What Are the Steps for Credit Report Dispute?
The credit report of a consumer should be considered as the assessment card of his or her performance as a credit user. Either a credit report should contain good marks or bad, depending upon the performance of the credit report owner. However, there is a third situation in which a credit report may contain errors or incorrect information. As a result, the performance of the concerned consumer is wrongly assessed.
The consequences become worst, when a credit consumer is denied loan or credit on the basis of the wrong assessment. This is where the importance of monitoring one’s credit report comes into being. If your credit report contains wrong information, credit report dispute is the procedure you need to follow. Here is a discussion about this importance procedure which must be familiar to every credit consumer.
What Is Credit Report Dispute?
Credit report dispute is the procedure by which a credit consumer can write letter of dispute to any of the three credit bureaus to get one or more sections of information in the report verified. The credit bureau is required to investigate the matter and reply within the time period of 30 days.
How to Dispute Credit Report?
To begin with, you must write a letter of dispute which mentions that you find certain information in your credit report to be inaccurate. You can take help from an expert in writing this letter or you can find dispute letter samples on the internet for free.
You must attach all relevant proofs with the letter of dispute to support your claim. Make sure that you attach the copies of all the proofs and maintain the original documents for future. Besides, you must attach the copy of the credit report and highlight the section of information which you need to dispute.
An important thing for credit report dispute is to send your letter through a certified mail and obtain a receipt for the same. This ensures that the credit bureau has received your letter and you can keep the receipt as a proof.
How Do Credit Bureaus Proceed?
After receiving the credit dispute letter, the concerned credit bureau will instigate an investigation into the matter. The source company which provided the information is contacted by the bureau to verify the information. In case the company verifies the information to be correct, the information is passed to the credit consumer. If no verification is received within the designated time period, the bureau declares the information to be incorrect and removes it from the credit report. The copy of revised credit report is sent to the consumer.
Once you accomplish credit report dispute successfully, you must obtain the updated copy of the report from the bureau. You must also request the credit bureau to update the information to all the companies and creditors who made inquiries in the past few months. Another important step is to get the information updated in the credit reports issues by the other two credit bureaus.
By following this procedure, you can actually improve your credit score if it has been lowered down by the incorrect information. This also enhances the chances of obtaining a good loan deal you apply for.
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