Credit report dispute can be your 'ace in the hole', but
it can also be an inflammatory and more hurtful than
good decision regarding your credit report.
What makes the difference?
One word. 'Timing'
It's been said that the difference between lettuce and
garbage is 'Timing' and that definitely applies to
credit report disputes.
If you wait until you need your credit for a financial
or job decision and then only to discover inaccurate
information then you will suffer consequences
unnecessarily.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act provides options that are
straight forward and fairly easy for you to do when you
want to make a credit report dispute. And the good news
is if you find bad information on your credit report
that is not correct you can simply notify the agency and
they must verify the information is correct within a
specified time frame and if they do not do it in that
time frame the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires that
the information is removed. That's good news.
What Do You Have To Do To Start A Credit Report
Dispute?
First, you must let the agency know that you discovered
inaccurate information on your credit score and you want
to dispute it. It is important that you give the agency
in writing all of the information they will need to know
exactly who you are so that they can get the correct
reported fixed. The information needed by the agencies
would be your personal information including your name,
address, and what you are disputing. This next step is
very important so please take note carefully.
The agencies are very big organizations and you are
experiencing this problem because it is clear that they
make mistakes, right? So it is vitally important that
you can keep a paper trail of what you are sending them,
plus a way to prove that you did send the credit
dispute. The least expensive way is to send your credit
report dispute via certified mail. Require the
signature. Another viable option if you are dealing with
a short time frame before you need to have your credit
report corrected would be an overnight delivery with a
signature required option.
The date delivered and received by the agency starts the
clock ticking on the 30 day requirement mandated by the
Fair Credit Reporting Act and that is why it is vital to
have this documented. If they do not verify that the
information is not inaccurate then they are required by
law to remove the information which is what you want. In
addition, if they find it is indeed an error, they are
required to update and correct the information on your
credit report, plus notify the other credit reporting
agencies so they can update their records too.
What If The Credit Reporting Company Says The
Information Is Not Inaccurate?
If the credit reporting agency does not agree with your
credit report dispute then they must send you the
information explaining why they are not removing the
information and they will usually include your credit
report when they respond. Please note, this does not
mean that you should just give up and accept their
explanation because many times their explanation could
contain false information from the company that is
actually reporting to the agency. And that leads us to
another method you can use to dispute your credit report
information.
You can contact the company that provided the
information to the credit reporting agency. In other
words, if you are disputing that a Visa payment was not
paid late, but the credit reporting agency is saying
that it was, then you may need to go straight to Visa
and get them to contact the credit reporting agency with
more accurate information based upon the proof that you
provide.
You simply follow the basic same steps of sending your
personal information as mentioned above to the address
that you obtain by calling the company you are disputing
so in this example you would call Visa and tell them
what you are trying to get accomplished and they will
usually have a specific address that handles these type
of disputes. Send your information including what is
being disputed as well as any proof you can provide to
help your case. Once again make sure you send certified
or any other manner that requires a signature. And
follow through to make sure they update the corrected
information with the credit reporting agency.
A Little Known Tip Gets You Bigger Boost On Your
Credit Score
And here is a tip to help increase your credit score if
you are disputing credit card information. This works
best if you actually win the dispute, but it is worth
trying even if you do not win the dispute. So here's the
tip. Once the decision is made either way, request a
higher credit limit on your credit card. Please only do
this if you know how to be responsible with credit
cards, but by requesting a higher limit, especially if
they made the mistake, then they are more likely to
comply because of the error they had made. It gives them
a way to get back in your 'good graces' and the benefit
to you is you get an even bigger bump up in your credit
score because a function of your score goes off of the
ratio of debt on your credit card. So the higher limit,
with no subsequent purchases on the card, immediately
improves your ratio which bumps up your credit score!
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