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Debt Repair & Relief Debt Articles STEPS TO REPAIRING YOUR CREDIT
Debt Repair & Relief Debt Articles STEPS TO REPAIRING YOUR CREDIT
| STEPS TO REPAIRING YOUR CREDIT |
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| Written by Administrator |
| Friday, 18 July 2008 11:42 |
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There are 10 easy steps to repairing your credit, but you must have patience and persistence. The credit bureaus are not always greatly cooperative, or fast moving. 1. GET YOUR CREDIT REPORT. Request them from all three of the credit reporting agencies—Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. 2. ANALYZE YOUR CREDIT REPORT. Analyze your credit 3. DECIDE WHICH ITEMS YOU WILL TARGET FIRST. Make a list of all negative information you find. Once you develop this list, rank each item according to the amount of damage it is doing to your overall credit picture. Rank the most damaging information first, followed by the next most damaging information, and so on - these are:
You will want to get rid of the most damaging items first, so ranking them will help you form your plan of attack. 4. REQUEST CORRECTIONS AND DISPUTE QUESTIONABLE NOTATIONS. Always shoot for a complete deletion of any bad information. Severely negative listings must be disputed on the basis of complete deletion or not be disputed at all. Don’t forget to dispute personal information As a matter of policy, we generally advise disputing everything on your credit report that is not current, including previous addresses, employers and maiden names. As identity theft is becoming so rampant, you don’t want to have anything on your credit report possibly causing mix-ups with other people’s information . Address each item individually It is very important that each questionable item is dealt with individually. If you attempt to have the credit reporting agency correct several items (or even all items) at once, it will be easier for the agency to claim that your request is frivolous or irrelevant. If the information a credit bureau is reporting is inaccurate, incorrect, erroneous, misleading, or outdated, it has to be removed upon investigation. Write a letter to each credit reporting agency Since the law doesn’t require agencies to update their information in their databases based on other bureau’s actions, they don’t. What to say in your dispute letter You don’t have to be fancy or technical in your dispute letters to the bureaus. The most important thing is to be clear about what you are disputing and why you are disputing it. Here are some tips to keep in mind when writing your letter: Always provide a reason for your dispute. Always indicate exactly what you are disputing (i.e., “not mine,” “not late,” or the accuracy of the information contained within the listing). The credit bureau must know if you are disputing the existence of the listing or the information within the listing. The bureau cannot begin an investigation unless it knows whether you believe the listing doesn’t belong on your report or if you believe the information on the listing should be changed. If you are unclear in your dispute letter about the nature of your dispute, the credit bureau will promptly return your letter. If you dispute a listing on the basis that you were “not late,” and if the credit bureau fails to verify the listing, then the listing will be changed and appear as a positive listing. If you dispute a listing on the basis that it is “not mine,” and if the credit bureau fails to verify whether or not the information is indeed yours, you’re out of luck. Keep in mind that without a clear statement that the accuracy orcompleteness of specific information is “disputed” or “challenged,” your letter might not be construed as an exercise of rights under the Fair Credit You can still dispute a negative listing even if you were late paying on the account. You have the right to dispute your credit report so long as you have reason to believe that it is unverifiable, inaccurate, or obsolete. To dispute information that is technically accurate, but should still be investigated and deleted on the basis of verifiability, you must invent other means of disputing the listing besides claiming that it is “not mine” or “was never late.” In this case, make a clear statement that the accuracy or completeness of specific information is “disputed” or “challenged.” Always tell the credit bureau your desired outcome of the investigation. You must always include in your dispute letter what you would like done with the listing. There are two options—a correction to the listing or an entire deletion. I’ve seen positive listings deleted when only a correction was wanted because the outcome was not indicated. Don’t sound like you work for a credit repair agency. The creditbureaus receive over 10,000 disputes a day and your dispute should look much like any other one they receive—not polished and professional. Always include indicators of authenticity in your dispute. Don’t forget that the job of the checker is to reject irrelevant disputes and to investigate bona fide disputes. You may ensure that your disputes sound authentic by including things that only a true, frustrated consumer would write, such as “My son’s a banker, and he mentioned that I could write to you and you would clear up these mistakes.” Original indicators of authenticity cannot be listed here or they would cease to be effective, but you must get creative and always include sentences or phrases that will convince the credit bureau that you’re for real. Include any documentation you have that substantiates your dispute. If you have any documentation that backs up your dispute, like a bank letter stating that the information is false, include it with your dispute letter. Don’t use the credit bureau-supplied forms to dispute your listings. With each copy of your credit report, you should also receive the credit bureau’s form for disputing credit listings. You should not use these forms for your dispute letters. Since the form often forces you to address things within their perimeters, you may not be able to cover all your points by using the form. Order of dispute reasons You will need to change the reason for the investigation so the credit bureau will have something new to investigate. The order of the reasons should be: • Not mine • Wrong amount • Wrong account number • Wrong original creditor • Wrong Charge-off Date • Wrong Date of Last Activity • Wrong Balance • Wrong Credit limit • Wrong Status (there are about 20) • Wrong High Credit (the highest amount you used) • I didn't pay late that month For example, the first time you challenge a listing, you would say the account is “not mine.” The second time through, you would say “never late.” 5. DOCUMENT YOUR CREDIT REPAIR EFFORTS. As soon as you have ordered your credit reports and photocopied your credit report order letters and checks, you must create a precise organizational system to track your correspondences with the credit bureaus and your creditors. Unfortunately, credit items you have worked so hard to remove can mysteriously reappear. If this happens, it is usually easy to have the items deleted again if you show your complete records on the first removal. 6. WAIT FOR THE CREDIT BUREAU TO FINISH INVESTIGATING. Once the credit reporting agency receives your dispute letter, it is obligated to investigate. The obligation is not contingent upon you having been denied credit. The credit reporting agencies must resolve consumer disputes within 30days. If a consumer complains that documentation in support of a dispute was disregarded, the credit bureaus have to consider and transmit to the furnisher all relevant evidence submitted by the consumer the first time. Consumers must receive written notice of the results of the investigation within five days of its completion, including a copy of the amended credit file if it was changed based on the dispute. Once information is deleted from a credit file, the credit bureaus cannot reinsert it unless the entity supplying the information certifies that the item is complete and accurate and the credit bureau notifies the consumer within five days. 7. EVALUATE THE RESULTS OF YOUR REPAIR EFFORTS. When you get your “repaired” credit report back from the credit bureaus, the bureau will summarize what changed on your credit report due to your challenges. You can compare this list to your own notes or to the previous credit report. Each item will have been resolved in one of three ways: If the listing is not mentioned in the results list, check to make sure that you included it in your dispute. If you did include it, was your request sufficiently clear? You will need to dispute the item again in your next dispute letter. The bureau will tell you the disputed item was investigated but verified. If the item is not removed, the credit bureaus will probably give you a cryptic reason, like “item verified.” The creditor may have responded to the credit bureau’s request for re-verification. They may have simply stated that the listing was correct and, in this case, the bureau will take their word for it. Now it is up to you to prove to the bureau that the item is not correct. The law requires that the bureaus accept any proof you may submit, as well as pass any documentation you provide on to your creditor for consideration. The bureau indicates that the item was unverifiable. The disputed listing was investigated as to the correctness of the information within the listing (such as late pay notations) and the listing was found to be inaccurate or unverifiable. In this case, the negative listing will now show up as a positive listing, or it will be deleted from your report altogether. 8. IF A DISPUTED ITEM COMES BACK AS “VERIFIED,” REQUEST THE METHOD OF VERIFICATION. If you get a notice from your the credit bureaus telling you the information you disputed has been verified as accurate, you can request the method of verification. The credit bureau must give you this information within 15 days of the request. This is an extremely important tool, as most credit bureaus these days are not doing a thorough job of investigating disputes. 9. CALL OR WRITE THE ORIGINAL CREDITOR AND ASK FOR PROOF THAT YOU WERE LATE, OR THE TRADELINE IS NOT YOURS, ETC. It is up the creditor, such as a credit card company, auto or mortgage loan company to report information about your accounts accurately. If they are unable to provide you with proof of the negative listing, and you insist that the information they are reporting is inaccurate, then they could be in violation of the law. DO NOT contact the original creditor if you have not first disputed the negative item with the credit bureaus. 10. DID YOU RECEIVE A NOTICE FROM THE CREDITOR THAT THEY POSTED NEGATIVE INFORMATION ON YOUR CREDIT REPORT? The new law requires that any creditor reporting negative information to a credit bureau must notify the consumer in writing within 30 days of the insertion of negative information. 11. REPEAT THE STEPS ABOVE IF YOU ARE NOT GETTING THE DESIRED RESULTS FROM THE CREDIT BUREAUS. The possibility that your claim was misunderstood, overlooked, or mishandled is good. Fixing your credit takes time, and there is nothing you can do to expedite the process. However, you can always resubmit your claims. Here are some tips for doing so: Be persistent. Become more insistent with each dispute. As you submit one dispute after another, it may become increasingly difficult to get the checker to initiate an investigation. Your first one or two disputes should be friendly and polite. Be creative. Create and utilize other techniques that help further the idea that the dispute letter is from a truly wronged and disadvantaged consumer. The checker is only interested in investigating disputes that truly are erroneous and damaging. Again, because the agencies are flooded with requests, they tend to give priority to those that seem most urgent. Do not bombard credit bureaus with disputes. Sending one dispute right after another is wasteful and counterproductive. The rule of thumb is to wait 60 days between disputes. |
| Last Updated ( Friday, 18 July 2008 12:45 ) |