Credit Report Dispute - What Can You Do?

Can you fix it or do you just have to live with it?

There are few things in life are worse than the possibility of having a bad credit score. It affects every aspect of your ability to function in todays society. Where you live, where you work, what you can or cannot have. Let's face it. It's important.

If you find that you have errors on your credit report, there are ways to correct them. These are some guidelines that should help you.

Get A Copy Of Your Credit Report
Once you have gotten a copy of your credit report and noticed that there is an error, an outdated listing or a bad listing that does not belong in your report, it is important to look over the information and dispute these errors first.

Be sure that for each listing on your credit report, you check the personal identification information. Often, a listing that is not yours can wind up on your report if it appears to match up with your details. If you dispute these types of errors first, additional data belonging to someone else that is listed on your credit report will no longer tie in with your file.

Make A List Of Items To Dispute
Once you have made sure that each of the incorrect personal detail listings are accounted for, it is then time to examine all of the other damaging details in your credit report. List these from most damaging all the way down to neutral. For example, a bankruptcy listing is far more damaging than a late payment or credit rejection.

Once you have all of the necessary disputable listings set out in front of you, start writing your first letter of dispute. Each of the three credit reporting agencies should be notified, even if these disputable listings only appear in one or two of the reports. If the three reporting agencies are addressed with a letter of dispute for each questionable listing, it will ensure that, later on, these items do not appear on your other credit reports.

Send Each Dispute Individually
All listings, apart from incorrect personal data disputes, have got to be written out and sent individually. If you attempt to dispute a number of items at one time it is likely that the agency will reject your claim on the grounds of it being irrelevant. At this point, you should be prepared for the credit reporting agencies to make a complaint or even warn that your request for a dispute on the items are frivolous or even illegal. This is false, credit reporting agencies are required by law to investigate and accept that all disputes are legitimate unless they have evidence to prove otherwise. So don't give up.

Personalize Your Letters
When writing the letters of dispute, you should think about handwriting them instead of typing them out. Be sure you use strong words that will make it clear to the credit reporting agencies that the mentioned listing is being disputed. Examples of these words are erroneous, outdated, misleading or unverifiable. Do not waste time explaining things in your letter of dispute, explanations are not considered useful. When the reporting agency receives your letter, they are then required to investigate the listing you have disputed.

If you are uncertain about the format of dispute letters, examples can be copied or downloaded online by simply doing a search on your preferred search engine. These samples give you a good idea on how a dispute letter should be formatted and what details should be completed to get the most effect

It will take about 2 weeks to a month to receive a reply from the credit-reporting agency letting you know that your letter has been received and your dispute is being investigated. After an additional 2-4 weeks, a new credit report should be received from the reporting agency to verify that the item has been removed from you report.

Once the updated credit report has been received, you can, at that time, address the next dispute that you have until you get all of the disputed items covered.

•Sometimes, credit reporting agencies are slow to respond or choose not to respond at all. If this is the situation, you will need to send another letter to them to remind them that they are obliged by law to address your dispute.

• Disputing items on your credit report is no easy task, you will need a lot of patience and you will also need to be persistent and not give up. Keep in mind that the credit reporting agencies are required by law to investigate your disputes, so don't let them bully you into thinking that it is not possible to have things taken off of your credit report.

• For individuals who don't have the time or are having difficulties with the credit reporting agencies, there are legal services available that will dispute the items for you at a reasonable fee.

I know that this sounds like a lot to go through, but, remember, it is important. If you handle the problem quickly, it will be much better for you in the long run.