How to Handle a Credit Dispute: When Your Credit Report Isn’t Right

How to Know if Your Credit Report is Accurate

To know if your credit report is accurate, you will need to study the report itself. This will show you things like your credit inquiries, credit account history, and more. Only you know your financial history, so make sure you read the report thoroughly if something seems off.

How to Dispute Your Credit Report

In order to dispute your credit report, you need to send a letter to the credit bureau that you ran your credit with. You will also need to submit different documents that support your claims. Make sure that you keep a copy of everything your submit for your own records.

You may wonder what you should include in your letter to the credit bureau. You will, of course, need to include your basic information like your name and address. You will also need to include exactly which mistakes on your credit report need to be corrected, accompanied by copies of documents that support this correction. Finally, you should include a copy of your credit report and point out the mistakes that need to be fixed.

Ensure that you only send copies of documents to the credit bureau and not originals, because you will not get them back. Make sure that you pay for a return receipt so that you can make sure the credit bureau received all of your documentation.

How to Fix Your Credit Report

After you submit your dispute, the credit reporting company needs to investigate, and they usually have 30 days to do so. They will review all of your documents and determine if your dispute is accurate or not. If they accept your dispute, they will notify you with your corrections. You can also continue to check your credit report for updates to see if the report has been corrected.

Additionally, they will notify all of the other credit reporting companies of their errors so that those companies can correct their own reports. From there, you could also request a statement that explains the dispute so you can present it to people and companies who request your credit report.

Conclusion

Fixing a mistake on your credit report can be a tedious process that you need to be diligent about. Make sure that you look out for mistakes on your credit report and follow the simple steps to correct them. You can also escalate any disputed to the businesses that might report inaccurate information.