Did you know that 8 out 10 credit reports contain mistakes?These mistakes can cost you money and lower the points on your credit report.
Could you be one of those people who have mistakes on their credit report? Or could you just have things on your credit report that you want removed? Under the fair credit report Act (FCRA), you have the right to receive a copy of your credit report.
The copy of your report must contain all the information in your files.
Each of the nationwide consumer reporting companies - Equifax, Experian and Transunion is required to provide you with a free copy of your credit report at your request.
Once every 12 months, under federal law you are also entitled to a free report.
You can get your free credit report..
..
by Googling annual free credit report.
You can also get a free credit report if a company takes adverse action against you.
Some examples would be:denying your application for credit, insurance or employment.
You must ask for your report within 60 days of receiving notice of the action.
You also have the right to know who asked for your report within the past year, and two years for employment related requests.
If a company denies your application you have the right to the name and address of the consumer reporting company they contacted, provided the denial was based on information given by the consumer reporting company.
If you question the accuracy or the completeness of the information in your report, you have the right to file a dispute with the consumer reporting company.
Consumer reporting companies must investigate the items in question--usually within 30 days unless they consider your dispute frivolous.
They have to contact the originating creditor that put the information in your file.
There are several things that you can do to clean up your credit.
1.
Order your credit report from the 3 major bureaus.
2.
Go through all the items on your credit reports.
3.
Dispute any item that you think may be inaccurate or is inaccurate.
4.
Make sure that you give a good reason.
5.
You can dispute these items directly online.
6.
Wait the 30 days and you will receive notification from the 3 major bureaus on what they have decided.
7.
If they do not decide in your favor, then repeat the process in 60 days.
Here are a few tips: 1.
Dispute the inquires on your credit report.
A lot of times, the original creditor (or company doing the inquiry) does not want to waste their resources researching whether or not they did an inquiry of your information.
Hence, the 3 major credit bureaus will not get an answer back from the originating company within 30 days.
Thus, they have to erase it off your credit report.
2.
If you think you may have some identity theft issues or you are not positive an item is yours.
Write a letter to the identity theft department of the originating creditor.
In your letter, make sure you give them a reason that you think it is not yours.
Now make sure that you state in your letter, that they need to resolve this in 30 days.
The trick here is that most identity theft departments do not work on the same time line, as the actual credit dispute departments.
Hence, you have a good chance that the item in question will be deleted from your credit report just because the identity theft department does not get it done within the 30 day time frame.
3.
Write the secret credit bureau, Innovis/CBC and get a copy of your credit report.
All the 3 major credit bureaus get their information from Innovis/CBC.
So when you are fighting the 3 major credit bureaus, you have to include in your request that you want them to go directly back to the originating creditor...
not Innovis/CBC.
Innovis has consumers compose their own letter and include a photocopy of their license and a utility bill.
It provides a toll free number, 1-800-540-2505, but the recorded message tells consumers to request the credit report in writing.
4.
You only need 3 revolving accounts open.
Close the rest.
Make sure that you pay down your revolving accounts so that your balance is less than 40% of what is available.