How do I fix credit report errors when they come up?


Credit reports should accurately show your credit history

Your credit report should be accurate

Often times when there’s an issue with your credit report, you wonder, “How can I fix this?”

The first step is to pull your credit reports

You can go to AnnualCreditReport.com and pull them there for free.

Then, you need to look at your credit reports

Are they correct?

Are there any errors?

Sometimes the errors are small, such as having the wrong address.

Other times, the error is rather large, such having a $500,000 dollar mortgage that’s late, and you don’t even have a mortgage.

Either way, you need to fix the errors are on your credit report. 

If there is a problem, you can dispute your credit errors via certified mail

You may be wondering, “What do I put in this letter?”  [We will have a detailed video training on this but for now here are some thoughts for you].

Well, the letter needs to identify who you are (name, address, last 4 digits of your Social Security), and whatever account has false information.

Make it very clear to the credit bureau (Equifax, TransUnion, etc) what is wrong with the account, then explain how it is wrong.

Sometimes these dispute letters are only a few sentences.

Other times they are several pages long.

Make sure that you put any necessary documents in with your letter.

Sometimes that makes your certified mail packages bigger, which is irritating to the company.  Why?  Because even they should look through every document, they don’t want to look at your documents.

Sending these documents helps the bureau and furnisher (Discover, Capital One, etc) figure out how to address the problem at hand.

Send this package to both the bureau and the furnisher so that they can look at your papers and compare it to what they have on their record.

Once you’ve written your letter and gotten your package together, you send it by certified mail using little green cards  that say “certified mail” that you can get at the post office.

Hopefully, if they see that their records are wrong, they will fix it.

After about 30-45 days you will get the results back from the investigation by the credit reporting agencies — now you need to look carefully at whether the credit report errors have been fixed or not.

If they fix it, that’s great

If they don’t, you can send it to them again (which can be appropriate sometimes), or you can sue them.

Typically they refuse to look at it again, so we sue them in Federal Court as this is the quickest way to get them to fix the errors.  Knowing they have to correct your reports and pay you money damages motivates these guys to finally do the right thing.

Feel free to contact us

Hopefully this was helpful to you.

If you live in the state of Alabama and you’d like for us to look at your dispute letters before you send them, or you’ve sent several letters and they haven’t responded, you can give us a call at 1-205-879-2447.

You can also get in touch with us by filling out a contact form and we will get in touch with you as soon as possible.

Have a great day.

-John G. Watts

 


22 Comments

  1. Gina says:

    I have recently filed for bankruptcy, but I need help removing old errors on my credit report.

    • John Watts says:

      Gina,

      Sometimes it makes sense to wait till you are out of bankruptcy but not always.

      If the old errors are unrelated to your bankruptcy, then we can chat (assuming you live in Alabama).

      If these are accounts you are getting rid of in bankruptcy, then it probably makes sense to wait till after you are out.

      Give us a call if you are in Alabama and if your bankruptcy lawyer is fine with you talking with us — the number is 205-879-2447 — ask to speak to Carolyn and let her know you are calling in response to our website.

      Thanks!

      John Watts

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