Most people will tell you that disputing your credit report is as easy as sending a simple dispute letter to the credit bureaus. As a matter of fact, I see these programs all over the internet. These same people naively trust that credit bureaus will thoroughly investigate your dispute and carefully make changes. I am actually one of these naive trusting people. I thought that surely the credit bureaus cared about my situation.
WRONG!
Credit bureaus are sloppy, error prone, and could care less about your good name!
In fact, I believe that credit bureaus WANT YOU TO HAVE BAD CREDIT! Credit bureaus are in business with most of the large banks who are issuing you credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages. They make millions of dollars off folks just like you and me by charging higher interest rates, service fees, and late fees.
Here is a perfect example of corporate greed at its best. Experian, the world’s largest credit-checking company, posted a full-year profit of $486 million. Yes, $486 million dollars!!!! Their profits even exceeded what the expert analysts were estimating. Now, do you think a FOR-PROFIT company like this that benefits from your low credit score wants to help you better your credit?
When you have bad credit on your reports, it gives banks a great excuse to increase your interest rates! (even if the bad credit is totally inaccurate, the banks don’t care. In the credit system you are GUILTY until proven innocent!)
You can dial into company that will help you dispute your credit reports. The number is: 800-251-3505.
You can also get a free credit consultation with the Lexington Law Firm just click here
3 Critical Credit Dispute Mistakes You Could Be Making Right Now
Critical Credit Dispute Mistake #1: Bad things happen when you screw up a credit dispute. Credit bureaus will ignore a poorly written dispute letter, categorize your dispute as frivolous, or send you back a stall form letter like this one below…
THE WORST THING THAT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU IS FOR THE CREDIT BUREAUS TO RED FLAG YOUR ACCOUNT.
This happens when you dispute too many items at once, dispute too often, or mess up your dispute timing. Believe it or not, I learned by watching the experts, that there are many nuances with this process that screwing this up can cost you lots of money like it did for me. I thought I’d just send in letters explaining my situation. If you think about it, how can this be wrong? You’re just pleading your case right?
Critical Credit Dispute Mistake #2: Disputing for the wrong reasons. When you file a dispute, you must ask yourself, “Why am I disputing this account?”
If you dispute for the wrong reasons, your letter will be called “frivolous” and will get dumped into the shredder or completely ignored. I found this out the hard way. I tried to dispute the same negative credit item for months and saw no results. At this point, I had spent hours and hours researching what to do and felt my head spinning from too much information. I was ready to give up and give them the win.
Critical Credit Dispute Mistake #3: Finally, if you are ONLY disputing bad credit with the credit bureaus, you’re missing 50% of the process!
Even if you draft the PERFECT dispute letter, dot all your i’s, and cross your “Ts”, your letter could still end up on the waste basket.
In other words, YOU SIMPLY CANNOT TRUST CREDIT BUREAUS TO DO A THOROUGH INVESTIGATION! They get too many requests a day and cannot respond to all of these requests. In fact, one bureau recently admitted that it outsources your disputes to a sweatshop in India!
YOUR CREDIT IS TOO IMPORTANT TO IGNORE OTHER METHODS OF REMOVING BAD CREDIT INFORMATION!
Here Are Five Effective Methods to Correct Mistakes on Your Credit Report:
- Debt Validation
- Lawsuit/Threat of Lawsuit (hiring an attorney)
- Escalated Information Requests
- Goodwill Intervention
- Settlement with Deletion Clause
Many times your initial dispute will fail and the bad credit remains on your credit report causing you unnecessary pain, anxiety, and financial hardship like it did for me.
You can dial into company that will help you dispute your credit reports. The number is: 800-251-3505.
You can also get a free credit consultation with the Lexington Law Firm just click here
Here we would like to share a letter I received from a member who is really struggling with getting the bureaus to respond to his letters.
Hello,
I sent a dispute letter to both Transunion and Experian. Experian responded with this statement:
“We received a recent request regarding your credit information that does not appear to have been sent directly to us by you.
As a precautionary measure, we have NOT TAKEN ANY ACTION ON YOUR ALLEGED REQUEST.”
Therefore, it is not as simple as just sending a letter to the reporting agencies, what do I need to do now?
Thank you for your advice,
Roger
These canned responses are quite common. As a result, Roger continues chasing his tail,
the bureaus continue to get rich, and creditors can feel good about charging Roger absurd interest rates and fees.
Unfortunately, an effective credit bureau dispute isn’t necessarily about what you say, but instead how you say it.
Remember, the credit bureaus are not motivated to fix negative items on your credit report. This process costs them time and money. They try to avoid using their resources to investigate your dispute. They’d rather use those resources to pump up their profits.
In fact, the Fair Credit Reporting Act gives them a loophole which they usequite often.
Under the FCRA the bureaus are not required to investigate a dispute that is “frivolous.”
Thus, if they feel your dispute is “frivolous,” they can drop your dispute letter right into the shredder!
Here are three tips to ensure you get your “day in court” and keep your dispute out of the shredder:
First, you must limit the number of items in
a single dispute. A BIG mistake is to dispute all
the negative accounts in a single letter.
Second, you must time your dispute properly.
Timing is everything when you are on
an aggressive track to clean up your credit. It is
a big mistake to dispute either too frequently
or too IN-frequently.
Third, dispute by U.S. mail. Resist the urge
to dispute through the bureaus’ website. A hard copy
dispute provides you with a paper trail and is less
likely to be ignored. (Plus, this evidence can be
used at a later date should your case require court
intervention).
Is there a sure-fire guaranteed dispute process? There are no guarantees with credit repair. However, the closest thing to a sure-fire dispute is experience.
Plus, you want to find somebody who has the resources to work on your credit score around the clock, day and night, 24 hours a day.
There are other ways to dispute bad credit with the bureaus. Here are a few examples – have you heard about debt validation, inquiry investigation, creditor-direct intervention, escalated information demands, goodwill letters?
All of these are super effective weapons to clean up credit when a dispute fails.
What I Discovered After I Had Screwed Up the Credit Dispute Process On My Own
There is a Right Way to Dispute Credit That Won’t Take Hours of Your Time. More Importantly, You’ll See Actual Results
I was ready to rip my hair out! This process was driving me nuts. I confided in a close friend of mine and he told me about how to dispute credit. I did some research online and read through lots of financial blogs.
I found a dispute letter template which I used and posted for you below:
Dear Credit Bureau Agent:
Re (Mister Magoo, XXX-XX-1234 Capital Credit Card # 123456789
I am writing to dispute the debt referenced above which you have listed on my credit report. I believe this to be incorrect as I paid off this balance in 1999.. This is a direct violation of my rights pursuant to Fair Credit Reporting standards. Please provide me with the following information:
By what authority do you have to collect this debt? Please provide proof of licensing in my state. What date do you have for this debt and when it went into default status? Is this repackaged debt which you bought from another collection agency? What is the amount owed?
I believe I am the victim of identity theft and want this debt removed from credit report until which time you can prove this debt belongs to me.
Sincerely yours,
You
(When I used this letter I was surprised to learn that the collection agency actually contacted the bureaus and told them to remove the bad credit!) I discovered (the hard way) that you MUST formulate an effective dispute strategy to beat the credit bureaus – who all have way more experience, money, and resources than you do.
I had so many STUBBORN BAD CREDIT ITEMS I THOUGHT WERE IMPOSSIBLE TO REMOVE. Some of these stubborn items could not be deleted with just your standard dispute letter that I was sending.
Then I began sending out letters and using aggressive techniques to help clean up my credit. As they say, the “Proof is in the Pudding.” I started getting deletion letters from my creditors and credit bureaus saying the bad credit was deleted.
I was FINALLY getting a fresh start!
I got all kinds of deletion letters. Here are the items that were deleted with highly effective dispute techniques:
- Midland collection item
- credit card charge offs (several)
- a repossession item (the original creditor listing)
- a bad debt from disputed medical expenses
- personal loan collection item (original creditor sent it to collections even though we worked out a payment plan)
I EVEN GOT A LETTER STATING THAT THREE CHARGE OFFS HAVE BEEN DELETED. GETTING THESE LETTERS IN THE MAIL WAS SUCH A RELIEF TO ME. I HADN’T GOTTEN A SINGLE DISPUTED ITEM REMOVED AND HERE LEXINGTON LAW WAS REMOVING ITEMS TIME AND TIME AGAIN!
The bottom line is that I came up with a credit dispute strategy that worked! I am living proof!
If you’re struggling with bad credit and want results, then I encourage you to dispute bad credit today. The money you can expect to save from having good credit makes what you invest a great investment.
I am truly happy I got a fresh start.
At the very least, get a copy of your credit reports if you don’t already have them. That way you can help with your credit report dispute strategy too.
I would love to see you remove negative credit from your credit reports!
You can dial into company that will help your dispute credit reports. The number is: 800-251-3505.
You can also get a free credit consultation with the Lexington Law Firm just click here