Your credit report holds all the important information about you. You find the details of payment of your bills, whether or not you have ever been arrested, where you live and what you do. The information is given to the creditors or employers by the credit reporting companies who in turn use it to evaluate your application for insurance, mortgage or employment. Therefore, you should dispute your credit report errors and maintain a clean record.
According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), there should be accuracy and privacy in the information of your credit report. The credit reporting companies should abide by the rules of FCRA.
Credit report – Review it from time to time
It’s very necessary that you check your credit report from time to time. Since, your credit report contains all the information about your payments, reviewing it from time to time can give you an idea whether or not there are any wrong information. Identity theft is very common nowadays and so if you check it periodically, you’ll know where you’ve been charged more for which you’ve never paid. If you see such activities taking place, you can dispute your credit report errors. If the errors are there in your report for a longer time, it can jeopardize your dream to get suitable terms and conditions on insurance and mortgage.
Credit report – Errors you can dispute
Credit accounts, closed accounts, tax liens, judgments, late payments, collection records, foreclosure records, etc. can be disputed. Nowadays, you can also dispute the inaccurate information online.
Credit report – How to dispute incorrect information
According to the FCRA, you are entitled to a free copy of your credit report in every 12 months. You can ask for your copy of report from the three credit reporting companies- Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. For that you have to provide your name, address, date of birth and Social Security Number. You may also be asked to give other details as these companies get the information from different sources.
The steps to dispute you credit report are given below:
- Dispute the inaccuracies in your report
- Responding to your dispute
If you see any wrong information, (such as, debts which are paid off but are still showing in your credit report) dispute them immediately. You can dispute the errors by writing a dispute letter to the credit reporting company from where you got the report as well as to your creditors. Tell them why you want to dispute the items and that you would want them to be corrected immediately. The company should also forward the notification to the organization that provided the information to the credit reporting company. You must enclose copies of the documents you’re disputing.
Once the information provider gets your dispute letter, they start investigating your inaccurate information. The credit bureaus take around 30 days to investigate and then respond to you. Once the investigation reaches the end, the credit bureau can send you a free copy of your credit report if any corrections are made. You can also ask the credit reporting company to send the rectified report to other companies that accessed your credit report in the past 6 or more months.
You must follow these steps when you’re disputing the inaccurate information in your credit report. Be confirmed about the errors and support them with valid documents. Mention your name and address very clearly. If you have any doubts, get all the information from any valid government websites.
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