Have You Considered Challenging Negative Items on Your Credit Report?
How to Dispute Your Equifax Credit Report
Would you like to remove those nagging negative items from your credit report?
To begin with, you will need to request a copy of your Equifax credit report so you can review its contents for negative and inaccurate entries. Entries that damage your credit include:
third party actions
court decisions, such as judgments
Chapter 7/Chapter 13 filings
home foreclosures
auto or boat repossessions
wage garnishment
late payments
settled accounts, collection – paid or settled for less
public records/judgments
A dispute letter to Equifax is the next step. You should draft a letter which outlines your reason for believing the reported information is inaccurate. Be sure to include your personal information in the letter.
Finally, you will need to wait 30-45 days to receive Equifax’s determination.
After I Mail My Dispute Letter, What Happens?
If you win your dispute with Equifax, you should continue to clear up any unresolved issues, including remaining inaccurate bad credit. Once you eliminate all traces of bad credit, you should focus on resolving any other discrepancies such as address and employment information.
When a dispute is resolved in your favor, Equifax will remove the disputed information. On occasion the credit bureau will update an item with newly acquired information which can be good or bad depending upon what the creditor reports to Equifax. For instance, Equifax may update a collection account with the most recent balance owed.
If you lose your Equifax dispute, the negative items will stay on your report possibly for the next 7-10 years. If this happens, you still have some options to continue the credit repair process.
At times, a simple dispute is not effective and more advanced methods are necessary. At this point, it is wise to seek the advice of a legal professional who can employ methods such as payment for deletion, debt validation, or possibly even negotiating directly with the creditor.
It is important to understand that creditors are not required to report credit history to credit bureaus. Only credit bureaus must follow the law requiring the seven year limit. Therefore, an experienced attorney may be able to convince a creditor to remove a negative credit item.