Do-It-Yourself Credit Repair

It is possible for incorrect, incomplete or outdated information to appear on your credit report. If it does, it can drastically lower your chances of getting the loans, credit cards, and other credit products you deserve. If you find an error, take the following steps to fix it as soon as possible. If you see evidence of fraud, contact the credit reporting companies immediately. Explain the situation and ask that a fraud alert be placed in your file. Also report the fraud to the police, and your creditors.

Contact the credit reporting company

Contact the credit reporting company that is reporting the item in question. You will need a printed copy of your credit report from them, which you may be eligible to receive free of charge.

After you send written documentation of the inaccuracy, the credit reporting company will review it. If further investigation is required, they will provide notification of your dispute, including the relevant information you submitted, to the source that furnished the disputed information to them.

The source will then review the information, conduct their own investigation, and report back. The credit reporting company will then make all appropriate changes to your credit file based on the investigation, and notify you of the update.

Contact the creditor regarding the problem

In some cases, you should contact the appropriate creditor or lender before contacting a credit reporting company. This is especially true if you are a victim of fraud. You should also contact the appropriate creditor or lender if that source has verified the information that you disputed with the credit reporting company. Most large creditors have standard procedures for customers to dispute items on their account. If you have proof that the item in question is incorrect, it should be resolved quickly.

If the creditor finds that the disputed information is indeed incorrect, the creditor is required under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to update its records both internally and with the credit reporting companies it deals with, usually within 30 days. However, some small creditors that do not regularly report information to credit reporting companies are not required to notify the agencies of the corrected information. In these cases, you will need to contact the agency directly.

Always follow up your phone calls with a letter. List each disputed item, and state how it is inaccurate, attaching copies of all relevant documents. Include your full name, account number, the dollar amount in question, and the reason you believe the item is wrong. Be concise.

Contact the other credit reporting companies

If you find an inaccuracy with one credit bureau, you may want to get your credit report from the other two agencies to see if their reports contain the same error. After you've corrected an error with one agency, the other agencies will in most cases also receive the corrected information. But for prompt correction, it's best to contact each of the three major credit reporting companies yourself.

Ensure the error is fixed

Within 30 days (45 days if based upon your annual free credit file), the credit reporting company should notify you of the results of its investigation. You'll need to obtain a new copy of your credit report to ensure that the inaccuracies have been fixed or removed.

If the error has been fixed, you can have the credit reporting agency notify anyone who received the inaccurate report in the past six months (two years in the case of employers) of the corrections that have been made.

If you cannot resolve a disputed item

You have the right to file a brief statement with the consumer reporting agency, free of charge, explaining the nature of your disagreement. The consumer reporting agency may limit your statement to not more than 100 words if it provides you with assistance in writing a clear summary of the disagreement. Your statement will become part of your credit file, and will be included each time your credit file is accessed, for as long as the disputed item remains in your credit file.