A single missed keystroke by a data entry clerk, for example,
can assign a delinquent account to the wrong file. Corrective
information submitted by an individual can be misrouted
or entered erroneously.
Our
economy could not function without credit reporting. We
need it to make purchases both large and small, to enable
retailers to accept our checks, to obtain loans for homes,
cars or college education.
It is necessary for corporations
to manage their cash flow for the overall benefit of the
economy, and for us as individuals to manage our own finances.
For
all these reasons, we must be vigilant about the accuracy
of our credit report and fix errors.
We need to know what goes into them, how to read them,
how they are used and how to challenge errors when they
occur.
While
credit might have once been a private matter between oneself
and one's banker, this is no longer the case. Every purchase
we make on credit creates a record somewhere and these
records flow into the huge databases from which our credit
histories are constructed. Those histories, in turn, are
used by nearly all credit grantors to determine how reliable
we are in the use of credit, and to decide whether or not
to extend it to us.
Steps to begin correcting errors
on credit reports
- STEP - ONE - Get a current copy of
your credit bureau. You can get a free report by going
to www.annualcreditreport.com.
Be advised, it will not give you a score and most likely
will make you wait to have it mailed to you. You can also
go to a credit monitoring company and get your score and
bureau after signing up for their monitoring service Free Credit Report & Score . Hint: you can cancel the
service within the trial period without being charged.
- STEP - TWO - Make a list of the errors
that exist on your bureau. Be advised: an error is something
reported that does not reflect a correct payment history
or an account that does not belong to you. Co-signed debts
reporting negatively, charge-off's and collections that
you disagree with the nature of their reporting, but were
at one time obligated for are not errors.
They are disputes and are addressed in the "repair
your credit' section of this web site.
- STEP - THREE - If the company reporting
the error is a collection agency, go straight to the three
bureau's with a dispute
letter. Sending a letter to the collection agency
outside of the 30 day discovery period is literally
useless. However, the law states that a dispute sent
to the repositories must be investigated within sixty
days by them. They will send a letter to the collection
agency offering them the evidence you provide with
your dispute letter and they have thirty days to answer
their request. They have to show undisputable proof
that the marking they are reporting is valid or risk
fines via the FCRA.
Should they fail to answer, and they almost always do,
you will have your credit bureau cleaned. Send all correspondence
via certified return receipt mail only. Should you not
get the error removed, and it is truly an error, you now
have cause for damages especially if you have been denied
credit. If you can show that your right to fair credit
has been denied by another companies error, and that by
this denial your family has suffered, we suggest you seek
council.
- STEP - FOUR - If the company reporting
an error is the actual company in question we suggest that
you send letters to all three credit bureaus as described
above, but also send a letter to the company reporting
the error. Most companies would rather err on the side
of caution and remove the error. If they agree to remove
the error have them send you a letter, on a letterhead,
stating: This mark was "reported
in error" .
Be advised, the credit repositories
WIL NOT remove items reported wrong unless the letter from
the company says "reported in error". Once you
get this letter, make copies and send them via certified
mail to the three repositories. For the purposes of doing
a loan, mortgage etc. you can usually give a copy of this
letter to the mortgage company and they will be able to
re-score your credit. Note; this will not fix your credit,
it will only patch it for the purposes of doing the loan
you are applying for.
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Questions?
LendFast.com - How to Fix Credit Report Errors
Credit Repair Tips and Tricks 
