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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