What To Do If There Is A Mistake On Your Credit Report

First of all, you aren’t alone: millions of Americans have inaccuracies on their credit files, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act provides those consumers with a mechanism to get their credit restored. These inaccuracies come in many forms. For example, some files are “mixed” whereby the credit reporting agency mixed your information with someone else’s information. Another common type of inaccuracy comes from fraudulent accounts or information being on your credit report.

The first step is obtaining official copies of your credit reports to determine exactly what is inaccurate on your reports. For standard consumer credit files, such as those from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, we recommend visiting www.AnnualCreditReport.com, as that site is maintained and operated jointly by those three credit bureaus pursuant to a mandate from the Federal Government. There, you can get a true and complete copy of your credit reports. We recommend saving those reports to your computer to share with your lawyer later if necessary. In the event you cannot pull your credit report because you cannot answer the security questions they ask, you can obtain a copy via mail as well.

Once you know what is wrong on your credit report the next step is sending a thorough dispute packet to the bureaus. We recommend doing this by certified US Mail so that you can track when the bureaus received your packets. The packets should contain a thorough breakdown of what is wrong with your credit reports along with any supporting documentation you have, such as a police report or FTC Identity Theft Affidavit (which you can complete online at www.ftc.gov.) The bureaus will have thirty days to respond to your dispute. In many instances they will fix their own errors and your credit file will be corrected. In others, you may need to consider hiring an attorney to bring a lawsuit under the Fair Credit Reporting Act in order to get your credit file corrected.

If you have questions about the dispute process or a mistake on your credit report call us today for a free consultation. There is never any fee unless we make a recovery for you.