Credit Report Dispute

Your credit report contains information about where you live, how you pay your bills, and whether you’ve been sued, arrested, or filed for bankruptcy. Consumer reporting companies sell the information in your report to creditors, insurers, employers, and other businesses that use it to evaluate your applications for credit, insurance, employment, or renting a home. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) promotes the accuracy and privacy of information in the files of the nation’s consumer reporting companies.

Your credit report says a lot about you and your credit history. But is it saying the wrong things?

Credit bureaus keep your credit report on file for prospective lenders to view when making credit decisions about you. But since they don't check for accuracy, mistakes are common. Even a simple mistake can cause you to be denied credit, so it is very important to make sure that your credit report says the right things about you.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives you the right to dispute information on your credit report that is inaccurate or outdated. You do this by filing a dispute with the credit bureau reporting the information.

The credit bureau must contact the original creditor within five days of receiving your dispute and has 30 days to verify the disputed item. After completing its investigation, the credit bureau must notify you of the results and include an updated copy of your credit report.

If the credit bureau cannot verify the information within 30 days or if the disputed item is found to be inaccurate, it must be deleted from your credit report.

If the item is verified, you can request the name, address and phone number of the creditor that verified the item. If a deleted item is later verified, the credit bureau must notify you within five days that the information has been reinserted on your credit report.

Once you have determined exactly what is inaccurate on your credit reports, it’s time to write a letter of dispute to the credit bureaus. You will need to send a letter to each of the three credit bureaus to have the information investigated and corrected on each of your credit reports. Even though all three bureaus now offer online disputing, it is a good idea to still write your dispute in letter form for your records.

The credit bureaus have 30 days to investigate your dispute and make changes to your credit report. Once this investigation is complete, they will send you a letter that includes information about what was and was not updated on your credit reports. If you were unable to get an error corrected, try submitting your dispute again with new documentation. You can also try working directly with the company that reported the error to have the matter corrected.

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