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How To Dispute Your Credit Report

By Jerimiah Zanderbreck

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 18Mar2012
Word count: 732
Viewed: 63 time(s)

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There is a lot of false information available about disputing and removing negative items on your credit report. One fact that very few individuals are aware of is that almost 25% of all credit reports contain an error on them!

If you are trying to dispute and are remove an error or a bad credit mark you can have success. There are an endless number of reasons why an item may be on your credit report by mistake or by an overly aggressive debt collection company. However you are the one has to pay the high cost of having this negative listing on your credit report and should take action to have it removed.

The first thing you must do is get a copy of your report from each bureau, this is going to be 3 reports in all. You next need to look at these reports and identify what items are not accurate or ones that you want to dispute. You can dispute an item on your credit report for a variety of reasons such as: the dates are incorrect, not my account, account is paid, the balance is wrong…

Once the bureau receives your dispute letter they will investigate the item. This includes the bureaus contacting the lender or debt agency and asking them to verify the account, the balance, and the dates on the account. According to federal law if the bureau is unable to verify the account then it must be removed from your credit history.

It Can't Be This Easy

Unfortunately it's not. Due to a clear conflict of interest the credit bureaus are very reluctant to deem anyone's dispute valid and conduct an investigation. The reason for this reluctance is nothing more than profits. When the bureaus's correct or investigate items that the consumer disputes on their credit history the bureau is only spending money in man hours and resources.

In other words the bureaus do not earn any money by correcting information they have collected about you. The one and only reason the bureaus will investigate an item is to avoid federal fines. However even this statement can be debated as the bureaus collectively have a laundry list of fines from the FTC for not complying with the Fair Credit Reporting Act the federal law that gives you the right to dispute your credit report.

How Can I Remove An Account If It Is My Debt?

This is an excellent question and unfortunately the answer will probably frustrate you, however you should use the systems to your advantage. One common tactic that collection agencies use to persuade and coerce you to pay them is by threatening to report negative information on your report for 7 long years.

However if you closely look at the credit laws that govern both collection agencies and the credit bureaus the maximum amount of time any debt can remain on your credit report is for 7 years. This 7 years begins to evaporate as of the first month you miss a payment.

Let's use an example to fully illustrate this point. Let us say that you fall behind on your credit card and stop making payments. According to law this debt started to age the first month you missed your payment, after about 6 months the credit card company is going to charge off your account and sell the debt to a collection agency. Now the collection agency will contact you regarding the debt. When the collection agency purchased your debt it had already aged 6 months therefore it is only allowed to be on your credit report for an additional 6 1/2 years. Often many collection agencies view a purchased debt as having 7 fresh years to be reported on your credit.

Using the same example let us say the collection agency purchased your debt account after it was already two years old, they often will view this account as brand-new and try to keep it on your credit report for 7 years from the date they purchased it. If your debt was already 2 years old then that means this item would remain on your credit report for 9 years instead of the legal 7 years. This happens all the time! It is up to you to correct any items on your report and ensure you protect your rights against aggressive law breaking agencies.

For a free credit consultation call 1-800-298-4297 or visit us for more about how to dispute your credit or how to fix bad credit.

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