Problems with credit reports are more common than most of us might think. In fact, it should make your nervous enough to review your own credit reports if you haven’t done so recently. There are three different credit reporting bureaus and they will send you a full report once a year at no charge. Even if you have to pay for them though it is going to save you money in the overall scheme of things.
There are many different reasons why errors happen. The people that enter the data are human and they can make innocent mistakes. Sometimes the issuer of the credit hasn’t done their part to remedy the situation. For example they may not have reported you paid off your loan early. It may still show you owe them money and that means a lower credit score. This is common when companies get bought out by someone else.
You may be the victim of someone else using your personal information for their own gain though. You may discover some accounts on your credit report that you have never established on your own. This can be very scary and upsetting at the same time. Yet you will need to try to remain calm and start to take care of the problems that are showing up on your credit reports.
The best way to make sure there aren’t any errors on your credit report is to evaluate them regularly. Make sure you look over your reported information from all three of the reporting agencies. Sometimes a mistake is on all of them and other times it is just on one of them. It can take a very long time to get these issues resolved so the sooner you can get the process started the better.
With this in mind, request a copy of all three of your credit reports. Once you have them in hand go over them in great detail. Avoid distractions so you can really focus on the information you are reviewing. It is a good idea to go over one credit report at a time in its entirety. Make notes of anything you aren’t sure is correct so you can look into it further.
There is a dispute form that each of the three credit bureaus use. You can easily download it from the internet and print it out. It is best to write a short but detailed letter about the error, why you dispute it, and discussing the evidence you have to verify it. Make sure your letter has all of your contact information on it as well.
Send each of the three credit bureaus a copy of the credit report, the letter you wrote, the dispute form, and the verifications. Make sure you keep a copy of everything for yourself too. Document when you mail them the information and any correspondence via certified mail so they can’t say they didn’t get it. Give them some time to review the information and to get back to you.
Don’t wait to identify and resolve errors on your credit report until you are up against a wall. You need to know exactly what is on them so you will always feel confident when you apply for new credit. Some types of errors can be cleared up in a couple of months. Large issues though including identity theft can take years to get cleared off of your credit reports.