How to Dispute Equifax

Posted by Blog1 | 9:35 AM | 0 comments »

By Justin Hutto

To dispute a bad credit item on your Equifax credit report you must send a dispute letter. In your letter you must include the disputed item and why it is incorrect.

There are two options to do this; you can do it yourself or hire a credit repair service to do it on your behalf. However be aware if you do it yourself that you must send a letter to each credit bureau.

This means that if you send a letter to Equifax and they remove the mark you will also need to send a letter to Transunion or Experian. There is no communication between the three bureaus regarding disputes.

Common reasons to dispute a bad credit item include; information is wrong, item is out of date, account paid in full and more. The Fair Credit Reporting Act passed by congress gives you the right to dispute any item on your credit report.

In addition this act says that any mark that can not be verified must be removed from your report. This is what the dispute process is based upon.

Upon receipt of your dispute letter the bureaus will investigate. During the investigation they will ask the creator of the listing to verify the account, the dates on the account, and the account balance.

If this item is not verified by the creator then the bureaus must remove it from your credit report. Often investigations will result in the removal of an item from your report. This is because many businesses are not willing to spend the resources to verify disputed debts.

However before the credit bureau will conduct an investigation your dispute must be a valid dispute. There is no way to tell if the bureaus will deem your letter valid or invalid.

Many claim that the bureaus are just avoiding having to hold an investigation so they will deem your dispute invalid and respond with a letter requesting more information about the dispute. It is widely speculated that this is nothing more than a stall tactic used by the bureaus.

It only costs the bureaus money to conduct an investigation. There is no revenue in it for the bureaus, their customers are businesses.

I suggest you hire a service if you have multiple items you wish to dispute on your credit. If you have only minor damage on your report then you can do it yourself, just remember to be persistent and have some patience.

In sum you do not have to wait seven years for a bad credit item to be removed from your credit. You can dispute the listing and have it removed immediately.

About the Author:

0 comments