Dispute Credit Report

When you want to remove or change an item that wrongly appears on your credit report, you need to start a dispute credit report process by sending a dispute letter to the credit bureau. This and other forms mentioned on this site are readily available for free from various download sites that specialize in credit financial forms.

Once you send a dispute letter stating an item is wrong, the credit bureau has 30 days to try and verify their information is correct. Many times this proves tough for them. If they cannot do so within the time period allowed, they must correct the information as you stated or delete the item.

You should send the letter certified mail with return receipt request so you know they received it and when the 30 day clock has started.

Here are a few examples of typical credit report disputes to give you an idea what you can dispute.

1) Credit Account # xxxx is not mine, please delete it.

2) Credit Account # xxxx is reporting a credit limit of $200. The correct limit is $4,000.

3) Credit Account # xxxx is showing some late payments in the trade line. It was never late and always paid on time. (be sure you can back this up with receipts or copies of cancelled checks)

4) Credit Account # xxxx is reporting the date of last activity as xx/xx/xx when it was actually xx/xx/xx.

Sometimes the credit bureau will send you a response letter. Normally you can ignore these, especially if it looks like they are asking you for more information. They do this to gain time and delay action. If you submit
more information on your dispute, they get an additional 15 days.

If you happen to dispute an item and it comes back as verified (no action taken), put that aside for a few months and try it again.

If you are going to dispute a negative item on your credit account that involves a collection agency, send the collection agency a validation of debt request letter. Once you have confirmation the letter was received, send a dispute letter to the credit bureau.

This does a couple of things. It stops the collection agency from verifying the information with the credit bureau until they legally validate this debt to you. If they cannot do this, or do not do so promptly, the credit bureau cannot verify the information since they only have 30 days to do so. This should result in your request being completed.

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