Correcting Your Credit Report
Your credit report is a critical document that can affect many aspects of your life. It is absolutely essential that this document be correct because it contains information about where you work and live, how you pay bills including credit cards, and whether you’ve been sued, arrested, or have filed for bankruptcy. You may know that you should get a free copy of credit report annually and check it for errors, but you may not know what to do when you find one. Well, here are the simple steps that you can take to correct your credit report.
If your report contains erroneous information, the Credit Report A must correct it.
Under the FCRA, both the CRA and have responsibilities for correcting inaccurate or incomplete information in your report. To protect all your rights under the law, contact both the CRA and the information provider.
- Write to the Credit Reporting Agency that sent you the inaccurate report providing your complete name and address and telling them exactly what item(s) of information you believe is inaccurate and why.
- Clearly state the correct facts and request deletion or correction of the incorrect information.
- Make copies of any documents that support your position. Be certain to keep all originals, but send the copies with your letter to the CRA.
- In addition, you should enclose a copy of your report with the item(s) in question circled.
- Send your letter by certified mail, return receipt requested, in order to document that the CRA receives it.
- Send a copy of the letter and all enclosures to the organization that provided the misinformation to the CRA. This may be a bank or credit card company.
- Keep copies of your erroneous credit report, dispute letter, and any enclosed documents in a safe place.
The Credit Reporting Agency is required by law to investigate any items that you question. This should occur within 30 days. They also must forward all relevant data that you provide about the dispute to the information provider, but it may expedite things to have sent it already yourself.
After the information provider receives formal notice of the dispute from the CRA, it must review any relevant information provided by the CRA and then report back to the CRA. If the information provider finds that the disputed information is inaccurate, it is required to inform all nationwide CRAs. They must then correct this information as well.
When the investigation is completed, the CRA must send you the results in writing along with a free copy of your report if the dispute resulted in a change. If an item is changed or removed, the CRA cannot put that information back in your file unless the information provider later verifies its accuracy and completeness, and the CRA gives you a written notice including the name, address, and phone number of the provider.
You may also request that the CRA send notices of corrections to anyone who has received your report in the past six months. In addition, you may have a corrected copy of your report sent to anyone who received a copy in the past two years for employment purposes. Even if the investigation does not resolve your dispute, you can ask the CRA to include your statement of dispute in your file and send it out with any future reports.
Correcting your credit report is often simpler than it sounds and well worth the effort!