The Ten Commandments of Disputing Your Credit
This information is reprinted with permission of
Lexington Law Firms
Commandment One:
Never lie in your disputes or on your credit applications.
In many states, it could be
a crime for you to lie when disputing your credit report. Therefore, you
are cautioned that you must
never lie or make a misleading statement when disputing your credit report
or completing a credit
application. In most cases, it is a federal crime to lie on a credit
application. Furthermore, it is
unnecessary to lie when disputing your credit report. Remember, you have
the right to dispute your
credit report so long as you have reason to believe that is in
unverifiable, inaccurate, or obsolete. In order
to dispute information that is technically accurate, but should still be
investigated and deleted on the
basis of verifiability, you must invent other means of disputing the
listing besides claiming that it is "not
mine" or "was never late".
Commandment Two:
Always indicate whether the disputed listing is being
challenged as "not mine" or
"not late." While you must never say that the account isn't yours or that
you were never late unless you
have reason to believe that statement is true, the credit bureau must know
if you are disputing the
existence of the listing or just the information within the listing. They
cannot begin an investigation
unless they know whether you believe the listing doesn't belong on your
report at all, or if you believe the
information on the listing should be changed. If you are unclear about the
nature of your dispute, the
credit bureau will promptly return your letter. If you dispute a listing on
the basis that you were "not
late," and if the credit bureau fails to verify the listing, then the
listing will be perfected and appear as a
positive listing. If you dispute a listing on the basis that it is "not
mine," and if the credit bureau fails to
verify whether or not the information is indeed yours, you're out of
luck.
Commandment Three:
Always tell the credit bureau the desired outcome of the
investigation. You must
always include in your dispute letter what you would like done with the
listing. There are two options:
delete the entire listing or erase the late pay notation within the
listing. Don't bother challenging the
information within a collection listing, charge-off, court record,
repossession, foreclosure, or settled
account. As the basic nature of these listings is negative, changing the
information within the listing will
yield no improvement. Severely negative listings, such as these, must be
disputed on the basis of complete
deletion or not be disputed at all.
Commandment Four
Always provide a reason for your
dispute. If you don't give some kind of explanation as
to why you think the credit report is wrong, then the checker may return or
ignore your dispute.
Commandment Five:
Always include indicators of authenticity in your
dispute. Don't forget that the job
of the checker is to reject irrelevant disputes and to investigate the bona
fide disputes. You may ensure
that your disputes sound authentic by adding things that only a true,
frustrated consumer would write,
such as "my son's a banker, and he mentioned that I could write to you and
you would clear up these
mistakes." Original indicators of authenticity cannot be listed here, or
they would cease to be effective,
but you must get creative and always include sentences or phrases that will
convince the credit bureau
that you're for real.
Commandment Six:
Never sound like an expert. The credit bureaus receive
over 10,000 disputes per day and your dispute should look much like any other one they receive-- not polished
and professional.
Commandment Seven:
Become more insistent, and more threatening, with each
dispute. As you submit
one dispute after another, it will become increasingly difficult to get the
checker to initiate an
investigation. Your first one or two disputes should be friendly and
polite. Just like any other consumer,
you can become frustrated and threatening as time passes. You may threaten
to hire an attorney, you
may threaten to complain to the FTC and your state's attorney general, etc.
Commandment Eight:
Do not bombard the credit bureaus with disputes. Sending
one dispute right after
another is wasteful and counterproductive. You may wind up alienating the
credit agency so that they hold up your progress. (Remember, they cannot
legally stop you from restoring accurate information but the agencies are
run by people who have feelings like anyone else.) Also remember, that
credit repair is a time-consuming operation requiring great patience.The
rule of thumb is to wait 60 days between disputes.
Commandment Nine:
Use inaccuracies and inconsistencies as examples of how
the credit listings are
wrong. Remember, that it will do you no good to change minor information
contained in a severely
negative listing. Use inaccuracies and inconsistencies as a basis of
dispute. You will do well to use the
other two credit reports to establish inconsistencies by comparing the
other credit report to the credit
report that you are disputing. Remember, though, that you can only use
another credit report
for comparison if that report doesn't confirm negative credit listings that
you are attempting to dispute.
Commandment Ten:
Create and utilize other techniques that help further the
idea that the dispute
letter is from a truly wronged and disadvantaged consumer. The checker is
only interested in
investigating disputes which truly are erroneous and damaging. Again,
because the agencies are flooded with requests, they tend to give priority to those which seem most urgent.
As you may have noticed, only general strategies have been provided.
If you don't seek the help of an attorney, you should be prepared
and inclined to invent your
own effective techniques following the guidelines set forth in the Ten
Commandments.
Your dispute will be taken more seriously if you print it from your
computer. If you don't own a home
computer, seek a professional, as writing your disputes by hand or on a
typewriter will take up enormous
amounts of time and may yield disappointing results.
With each copy of your credit report, you should find a form, supplied by
the credit bureau, for disputing
credit listings. You should not use these forms for your dispute letters
.
The form may force you to lie
about your credit situation and, thereby, possibly break the law. Also, the
forms are not very specific and
they are not taken as seriously by the credit bureau checkers. Prepare your
disputes on your personal
computer, preferably on your personal stationary.
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