“rainy day fund” and the third to en
courage greater investment flexibility in
the state’s pension and education funds.
Bentsen’s coattails help state Democrats
AUSTIN (AP) — Republicans said
Wednesday they should have done better
on state legislative races, but were happy
to gain some ground on Democrats.
Meanwhile, Democrats said the
GOP’s failure to take significant strides
in the state House and Senate races will
hurt Republicans in the crucial 1990 leg
islative races.
In the Legislature, Republicans cap
tured two more Senate seats by defeating
an incumbent Democrat in East Texas,
and winning an open seat in the Panhan
dle that was previously held by a Demo
crat. The wins reduced the Democrats
edge in the Senate from 25 to 6 to 23 to
8.
In the 150-member House, Republi
cans made a net gain of one. Democrats
now hold 93 House seats to 57 for the
GOP.
Fred Meyer, chairman of the state Re
publican Party, said he wasn’t satisfied
with the outcome in the House.
“That’s only a fair performance,” he
said. Earlier, Meyer predicted the GOP
would gain five to 15 House seats and
possibly three Senate seats to put the
party in position to mount an attack in
1990 for control of one of the chambers.
Lawmakers elected in 1990 will re-draw
legislative district maps in the once-a-de-
cade struggle.
Meyer said six races in East Texas
were within reach of Republicans, but
Lloyd Bentsen’s coattails were longer
than those of President-elect George
Bush.
Bentsen was on the ballot twice, both
for re-election to the Senate and as Dem
ocratic presidential nominee Michael
Dukakis’ running mate. Both Dukakis
and Bentsen spent a lot of time cam
paigning in East Texas.
“I don’t think there’s any question
that Bentsen was good for the six House
seats (in East Texas)”, Meyer said.
But Gov. Bill Clements, a Republi
can, disagreed. He said Bentsen was not
a factor in East Texas. “I think we made
enormous progress in the Texas Senate. I
think you’ll be surprised what will hap
pen in the Texas Senate. I can see the
winds blowing a change in that direc
tion.”
Clements said the GOP was in good
shapefor 1990, saying next year’s legis
lative session “will separate the men
from the boys. ’ ’
Republican Bill Ratliff defeated in
cumbent Democrat Richard Anderson in
state Senate District 1 in East Texas, 51
percent to 49 percent.
Another GOP Senate gain came in the
seat that had been held by Democrat Bill
Sarpalius, who stepped down for a suc
cessful run for Congress.
Republican Teel Bivins defeated Mel
Phillips 61.2 percent to 38.8 percent in
the Panhandle state Senate campaign.
One of the biggest surprises was the
narrow defeat of eight-term state Rep.
Ed Watson, D-Deer Park.
Watson lost his southeast Harris
County district to Republican Mike Jack-
son, president of a La Porte construction
company, by just 17 votes out of nearly
26,000 cast.
Although 15 Senate seats were up for
grabs. Republicans and Democrats
squared off in only seven races. Incum
bents dominated the remaining contests.
Sens. Ted Lyon, D-Mesquite; Gon-
zalo Barrientos, D-Austin; Robert
“Bob” Glasgow, D-Stephenville; and
Cyndi Taylor Krier, R-San Antonio, all
won re-election. Steve Carriker, D-
Roby, also won re-election to a seat he
won earlier this year in a special election
when Sen. Ray Farabee, D-Wichita
Falls, resigned to work for the University
of Texas.
Bill Haley, D-Center, will also be a
newcomer to the senate. The former
House member easily defeated a Liberta
rian.
In the House, 59 races were contested
between Democrats and Republicans.
Democrats defeated two Republican
incumbents and won one open seat that
had been in Republican hands, for a gain
of three.
But Republicans unseated one Demo
crat and took three open seats previously
held by Democrats, for a gain of four.
After counting their losses, the GOP
gained one seat in the House.
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