How to Dispute a Credit Report
Disputing negative marks on your credit report is the most effective method of improving a low credit score. A better payment history accounts for up to 35% of your score. Disputing negative marks helps because it will show a better payment history.
You need to contact each credit bureau and send a dispute letter to dispute a negative mark. The bureau will often reply with a letter requesting more information about the item.
The bureaus use this as a stall tactic. Instead of actually investigating the dispute, the delay is more cost effective for them. People will most likely give up at this point and keep on paying extreme interest rates.
Be persistent and send another dispute letter with the requested information. Eventually the bureaus will investigate the mark. During an investigation the lender is contacted and asked to verify the disputed mark.
If the lender can not verify it then the bureau must remove it from your credit report. For optimal results we suggest you wait until the lender has received some form of payment for the outstanding debt. This is because lenders are often unwilling to spend the time and money verifying a debt that is no longer collectible.
For example; with a charged off credit card account once the account is sold to a collection agency the lender has no more use for it. Thus when they are contacted by the bureau they will not spend the time to verify the account.
You can you can hire a service to dispute your credit for you or create a dispute letter and dispute your credit yourself. It is simpler to get rid of a charge off once it has been sold rather than outstanding.
Services can request debt validation, creditor direct interventions, escalate dispute information requests, and in severe cases, an attorney can go to court and fight on your behalf. The benefit of a service is that you will have more options to remove a mark if it is confirmed.
You credit score is a very important number. It impacts your; finances, residence, place of employment and many more. It is estimated that 25% of Americans have an error on their report and that is costing them money in higher interest rates.
In conclusion, you can remove negative items from your credit report and stop paying the high cost of bad credit. This is accomplished by disputing your credit yourself with a dispute letter or by hiring a service to do it for you.
Tags: credit repair loan, credit repair lawyer, credit consolidation
