Back in April, I wrote about the current trend of credit bureaus to lengthen the time to investigate a dispute to 45 from 30 days as part of standard operation procedure. In that article, I maintained that this might not always be to the letter of the law, but didn’t go into much detail on the law itself. So what does the law say about the time a credit bureau can take to investigate?

• Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), last revised in 2003, if a consumer disputes an item on their credit report, the credit bureau has 30 days to complete the investigation. If, during that 30-day time period, the consumer sends in other documentation relating the the dispute, the credit bureaus automatically get a 15-day extension to complete the investigation. This increases the allowable investigation time to 45 days from 30.
• One of the most notable provisions of the FCRA granted in 2003 is that consumers are entitled to one free credit report a year. This comes with a gotcha, though. If they take advantage of this free credit report, and file a dispute based on this free report, the credit bureau has 45 days to respond. There is another difference in this process as well. During this 45 day dispute period, if the consumer sends in more documentation, the credit bureau does not get a 15-day extension. The allowable investigation time is 45 days no matter what other documentation is sent in.

The rules on what triggers a 15-day extention during a “normal” 30-day dispute is pretty loose. Supposedly, a credit bureau does not get the extra 15 days simply because you called for status; although they will try to say they do, as born out by numerous complaints from members on our discussion boards. Another example: as mentioned previously, Equifax (according to the customer service rep I spoke to on the phone) says that the official investigation period is 45 days under any circumstances, though the rep couldn’t tell me why.

Our advice: If you are totally silent after sending your dispute, they obviously do not get the extra 15 days to investigate. Be patient and wait for the results in such cases. Also in my own experience, it is rare for a credit bureau to have taken longer than 3 weeks to investigate any dispute I’ve ever had.

What has been your experience with disputing something on your credit report? Have they gone “over” the 30-day limit?

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