By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2010-12-16 00:18:43 | Word Count: 664
If you find a mistake on your credit report, it can be pretty disheartening. Here your credit score is being affected by something you didn’t even do. However, with the billions and billions of consumers in this country, mistakes are bound to happen. So, how do you fix them? By writing a dispute letter to the credit bureau reporting the error.
How do you know what to say and what to include in your dispute letter? This is where a company like Creditelves can help. For a small monthly fee of only $9.95 you can get access to templates that will help you compile your information into one cohesive, professional document.
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Information to include in your dispute letter should be:
* All of your personal information, including your name, address, phone number, date of birth, social security number and account number. This will help the bureau quickly identify who you are so they can assess your situation faster.
* Any details you can provide about the entry. This helps the bureau understand your situation clearly. Be specific about the entry and why it should be removed.
* Any proof you may have of the mistake. If it’s a late payment provide checks, copies of bank statements showing your checks to the creditor cleared, etc. If the mistake is an account you closed that appears to still be opened, provide all the documentation including dates of phone calls and who you spoke to in order to show those accounts are in fact closed. If you’re drawing attention to credit card fraud, provide any information you may have that you did not make those charges. Things like receipts with time stamps showing you were someplace else when those charges were made, etc.
Once your letter is ready, be sure to send it through certified mail. That way you will be notified when they receive it, and you will have documentation of who signed for it. You need to keep track of all this information because the agency is required to respond within 30 days of receipt. If they don’t, you will have documented proof that they are in direct violation of federal laws.
The agency can respond one of two ways to your letter. If the original creditor responsible for the entry doesn’t respond to their inquiry, or can’t provide any relevant proof about why the entry is there, the agency will simply remove the notation from your credit report, or amend your original report to reflect the results of their investigation. If this is the result, you will still need to follow up with the agency to make sure they did in fact rectify the mistake, and that they told the other agencies so that all of your credit scores are affected by the change.
If they don’t respond positively, you can either write another dispute letter, try to work directly with the creditor responsible, or add a notation to the entry detailing the circumstances.
The professionals at Creditelves have been working to help people achieve their dreams of homeownership, getting a new car or other loan for years by helping them write dispute letters to credit reporting agencies. Visit their website today at www.creditelves.com to let them help you with writing a dispute letter.
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