How to Dispute Items in Your Credit Report

Your credit report tells people a lot about your life. Your credit history, how you pay your bills, past employment, past addresses, alias names, and different social security numbers that you may have used are all contained in your credit report. They also tell people if you’ve ever been sued or filed for bankruptcy. Some credit reports may also include your criminal history.

Your credit report is used by potential creditors, insurance companies, and possibly even potential employers. You may not realize it, but your credit report has a huge impact on your life, such as whether or not you can purchase a new car or home, or even get insurance or a credit card. Therefore, it is important that you know what is on it, and that the information that it contains is correct. When you find information that is not correct, it is your responsibility to get that information corrected or removed.

Start by working to make sure that nothing negative is reported on your credit report. Avoid moving around a lot if you can, keep the same job for a significant amount of time, and pay your bills on time. If you run into a problem notify your creditors right away. For instance, if you become ill, and you know that you won’t be able to pay your creditors as you agreed to, call them and let them know the situation. In many instances, creditors will work with you to ensure that your bills do get paid in a way that you are able to pay them, without making a negative report to the credit bureaus. If you avoid your creditors, you won’t be able to avoid the negative reports.

As a rule, you should pull your credit report, and find out what is on it twice a year – at the very least, once a year. Check to make sure that everything is correct, and make notes on things that are incorrect. Also look for any indication of identity theft, such as jobs you have never had, addresses you have never lived at, and credit you have never had. If you suspect identity theft, contact the credit reporting agency, the creditor that you’ve never had credit with, the police, the Social Security Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service.

However, if you find errors about credit that you actually do have, you will need to report this to the credit reporting agency in writing. Include copies of documents that support your claim of inaccuracy. Keep the original documents for your own files. Include your name, address, and social security number, and be very clear about each item you are disputing, and why you are disputing it. Send the letter by certified mail, and request a return receipt. Keep a copy of the letter, and the original documents and credit report for your own files.

Send a copy of the letter to the creditor as well, along with a letter written to the creditor. Let them know that you have disputed the item, and why. Again, include copies of the documents that support your claim. The credit reporting agency will conduct an investigation within thirty days of receipt of your dispute, and a decision will be reached.

Look for missing credit on your report as well. If you have a credit account, and you are making your payments on time, you want that information to appear on your credit report. Local retail credit accounts, gas card accounts, and credit union loans often aren’t reported to credit reporting agencies. You can ask the credit reporting agency to add this information to your credit report. They will verify the information, and you may have to pay a fee to have the information added. If you have to pay a fee, it is usually worth it, because believe it or not, potential creditors often consider bad credit to be better credit than no credit at all!

Jason Petrina is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit - www.articleclick.com

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