Disputing Credit Report Information

Disputing credit report errors are something that you can do yourself. You can make a credit report dispute by ordering your credit reports from each of the three major credit bureaus. The law allows you to order one free copy from each of the agencies every 12 months.

There is a lot of information on your credit reports and all of it is important. As the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires that both the reporting agencies and the information provider are responsible for correcting inaccurate or incomplete information in your report, you can easily fix any mistake by contacting both of the credit bureau and your creditor.

Reasons to Get Your Credit Report

Your report contains all information that affects whether you can get a loan as well as the amount and the cost of the loan if you can get it. For this reason, building and maintaining a good credit rating is a must.

The key to your credit rating lies with your report because it's your first tool to build, maintain or rebuild your credit history. With this way of thinking you want to get your credit report to:

Monitor your credit activities and find inaccuracies in the reported transactions. This is to make sure that you spot negative marks as early as possible -- for any wrong reporting -- and take steps to repair your credit long before you commit an important credit purchase.
Find any fraud using your personal information. An identity thief may use your information to open a new credit card account in your name. When he or she doesn't pay the bills the delinquent account is reported on your report. If you find such an identity theft case, take immediate action before it damages your credit score.

Disputing Credit Report Errors

If you believe that the information on your credit report is inaccurate you may want to clean up your credit report by filling out the form that comes with the report. By laws credit reporting agencies are responsible for correcting inaccurate or incomplete information in your report.

The reporting agencies must investigate the items in question, within 30 days. When the investigation is complete and the report company agrees that an error was made, they must give you the written results and a free copy of your report if the dispute results in a change.

Contact the information provider that reported the incorrect information to follow up with the reporting agency including your copies of supporting documents. If they find that the information is inaccurate, the creditor may not report it again to credit reporting agencies.

You can ask the bureau to send notices of any corrections to anyone who received your report in the past six months. Or, you can ask that a statement of a dispute be included in your file and in future reports if an investigation doesn’t resolve your dispute with the reporting agency.

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