How Do I Fix Any ERRORS Found On My Credit Report?

Unfortunately, in some cases, some information of credit reports can be inaccurate or erroneous. However, there are ways in which an individual who has a dispute about an item on their credit report can report the inaccuracies properly.

The first step in disputing an item on your credit report would be to contact your consumer reporting company in writing about the dispute. In this letter, you should include only copies, not original documents, in order to provide the necessary evidence that the report was indeed inaccurate as well as your accurate information such as your complete name, your address, an explanation about your dispute along with a copy of the report that is in question with all of the disputed items circled for the reviewers, and what you would regard as the best correction (i.e. deletion of the disputed items).

When you mail your dispute letter to the consumer reporting company, make sure you send it via “certified mail” in order to make sure that there is evidence that the dispute had been received. Be sure to keep copies of all letters and receipts on file in case a dispute occurs on the receiving end.
Once the letter is received by the consumer reporting company, they will begin to investigate the item. This process normally begins within 30 days. During the investigation of the dispute, the reporting company must forward all information and documents regarding your dispute to the organization that is in question. The disputed organization then, in turn, has to perform an investigation of your dispute in their own records and report back to the reporting company with the results.

If the information is found to indeed be inaccurate, then the organization who created the error must inform all three consumer reporting companies of this error so all of your information is corrected in all of the reporting companies’ records.
After the results are in and the investigation of your dispute is completed, the reporting company must send you a written statement on the results along with a free updated credit report with any changes that had occurred since the recorded dispute.

If your dispute is not resolved and the organization that provided the information deemed the information as accurate, usually for a fee, you may also request that a letter be sent out to all who have received your credit report about the dispute as well as a recorded statement that can be placed in your credit file for future credit reports.