Credit Report Disputes

Credit Reporting Agencies, Collection Agencies, Banks and Credit Card companies get sued 1000's of time per year. Many of the lawsuits that are filed against the companies are born out of neglect. The collection agencies, banks, credit reporting agencies and credit card companies consistently report inaccurate, unverifiable and outdated data. Reporting of inaccurate, outdated and unverifiable data is a violation of several laws and acts.
FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act)
FACTA (Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act)
FCBA (Fair Credit Billing Act)
HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act)
all have consumer protection clauses. Each of the mentioned law or act have special provisions that deal with collection agencies, credit reporting agencies, original creditors and/or medical providers. Understanding which laws apply to which entities is very important. For example: If you were to send a letter to a collection agency stating that they have violated the ABC consumer protection act and they must comply within X days or you will file a complaint will be useless unless the correct law and statute are noted.

Credit repair is like a game of cat and mouse - the job of the credit repair expert is to know where, how and when to setup the mouse traps. Mentioning laws and quoting statutes can be useful and detrimental when writing dispute letters. There are always multiple ways to look at different situations and statements. Understanding the law is important, but quoting it in a letter is not always useful for few reasons. One reason that quoting a law in a dispute letter can work against you if you quote the law incorrectly, or if you quote the law in a way that makes your letter appear like a form letter.

Consumers have rights to correct errors. To understand your rights to dispute a credit report, you need to know generally how the system works. First, information is furnished to consumer reporting agencies. Who furnishes it in the first place? Typically, lenders are the origin of this kind of data - banks, credit card companies, other creditors. In addition, other organizations or people may report - courts, for example, may report docketing a judgment; bonding companies may send information about failing to make good on a bond; an employer might provide data about garnishment. Organizations or individuals that supply data to consumer reporting agencies have a duty to investigate the data and to notify the customer that it is being reported. These duties are set out in the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Consumer reporting agencies in turn collect and store the facts sent to them. The three major agencies are Experian, TransUnion and Equifax, but there are others on the state and local level. It is from this information that credit scores, most commonly the FICO score, are derived. But each agency may have different information and a different rating. These agencies are also regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The Act limits the length of time an agency can hold onto negative information and also requires that consumers be furnished with their credit reports, for free, once a year.

Some studies have found that up to 85% of consumers and businesses experience inaccurate, mistaken and false data in their credit reports. It is not surprising, given the vast numbers of people and entities and the extraordinarily voluminous detail involved, that errors are frequently made. The key is to catch them. If caught, they can be fixed.

Under the Act and under the 2003 Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), consumers have the right to dispute inaccurate data. A written submission explaining the dispute is required and the information providers, as well as agencies, have a certain amount of time to respond. The burden to prove that the information is accurate rests on the furnishers and the agencies. Thus, the consumer's major job is to review credit reports on a regular basis and dispute inaccurate information.

Credit Reporting Agencies DON'T LIKE DISPUTE LETTERS!!!
In fact each dispute letter costs the credit reporting agencies money. Credit Reporting Agencies attempt to minimize the time spent per dispute in many ways. They must incentivize their staff based on the time spent and they created and continue to advance computer systems to automate the dispute process.

Credit report disputes sounds a little complicated and it is. Consumers should monitor their credit reports, but if they think that errors, mistakes or falsehoods have been published about their credit history, they may want to seek expert help to file a credit report dispute. Organizations that assist in cleaning and repairing credit are often also expert in guiding a consumer through the process of a dispute and the correction of a credit report. Consumers should not hesitate to contact such organizations for help. As professional credit expert organization we understand the complexities of the credit dispute process and how you can benefit from the credit reporting agencies incompetence.