TBOM/Fortiva on Your Credit Report: What It Is and How to Dispute Errors

TBOM/FORTIVA is one of the most searched strings in consumer credit reporting for a simple reason: almost nobody recognizes it. You applied for a card branded Fortiva, or financed a mattress or a set of tires at a store counter, and months later a name you have never seen appears on your file. This page explains what the string means, who actually owns the account, and how to tell an unfamiliar-but-accurate tradeline apart from a genuinely wrong one. We are a consumer-protection firm and we act for people whose credit reports contain inaccurate information. If the Fortiva account is yours and the reporting is correct, no lawyer can lawfully remove it, and we would rather say that on this page than after you have called us.

Decoding TBOM/FORTIVA: three companies, one tradeline

The confusion is structural, not accidental. Three separate businesses stand behind a single line on your report, and only the middle one is named on the card in your wallet.

The Bank of Missouri, headquartered in Perryville, Missouri, is the issuer. It holds the charter, extends the credit and, critically for this page, is the party whose identity anchors the tradeline. TBOM is its abbreviation. Fortiva is the brand — the name printed on the card and on the store financing paperwork. Atlanticus Services Corporation, a subsidiary of Atlanticus Holdings Corporation of Atlanta, Georgia, is the servicer: it runs the accounts, answers the phones, handles collections, and transmits the monthly data file that becomes your tradeline.

So when TBOM/FORTIVA appears on your report, the bank name comes first because the bank owns the account, and the program name follows because that is the product you actually signed up for. The company you spoke to on the phone, Atlanticus, may not appear anywhere on the report at all.

Contact information. Fortiva account services: P.O. Box 105555, Atlanta, GA 30348-5555. Dispute correspondence: Dispute Resolution, P.O. Box 105374, Atlanta, GA 30348-5374. Customer service is generally reached at (800) 245-7741; Atlanticus corporate is at 5 Concourse Parkway, Suite 300, Atlanta, GA 30328. Addresses on subprime card programs change more often than on large bank programs, so confirm what is printed on your own current statement before mailing anything, and keep proof of delivery.

What Fortiva actually sells

Three distinct products carry the Fortiva name, and they reach consumers through completely different channels — which is why two people can both have a Fortiva tradeline and have no memory of the same transaction.

The Fortiva Mastercard is an unsecured credit card marketed to people with limited or damaged credit. It is a direct-mail and online acquisition product, typically arriving as a pre-screened offer. Fortiva Retail Credit is point-of-sale financing offered at the register by furniture stores, tire and auto service shops, dental and medical offices, and home improvement contractors, often as a second-look program after a primary lender declines. Fortiva personal loans round out the line.

The retail channel is where most of the surprise comes from. A consumer who financed a purchase in a store frequently remembers the merchant and not the finance company, because the merchant's name is what was on the door, on the receipt and on the sales associate's shirt. The credit report shows the bank. Neither one is wrong; they simply describe different ends of the same transaction.

Because these products are aimed squarely at applicants with thin or bruised files, the population holding them is the population least able to absorb a reporting error. A single incorrect thirty-day late on a file with three tradelines moves a score far more than the same error on a file with twenty.

Reading the string: TBOM and its many suffixes

TBOM is a bank prefix, not a product name, and The Bank of Missouri lends its charter to more than one program. That is why the prefix shows up attached to different suffixes on different consumers' reports — TBOM/FORTIVA for the Fortiva programs, and other combinations such as TBOM/CONTFIN for a separate Continental Finance program that has nothing to do with Fortiva.

The practical consequence: the prefix tells you which bank, the suffix tells you which program. If you see TBOM with a suffix you do not recognize, the account may belong to a completely different card you opened, or it may not be yours at all. Do not assume that two TBOM tradelines are duplicates of each other simply because they share a prefix, and do not assume they are separate simply because the suffixes differ.

What identifies an account reliably is not the display string. It is the date opened, the credit limit or original amount financed, the last four digits and the account type. Those four fields survive rebranding, servicing transfers and portfolio sales; display names do not. Quote those fields in any dispute rather than the name, and you will get a far more useful answer back.

Watch specifically for the same debt appearing under two strings at once — a TBOM/FORTIVA tradeline and a separate collection tradeline carrying the identical balance. Duplicate reporting of one debt inflates both your utilization and your total obligations in every scoring model, and it is among the most provable errors there is.

Store financing: why the account you do not remember may still be yours

Second-look retail financing is designed to be frictionless at the counter, and frictionless applications produce weak memories. This section is here because a large share of the people who search for TBOM/FORTIVA are trying to answer one question: did I open this?

Reconstruct the transaction rather than the paperwork. Look at the open date on the tradeline and ask what you bought that month. Retail credit accounts cluster around furniture, mattresses, tires, auto repair, dental work and elective medical procedures. Compare the original amount to the price of that purchase. Check whether the account was opened in a state you lived in at the time. If the open date, the amount and the geography all line up with a real purchase you made, the entry is very likely accurate even though the name is unfamiliar.

If they do not line up, you are looking at something else: an application you were told was only a rate check, a promotional balance that was rewritten into a new account, an account opened by someone with access to your identifiers, or a mixed file. Each of those has a different remedy, covered below.

One pattern deserves particular attention on deferred-interest retail plans. If a promotional balance is restructured or moved, the original account should close with a zero balance as the replacement opens. When the closing side lags, both report a balance simultaneously and your reported debt doubles overnight through no act of yours.

A state regulator's findings about the Fortiva companies

On May 16, 2024, the Maryland Office of Financial Regulation announced a settlement with The Bank of Missouri, Atlanticus Services Corporation and Fortiva Financial, LLC. The companies paid $275,000. Maryland's regulator stated that the three companies "were not properly licensed by the State to provide retail credit services to consumers" and that they "were engaged in unlicensed and unregulated collection activities."

We want to be precise about what that action is and is not. It is a licensing and collections matter under Maryland law. It is not a finding that Fortiva reported inaccurate information to the credit bureaus, and nobody should read it that way or cite it as though a regulator has already validated a credit reporting claim.

Why it belongs on this page anyway: furnishing accurate data is an operational discipline. When a state regulator concludes that a lending and collection operation was running outside the licensing framework meant to govern it, that is evidence about the maturity of the compliance function that also owns the monthly credit bureau file. It is context for why you should read a TBOM/FORTIVA tradeline carefully — not a substitute for reading it.

Consumer complaints filed publicly about the Fortiva programs cluster around themes worth checking your own file against: accounts reported as opened without authorization, the same debt appearing more than once, charge-off status recorded incorrectly, and balances that were paid continuing to report as owing. If any of those describes your tradeline, the dispute process below is the mechanism.

What the law requires of Fortiva once you dispute

The Fair Credit Reporting Act divides the obligation between the credit bureau and the company furnishing the data, and knowing which duty attaches to whom is what makes a dispute effective rather than merely annoying.

Under 15 U.S.C. 1681i, a credit reporting agency that receives your dispute must conduct a reasonable reinvestigation, generally inside thirty days, and must forward all relevant information you supplied to the furnisher. Under 15 U.S.C. 1681s-2(b), the furnisher must then conduct its own investigation, review all relevant information the bureau transmitted, report its results back, and correct, delete or permanently block anything it finds inaccurate, incomplete or unverifiable — with every nationwide bureau it sent the item to.

Here is the mechanic that decides these cases: section 1681s-2(b) is triggered only by a dispute routed through a credit reporting agency. Calling (800) 245-7741 does not trigger it. Mailing Atlanticus by itself generally does not trigger it. Section 1681s-2(a), the general duty to furnish accurate information in the first place, is not privately enforceable by consumers. The bureau-routed dispute is the act that creates the enforceable duty.

The three-party structure creates a second point worth understanding. Whoever transmits the data is the furnisher, regardless of which entity's name appears on the tradeline. If Atlanticus services the account and sends the file on The Bank of Missouri's behalf, the investigation duty runs against the reporting party once a bureau dispute arrives. A servicer cannot answer a dispute by pointing at the bank, and a bank cannot answer it by pointing at the servicer. Negligent violations carry actual damages plus attorney's fees under section 1681o; willful violations open statutory damages of $100 to $1,000 per violation and potential punitive damages under section 1681n.

Is the TBOM/FORTIVA account even yours?

Because the acquisition channels are direct mail and store counters, unauthorized and misattributed accounts are a real category here rather than a theoretical one. There are three explanations, and they lead to different remedies.

• It is yours, and the branding obscured it. You financed a purchase at a merchant and the account reports under the issuing bank. Match the open date, the original amount and the last four digits against the purchase. If they align, the tradeline is accurate even though nothing about the name is familiar, and the remedy is time and payment rather than a dispute.
• It is not yours because of identity theft. Pre-screened subprime card offers arriving by mail are a known target for interception, and store applications require little more than a name, address and Social Security number. The path is an identity theft report, a fraud alert or security freeze at all three bureaus, and a block request under FCRA section 1681c-2, which is faster and stronger than an ordinary dispute. See our identity theft credit report page.
• It is not yours because your file is mixed. A bureau merged another consumer's account into your file on partial-identifier matching — a relative with the same name, or a stranger whose Social Security number differs by one digit. Mixed files require pressure on the bureau as well as the furnisher, because the bureau's matching logic is the cause. See mixed credit file cases.

Two facts settle the question quickly. An open date before your eighteenth birthday, or an account opened in a state you have never lived in, points hard toward the second or third category.

If you hold other subprime cards, compare them side by side. Our pages on Credit One Bank, Merrick Bank and Milestone cover programs built on the same model, and the same reading technique applies to all of them.

Disputing a TBOM/FORTIVA tradeline, step by step

Start by pulling all three reports from AnnualCreditReport.com, the free source named in the statute. Do not rely on a single bureau or on a score app; furnishers do not always report to all three, and an error can sit on one file and not the others.

Read the tradeline field by field and name the specific defect: balance, payment history grid, account status, date opened, date of first delinquency, credit limit or original amount, or the assertion that the account is yours at all. A dispute that says the entry is "inaccurate" without saying which field is wrong invites a verification you cannot use.

Dispute in writing with each credit reporting agency that shows the error. That is what starts the section 1681i reinvestigation and, through it, the section 1681s-2(b) furnisher investigation. Identify the item by open date and last four digits rather than by display string, state the specific inaccuracy, state what the correct information is, and attach documentation: statements, a paid-in-full or settlement letter, the store receipt, a bankruptcy discharge order, a police report or FTC identity theft report. Our dispute letter guide covers the structure.

Send certified mail with return receipt and keep a complete copy of everything you send, including the envelope. Proof of what the bureau received and when is frequently the most valuable document in an FCRA file.

A direct dispute to Fortiva's Dispute Resolution address is worth sending in parallel and is often the fastest route to getting an unidentified account explained. It is not the step that creates your legal claim. If the item comes back verified and is still wrong, get advice rather than mailing the same letter again, because repeated identical disputes can be treated as frivolous.

How The Kim Law Firm helps with Fortiva reporting problems

We represent consumers nationwide, on the plaintiff's side only. The Fortiva matters we take involve reporting that is wrong: an account opened in your name that you did not authorize, the same debt reported twice under two strings, a balance that was paid or settled still showing as owing, a charge-off status recorded on an account that was never charged off, a re-aged account carrying a falsified date of first delinquency, a debt discharged in bankruptcy still reported as due, or late payments recorded in months you paid on time.

Admitted in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; available to appear pro hac vice in other federal courts.

We do not help anyone remove accurate negative information. If the Fortiva account is yours and the delinquency happened, the law provides no mechanism to erase it, and we will tell you that in the first conversation.

Where the reporting is inaccurate and the furnisher received a properly routed dispute and left the error in place, you may be entitled to actual damages — credit denials, higher rates, a lost apartment or job opportunity, and the emotional harm courts have long recognized in FCRA cases — plus attorney's fees and costs. Because the statute shifts fees to the defendant when a consumer prevails, we take these cases on contingency, with no fee unless we win.

Our FCRA lawyer guide explains how a case proceeds, and our credit reporting errors overview covers the patterns we see most often. Other banks and lenders we handle are listed on our creditors and lenders page. When you are ready, contact us for a free case review.

Retail financing at the point of sale

TBOM/FORTIVA is one of the most searched strings in consumer credit reporting, which tells you how many people encounter it without knowing what it is. Part of the reason is retail financing: a mattress, a set of tires, a repair bill financed at the counter through a program the customer experiences as the store's own. Months later a tradeline appears under an abbreviation that names neither the store nor anything the customer recognizes. The account is usually real. What is missing is any obvious connection between the purchase and the name on the report.

• TAB Bank — an Ogden, Utah bank behind financing signed on a tablet at a counter.
• Medallion Bank — financing recreational purchases and home improvement through dealers.
• Continental Finance — card brands reporting under issuing bank names.
• Concora Credit — a servicer whose brands also report under partner banks.
• Synchrony Bank — the largest issuer of store-branded retail credit in the country.

Trace an unfamiliar abbreviation to a purchase using the open date and the original amount; retail financing is the usual answer. If the amount, the date or the terms do not match what you signed at the counter, dispute the tradeline with the furnisher named on the report and with each bureau. Financing arranged by a merchant is still a consumer credit account, and everything reported about it has to be accurate.

Fortiva phone numbers, mailing addresses and dispute box

Fortiva publishes several post office boxes in the same Atlanta ZIP code, and they are not interchangeable. One is for account correspondence, one is for disputed payments, and a third is for privacy and arbitration notices. Sending a letter to the wrong box is the most common reason a Fortiva letter goes unanswered. Everything below is published by Fortiva on its own customer and legal pages.

Phone numbers Fortiva publishes

• Account Services: 877-785-7908, also written 1-877-785-7908, (877) 785-7908 or 8777857908. Fortiva lists the hours as Monday through Sunday, 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. Eastern.
• Lost card or unauthorized use: 855-802-5572, also written (855) 802-5572 or 8558025572.
• Privacy and information sharing: 800-710-2961, also written (800) 710-2961 or 8007102961.
• California Consumer Privacy Act requests: 800-245-7741, also written (800) 245-7741 or 8002457741.
• Military Lending Act disclosures: 866-816-6994, also written (866) 816-6994.
• TTY and TDD: dial 711, then 855-921-5700.

The three Atlanta post office boxes

• Account Services: Account Services, P.O. Box 105555, Atlanta, GA 30348-5555. This is the box Fortiva publishes for general account inquiries and address changes.
• Dispute Resolution: Dispute Resolution, P.O. Box 105374, Atlanta, GA 30348-5374. This is the box Fortiva publishes for disputed payments and stop-payment notices.
• Privacy opt-out and arbitration notices: TBOM — Fortiva Account Services, P.O. Box 105096, Atlanta, GA 30348-5096. The TBOM prefix stands for The Bank of Missouri, the issuing bank.

All three boxes sit in the 30348 range, which means the last four digits are the only thing distinguishing them — 5555, 5374 and 5096. Those are easy to transpose and worth checking twice before the envelope goes out.

Three companies on one card

A Fortiva account involves three distinct entities, and each can be the name that appears on a credit report, a letter or a collection notice.

• The Bank of Missouri is the issuing bank. It is a federally insured Missouri bank, and Fortiva identifies it as located in Perryville, Missouri.
• Atlanticus Services Corporation is the servicer and administers the Fortiva website. Atlanticus and its affiliates are named in Fortiva's own privacy disclosures.
• Fortiva is the brand printed on the card, marketed both as a general-purpose Mastercard and as a retail credit card offered at the point of sale by participating merchants.

The retail version is worth calling out separately. Many people acquire a Fortiva Retail Credit Card through a furniture, mattress or appliance retailer's financing offer and never associate the account with the word Fortiva at all. If a report shows a Fortiva, Atlanticus or Bank of Missouri entry you cannot place, a store financing agreement is the first thing to check.

The Bank of Missouri issues more than one brand

The Bank of Missouri is also the issuing bank for the Milestone Mastercard, which is serviced by a different company entirely. Two cards with different brand names, different servicers and different mailing addresses can therefore both report under the same bank's name. If you are searching a credit report for The Bank of Missouri and find an entry you do not recognize, check both brands before treating it as fraud.

An Atlanta ZIP code that is not evidence of a connection

Fortiva's correspondence box is P.O. Box 105555, Atlanta, GA 30348. Mission Lane, an unrelated card company, publishes P.O. Box 105286 in the same Atlanta ZIP code for its own correspondence. Both are real, both belong to the company each is listed under, and neither is evidence of anything wrong. A mail processing facility serves many issuers, so two unrelated companies sharing a ZIP code on a return address is ordinary. Use the box printed on your own statement.

Where a Fortiva credit report dispute actually goes

Fortiva publishes a Dispute Resolution box, but read carefully what it is for: disputed payments and stop-payment notices. That is a billing question, and it is not the same thing as disputing what Fortiva reports about the account to the credit bureaus.

For a credit reporting dispute — a balance, a payment status, an opening date, a late payment that was not late — the routing rule under the Fair Credit Reporting Act is different and it is the most important thing on this page. A furnisher's obligation to investigate is triggered when the dispute reaches it from a credit bureau, not when it arrives in the mail from you directly.

Dispute in writing with Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Send a copy to Account Services, P.O. Box 105555, Atlanta, GA 30348-5555 so Fortiva has its own dated record, and keep proof of both mailings. If the bureau reinvestigation comes back verifying information you know is wrong, that paper trail is what shows what the furnisher knew and when.

Numbers and addresses that are not on this list

Card issuers and their servicers use outbound calling vendors and short-code messaging services, so a legitimate call or text about a Fortiva account can come from a number that appears nowhere in Fortiva's published material. An unlisted number is not proof of a scam, and a number that matches this list is not proof the caller is genuine — caller ID is trivially spoofed. If you want to be certain, hang up and call the number printed on your statement or listed above.

There is a different problem worth separating out. If a Fortiva, Atlanticus or Bank of Missouri entry appears on a report when you never applied for the card, the question is not whether a caller is real — it is that an application may have been submitted in your name. A hard inquiry generally stays on a credit report for two years, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act permits a consumer report to be obtained only for a permissible purpose.

To check what you are actually looking at:

• Pull all three reports at AnnualCreditReport.com and search for The Bank of Missouri and Atlanticus as well as Fortiva.
• Check whether the account began as store financing. A retail credit card opened at a merchant's counter often reports under a name the consumer never saw on the paperwork.
• Compare the three reports against each other. An account opened without your authorization frequently appears on one bureau before the others, and that difference is often the whole story.
• Dispute with the credit bureaus in writing, and send a copy to Account Services, P.O. Box 105555, Atlanta, GA 30348-5555.
• Keep the dispute letters, the bureau responses and the envelopes. The paper trail is what establishes what the furnisher knew and when.

An account opened in your name without your authorization is an identity theft problem on your credit report, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act provides rights against both the furnisher and the bureaus that continue reporting it after a dispute.

Frequently asked questions

What does TBOM/FORTIVA mean on my credit report?

TBOM stands for The Bank of Missouri, the bank in Perryville, Missouri that issues Fortiva credit products, and Fortiva is the brand name of the program. Atlanticus Services Corporation services the accounts. The bank name comes first because the bank owns and reports the account.

Why is Fortiva on my credit report when I never applied for a Fortiva card?

Most often because you financed a purchase at a store. Fortiva Retail Credit is offered at the register by furniture, tire, auto service, dental and medical merchants, frequently as a second-look program. The tradeline reports under the issuing bank rather than the merchant. Match the open date and original amount to a purchase before assuming fraud.

Is TBOM/FORTIVA the same as TBOM/CONTFIN?

No. TBOM is the bank prefix and identifies The Bank of Missouri, which issues cards for more than one program. The suffix identifies the program, so TBOM/CONTFIN is a separate Continental Finance product unrelated to Fortiva. Two TBOM tradelines are not automatically duplicates of each other.

Did a regulator take action against Fortiva?

On May 16, 2024 the Maryland Office of Financial Regulation announced a $275,000 settlement with The Bank of Missouri, Atlanticus Services Corporation and Fortiva Financial, LLC, stating the companies were not properly licensed to provide retail credit services in Maryland and engaged in unlicensed collection activities. That was a licensing and collections action, not a credit reporting finding.

How do I dispute a Fortiva account?

Dispute in writing with each credit bureau reporting the error, not with Fortiva alone, because only a bureau-routed dispute triggers the furnisher's investigation duty under FCRA section 1681s-2(b). Identify the account by open date and last four digits, name the exact field that is wrong, attach documentation and send certified mail with return receipt.

What phone number does Fortiva use?

Fortiva publishes Account Services at 877-785-7908, also written (877) 785-7908 or 8777857908, with hours of Monday through Sunday 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. Eastern. It also publishes a lost card and unauthorized use line at 855-802-5572, a privacy and information sharing line at 800-710-2961, a California Consumer Privacy Act line at 800-245-7741 and a Military Lending Act line at 866-816-6994. For TTY and TDD, dial 711 and then 855-921-5700.

What mailing address does Fortiva use?

Fortiva publishes three post office boxes in the same Atlanta ZIP range, and they are not interchangeable. General account inquiries and address changes go to Account Services, P.O. Box 105555, Atlanta, GA 30348-5555. Disputed payments and stop-payment notices go to Dispute Resolution, P.O. Box 105374, Atlanta, GA 30348-5374. Privacy opt-out and arbitration notices go to TBOM — Fortiva Account Services, P.O. Box 105096, Atlanta, GA 30348-5096. The last four digits are the only thing distinguishing them, so check the envelope twice.

Who issues the Fortiva credit card?

The Bank of Missouri is the issuing bank, described by Fortiva as a federally insured Missouri bank located in Perryville, Missouri. Atlanticus Services Corporation is the servicer and administers the Fortiva website. Fortiva is the brand printed on the card, marketed both as a general-purpose Mastercard and as a retail credit card offered at the point of sale by participating merchants. Any of those three names can appear on a credit report, a letter or a collection notice.

Where do I send a Fortiva credit report dispute?

Read carefully what Fortiva's Dispute Resolution box is for: disputed payments and stop-payment notices, which is a billing question rather than a credit reporting one. For a dispute about what Fortiva reports to the credit bureaus, the Fair Credit Reporting Act routing rule applies, and a furnisher's duty to investigate is triggered when the dispute reaches it from a credit bureau, not when it arrives directly in the mail. Dispute in writing with Equifax, Experian and TransUnion and send a copy to Account Services, P.O. Box 105555, Atlanta, GA 30348-5555.

Why is Fortiva on my credit report when I never applied for a card?

Check first whether the account began as store financing. Many people acquire a Fortiva Retail Credit Card through a furniture, mattress or appliance retailer's financing offer and never associate the account with the Fortiva name. If that is not it, an application may have been submitted in your name. A hard inquiry generally stays on a credit report for two years, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act permits a consumer report to be obtained only for a permissible purpose, so an inquiry without one is itself a problem under the statute.

Where we practice, and what to do if you are somewhere else

The Kim Law Firm is licensed in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and that is where we handle matters directly.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act is a federal statute. It applies the same way in every state, it is enforced in federal court, and the deadlines and remedies do not change when you cross a state line. So the answer to "does this apply to me in Ohio" is yes — but the answer to "can you represent me in Ohio" depends on the case and on where it would be filed.

If you are outside Pennsylvania and New Jersey, contact us anyway. Some matters can be handled from here. Some are better sent to a consumer lawyer admitted where you are, and we will tell you that plainly rather than let a deadline run while you wait. Either way you will get an answer, and the review costs nothing.

The one thing that does not wait is the clock. A claim under the Act generally must be brought within two years of the date you discover the violation, and in no event more than five years after the violation occurred. Finding out late does not extend the outside limit.

If a TBOM/FORTIVA tradeline on your credit report is inaccurate and disputing it has not fixed it, we would like to hear from you.