A bankrupt former employer's debt has appeared as a charge-off on my credit report-my credit damaged for $128!!

(I am not an expert in this area, so am replying as a non-attorney even though I am an attorney licensed to practice in VA.)

It sounds like this account was not in your name since you state that you were not authorized to have it removed. Even if the individual line was attached to your name and address, there is often an umbrella account in which only a few people are allowed to make changes. This is to protect the company from unauthorized additions to the bill (not an uncommon practice). (I used to manage infrastructure IT for a company and did the telecommunications management and approval.) In such cases, the primary bill will go to the company and the information for the individual residence is listed as well on the bill.

Oftentimes, you can dispute items such as this when they appear on your credit score. Have you checked all three of the credit reporting agencies to determine if they all list it? I would probably make a multi-pronged approach. First, try to find out as much information as you can from Verizon on the account. Since they felt they could report it against your credit, you should be able to get some response as to who the liable parties actually are - perhaps copies of the bill or similar. The bills and account payment history should indicate who the actual obligor was on the account. Next I would demand that Verizon (regardless of whether or not they provide you with any information, and particularly if they won't) send notifications to the credit reporting agencies that you were not responsible for the bills at any time. You should ask that you receive duplicates of everything that they send. Lastly, you should contact the credit reporting agencies directly and dispute the showing of the charge off on your credit history.

I had a situation once when my ex-husband had a charge off on a gas card. We had been divorced for close to 10 years at that point but he had never taken my name off the card as required in our divorce decree. It only showed up on one of the three credit reports. I simply wrote them a letter and explained the situation and they removed it. I can't promise that yours will be that simple, but it may be. As with you, I had no other blemishes on my report. For me, it impacted mine by 100 points! So, long and short, dispute it. It may be easy to have taken off, it may be more involved, but it is possible.

Viki - Last name withheld to protect my ex. ;-)