How to Beat the Credit Bureaus at Their Own Game
In my mind, the credit bureaus demonstrate time and time again that they are run in a slipshod manner with little respect for the accuracy of the credit reports they distribute.
But the good news is that with persistence and documentation, you can beat the credit bureaus at their own game, although you are going to need to really be persistent and not lose your cool at the incompetence you will undoubtedly meet when you are working with them.
As an example, a friend of mine was checking his credit reports and discovered an item which was charged off and determined "uncollectable" from several years earlier.
The item was not a large amount, less than $50 but it was still a glaring negative listing in an otherwise pretty good looking credit report.
The bill was from the cable TV company where they had claimed he had never paid his final bill.
Of course, he went through the proper procedure to dispute the item.
Although most items like this do not appear on all three credit bureau reports, this one did.
Remember that of the three major credit reporting agencies, some of your debtors reports to one of them, two of them, and occasionally all three of them.
This means that in order to truly get your credit report as accurate as possible, you need reports from all three of them, since NONE of them have a truly complete picture of your credit history.
The dispute he filed was not answered two months later.
The rules are that if the credit bureau cannot verify the information within 30 days, the item must be removed from your credit report.
But it was more than 30 days and the item remained.
He filed another dispute and got a letter back from the credit bureau that the item had been verified as accurate.
No way! He called the cable TV company and they went back through their records and verified that the final bill should not have been sent since he had moved out of that condo by then, and that the amount should not have been reported as overdue or uncollectable.
So how had the credit bureau "verified" it as correct? The only answer was more incompetence on their part.
So with a letter from the cable TV company, he filed yet another dispute.
The credit bureau sent him a letter several days later saying the item had been verified again and would remain.
So he filed yet another dispute, this time sending the dispute via certified and registered mail with the letter from the cable TV company, and this time it did get removed.
The lesson here is that you need to be persistent when you are trying to get inaccurate information removed from your credit report.
With that item corrected, my friend's credit score shot up by more than 55 points.
Don't just file a dispute and think that will take care of it.
The credit bureaus really don't care, and they also know that the vast majority of consumer credit reports contain errors, so they do not seem to be motivated to get those errors corrected.
Be persistent and provide documentation and it will happen but you will need to bird-dog it all the way.
But the good news is that with persistence and documentation, you can beat the credit bureaus at their own game, although you are going to need to really be persistent and not lose your cool at the incompetence you will undoubtedly meet when you are working with them.
As an example, a friend of mine was checking his credit reports and discovered an item which was charged off and determined "uncollectable" from several years earlier.
The item was not a large amount, less than $50 but it was still a glaring negative listing in an otherwise pretty good looking credit report.
The bill was from the cable TV company where they had claimed he had never paid his final bill.
Of course, he went through the proper procedure to dispute the item.
Although most items like this do not appear on all three credit bureau reports, this one did.
Remember that of the three major credit reporting agencies, some of your debtors reports to one of them, two of them, and occasionally all three of them.
This means that in order to truly get your credit report as accurate as possible, you need reports from all three of them, since NONE of them have a truly complete picture of your credit history.
The dispute he filed was not answered two months later.
The rules are that if the credit bureau cannot verify the information within 30 days, the item must be removed from your credit report.
But it was more than 30 days and the item remained.
He filed another dispute and got a letter back from the credit bureau that the item had been verified as accurate.
No way! He called the cable TV company and they went back through their records and verified that the final bill should not have been sent since he had moved out of that condo by then, and that the amount should not have been reported as overdue or uncollectable.
So how had the credit bureau "verified" it as correct? The only answer was more incompetence on their part.
So with a letter from the cable TV company, he filed yet another dispute.
The credit bureau sent him a letter several days later saying the item had been verified again and would remain.
So he filed yet another dispute, this time sending the dispute via certified and registered mail with the letter from the cable TV company, and this time it did get removed.
The lesson here is that you need to be persistent when you are trying to get inaccurate information removed from your credit report.
With that item corrected, my friend's credit score shot up by more than 55 points.
Don't just file a dispute and think that will take care of it.
The credit bureaus really don't care, and they also know that the vast majority of consumer credit reports contain errors, so they do not seem to be motivated to get those errors corrected.
Be persistent and provide documentation and it will happen but you will need to bird-dog it all the way.