Lee Legal

The law allows you to request an investigation of information on your credit report that you feel may be inaccurate, incomplete or outdated.  No one can legally remove from a credit report accurate negative information, such as bankruptcy, tax liens, judgments or child support.   However, it is perfectly legal to request an investigation of any item on your credit report. There is no charge to you for requesting an investigation.

If the credit bureaus cannot verify the information on your credit report, they must remove it.  Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), credit bureaus have 30 days to get back to you with the results of an investigation on your dispute. If you do not hear from them, within 30 days, they must remove the item from your report.

The first step is to review the information on your credit reports. Every person gets one free credit report once a year from each of the three major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.  You can obtain your credit reports at http://www.annualcreditreport.com.  The credit bureaus often have different information, so you should carefully review the information on all three reports before deciding which entries to dispute. Don’t ignore mistakes, thinking that they will be automatically removed. It is up to you to dispute incorrect or outdated information.

Once you have thoroughly reviewed the information in your credit reports, follow these five steps:

1.  Send a letter to the credit bureau. Be as specific as possible about the disputed item. You should send the letter via certified, return receipt mail.  Include a copy of your credit report with the disputed information highlighted.

2.  Send a demand letter. If the credit bureau does not verify the disputed item within 30 days, send them a letter explaining that the bureau has exceeded the statutory 30-day investigation period and requesting that they remove the item from your credit report. Include a copy of your original dispute letter,  and a copy of the return receipt.

3.  Send a second demand letter. If the credit bureau does not respond within 15 days, send a second demand letter. Say that 45 days have passed since you filed your original dispute and renew your demand that the disputed item be removed. Include copies of the original dispute letter, return receipt and original demand letter.

4.  File your dispute directly with the original creditor. The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires the creditor to verify disputed information within 30 days. Ask for written proof, including account statements, and ask the creditor to request removal the item from your credit report with the credit bureaus.

5.  Add a 100-word statement to your credit file. If a disputed item is verified by the credit bureaus and the negative information remains on your credit report, you can add a 100-word statement explaining the item.

Once the investigation is complete, the credit bureau will provide you with the results, along with a free copy of your credit report if the dispute resulted in a change. You can request that the credit bureau send a correction notice to any company that accessed your credit report within the past six months.  If you are dissatisfied with the results, you have the legal right to sue a credit bureau or creditor that violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Filing a lawsuit is time-consuming and expensive, however, so it should be a last resort.

A couple of hints and tips:

• ALWAYS dispute each item in a separate letter. Always include your name, address, and Social Security number for verification.
• ALWAYS dispute your negatives with the credit bureaus first because as many as 20% of all dispute items will drop off your report after the first dispute.
• ALWAYS fully document your efforts and never send original documents, only copies.  Keep everything in a single file.
• NEVER dispute any item at the website of the credit bureau.  You will not have any written records of your dispute (e.g., return receipts), and you are making it much easier for the creditor to respond. Moreover, you will not be able to send documentation supporting your dispute.

If your credit report is in really bad shape, and contains many negative items, don’t expect a quick fix. The process repairing your credit will take time, often from 6 months to a year. Be persistent.

Here are the addresses for the three major credit bureaus:

Equifax
P.O. Box 7404256
Atlanta, GA  30374

Experian Dispute Department
P.O. Box 9701
Allen, TX  75013

TransUnion Consumer Solutions
P.O. Box 2000
Chester, PA  19022