Negative information on your report will reduce your credit score, hence, getting a loan or credit card can prove difficult. Fortunately, this is information that you can correct yourself and that might lead to an improvement in your credit score. To sum up, here are the general procedures of the do-it-yourself credit report cleaning process.
1. Obtain credit reports
The first one is to get copies of your credit reports so that you need to check for any errors. You are allowed to receive one free copy of the reports at least once in a year from the three credit bureaus; Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. You can request them online using the Annual Credit Report website or by contacting 1-877-322-8228. Review each report carefully to get any value that may not be true.
2. Intercede with the credit bureaus over discrepancies
If there are discrepancies such as an account belonging to someone else, wrong balance or status, duplicate collection account or wrong personal information, you must write to the credit bureau to challenge the error. It is possible to appeal the decision in person, by mail or via telephone. It is important to give as much specific information as possible about why the information our client got is wrong, and any supporting documents, such as bank statements or proof of payment.
The credit bureau usually has 30-45 days to correct the dispute on the credit report. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, if they can’t substantiate the data, then it must be deleted from your credit file. When this happens your credit report is then revised and your score can go up.
3. Reach out to creditors and collectors for the payment of the debt owed
To avoid paying the wrong people, if you find that your accounts are wrong, include payments that are late or in collection accounts, it is equally beneficial to contact the creditor or collection agency. Request them to go through the account and they should support it by proving that you actually owe the debt. If they say something is incorrect, ask them to change the credit burenas.
Record the name and address of the contact person you have spoken, the date & time of contact, the contact mode (phone, mail or e-mail) and the information received from the contact person. If the creditor did not rectify wrong info on the reports, you can add such info when you challenge the mistakes to the credit bureau.
4. Some of the areas I would like to negotiate for change include Removal of real negative items
If there are actual late payment or collections account on your report, which is affecting your scores, then you can contact the creditors or the collectors and negotiate for their removal from your credit reports in exchange of paying for the accounts. Sometimes, getting these negatives removed can lift scores significantly.
Any such agreements must be written before any payment is made to an account and must state that they will remove the item from the credit file. You should contact them several weeks later to check whether they made the update at the credit bureau. If not, you can dispute it as inaccurate, you can negotiate it for it to be accurate, or you can report it and demand it be removed.
5. Check to see how far along they are and what their next steps are
Continue to be active in the months after you’ve filed your disputes and check your credit reports to see that they are accurately updated based on your disputes. Coins can have a return, so you will have to check that they really deleted data as agreed.
If the errors persist or the credit bureaus do not adequately respond or investigate the dispute, the next step would be to complain to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or the local Attorney General.
Although it can take some time to repair credit, if done persistently it is possible to attain a better and cleaner credit file. If you are still actively monitoring your reports and continuing to dispute any information that looks fake, then you reign supreme over your credit.
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