A dispute letter is your method of challenging the accuracy or validity of a bad credit mark on your report. In your letter you need to include the reason for your dispute and the mark that you are disputing.
Reasons often include; account is out of date, information is wrong, account paid in full, not my account and many more. The bureaus will conduct an investigation into the mark when they deem your letter valid.
During and investigation the credit bureau will contact the lender or collection agency that made the negative mark and verify the debt and its dates and amounts. If the account can not be verified then it must be removed from your report.
Frequently investigations result in bad credit marks being removed from your credit. This is often because businesses do not want to spend the extra money and time validating disputed debts.
Allegedly bureaus do not check public records during investigations. This means that negative marks that are recorded in public records are often removed.
You can also hire a credit repair service to dispute your credit report for you. This can be very helpful if you are disputing multiple bad credit items on your report.
Often dispute letters will result in a return letter from the bureaus requesting more information about the dispute. In addition each bureau needs to be disputed separately.
Thus organizing all your disputes with each credit bureau can be a task itself. Many services can use advanced dispute techniques in case a bad credit item is verified. The techniques include; escalated dispute information requests, debt validation, and creditor direct intervention.
Frequently these services will have lawyers on their staff which will enable you to go to court if it is required. Also with a service you may be eligible to file a lawsuit against a collection agency for illegal debt collection practices.
It is your responsibility to remove inaccurate or unverifiable bad credit marks from your report. There are estimates that 1 in every 4 Americans has a bad credit mark that is inaccurate or unverifiable on the credit report.
In sum, dispute any inaccurate or unverifiable bad credit marks on your report. You do not have to wait 7 years for a mark to be removed from your credit.
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