It really cannot be helped ?there would be times when life would throw us a curveball or two and when it does, we just might fall behind our bills. This, in turn, causes creditors to include negative ratings on your credit report, and the sad thing about this is that the negative marks would remain on your report for seven years. Or so, they say.
This is actually not true because these negative marks can be removed any day and you do not have to wait seven long years just to accomplish this. Here are some things you should keep in mind.
You need to be prepared to dispute each and every item with the credit bureaus. Well, not really every item ?just the ones that are rightfully wrong, so to speak. Do this by sending dispute letters and make sure to provide valid reasons why such items are wrong. Some reasons can include payments that have not been plotted on your report, wrong information, items that are out of date, and more.
Once these dispute letters are received, the bureau would then conduct an extensive investigation. Lenders would be contacted so that they can verify your account, as well as relevant dates on your debt and your total debt. Any information that is not verified would then be removed from your credit report. This is all in legal accordance with the federal law ?the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
The act cites that the minimum amount of time that any mark should stay on credit reports is 7 years. There is no mention of the minimum amount of time at all. Thus, do not be afraid to claim any item that you know should be removed from your report. After all, this is well within your legal right. Do not feel hopeless just yet for there is indeed something you can do.
If you are not too keen about writing your dispute letter yourself, you can actually hire a professional to do this for you. This is also a good alternative because there are indeed a lot of legal terms you would have to deal with when coming up with your dispute letter and you might not know how to do this at all.
The bureau might stall their investigation by asking more information from you but do not let this hamper your efforts. Remember, this is your legal right.
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