Credit Report Whitewash: Erasing Negative Entries

By ccflyers on October 10, 2008

Your credit report is the most important source of information about your financial standing, creditworthiness, and your spending habits. Your credit report is what lenders check in the first place when making a decision whether to give you a loan or not. You should constantly keep track of your report and every little change on it. It is not that credit bureaus are not trustworthy enough.

The thing is that you can find out inaccuracies on your credit file one fine day. This can be the result of a simple human mistake. You can also be mixed with another person that has a similar name. In case you discover some kind of negative information in your report that is not factual, you will probably want to dispute the inaccuracies through contacting with credit reporting agency. Do you know how to do it right?

You perfectly realize how negative entries can affect your credit score. This can result in turning your excellent credit to poor credit. Disputing inaccurate info in your report will put everything to rights and prevent your credit rating from going down. Do not be afraid of claiming your rights. For asking to delete mistakes from your credit file is provided for by law. Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) protects your consumer rights.

The FCRA stipulates the rights and obligations of the credit bureau and the cardholder, in terms of how a bureau can use your information. According to FCRA a credit reporting agency is to:

1. Disclose your report and your credit score to you whenever you ask for it (once a year you can order your file for free, at every bureau)
2. Restrict access to your personal information (a bureau can disclose your report only to parties with permissible purposes, like evaluation of your application for a credit, loan or some financial service )
3. Get your permission to provide your employer with your credit report
4. Investigate the information you disputed
5. Delete or correct all inaccurate information in your report
6. Delete information items that are more than 7 years old
7. Remove your name from marketers’ pre-approved lists upon your request
8. Place ID theft and credit fraud protection systems (alerts)
9. Help you deal with the consequences of ID theft

These are the basic paragraphs of the FCRA. As you see, item 5 says that an agency must delete or correct mistakes in your report.

Feel free to write a letter with a claim to a credit bureau, if you found inaccurate data in your file. You will need to provide your personal information, such as your name, date of birth, address, SSN, account number, your plastic issuer’s name. Enclose a copy of your report with highlighted item of information you want to dispute, and an explanation for your dispute.

The bureau must investigate your case within 30 days. After the term expires you will get a grounded decision with a copy of your credit report. Do not be afraid to fight for your rights.

Similar Posts:

Comments are closed.




Get free updates...

RSS Feed