Eliminate Credit Debt

Knowing how to dispute a credit report can help you to repair your credit if there are inaccurate items contained in your file. You can dispute inaccurate, negative items on your credit report by writing a letter to the credit reporting agency that issued the credit report. You will want to state exactly what is inaccurate and include copies of any receipts or supporting documentation that you have. You may also want to include one copy of the credit report that contains the erroneous information with the error highlighted or underlined. After receiving and reviewing your dispute, the credit reporting agency will forward the information you provide to the company that supplied the information in the first place. The company will either investigate the dispute or, as sometimes happens, they will ignore it altogether, in which case the credit reporting company will remove the erroneous item from your report.

You will want to send this letter certified mail and request a return receipt so that you can be sure that the credit reporting agency receives it. You can also send a dispute letter to the original creditor. Here again, you will want to include copies of any receipts or supporting documentation that will help prove your case. If the company or creditor reports back to the agency that your dispute is not valid and that the debt is valid, it will stay on your credit report. However, you can request that a duplicate copy of the dispute letter remain with your credit report and that whoever requests your credit report receives your dispute letter as well.

You should only dispute items that you know to be inaccurate on your credit report. If you know a debt is valid, the company to whom you owe the money knows it is valid as well and will report back to the credit agency that the debt is indeed valid. In some cases, disputing a debt could start the seven year reporting period all over again if the debt is valid. For this reason, take care to only dispute any items on your credit report that you know to be inaccurate. Once you know how to dispute a credit report, you should be proactive and make sure that your report only contains accurate information.