The Fair Credit Reporting Act states that any information that is listed on your credit report that is inaccurate, outdated, or unverifiable must be removed from your credit file.

Once you have your credit file, it is important that you thoroughly look it over for errors. There are several types of errors that can be found on your credit report.

Download the file below for suggested errors to look for.

Now that you have your list of derogatory items, you should analyze and rank each item according to the amount of damage it is doing to your overall credit score. Rank the most damaging first, followed by the next most damaging, followed by those items which are neutral.

Do this for each report, and remember, they may not all have the same information on them. They may even have duplicate information on them. If this is the case, you will need to write to each credit bureau individually for each duplicate item.

This video will walk you through the thought process of ranking your debt and makes use of the downloadable credit dispute spreadsheet.

The Credit Dispute Spreadsheet is a simple spreadsheet designed to help keep you organized. This video will give you a quick walk thru of not only how to use the spreadsheet but also how to download and access the spreadsheet even if you do not have Microsoft Excel.

The 3 major credit bureaus have automated online credit dispute systems that supposedly “help” the consumer dispute errors on their credit reports more efficiently. However, their online dispute system exploits loopholes in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and give the credit reporting agencies an unfair advantage over the consumer.

This video will highlight the 3 rights you may inadvertently waive as a consumer should you choose to file your credit dispute online. Losing these rights leave you without recourse and may also enable previously deleted items to re-report and allows re-insertion of those items into your report without notice to you.

Before you begin disputing errors on your credit report, you are going to want to freeze your credit file on Secondary Consumer Reporting Agencies that contain information that the Big Three Bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) use to verify credit data.

There are four main secondary credit bureaus that you want to freeze your credit file report on. Once you freeze your credit file, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion will not be able to verify any data from these reporting agencies.

CoreLogic Credco
P.O. Box 509124
San Diego, CA 92150
877-532-8778
Request Security Freeze

Innovis Consumer Assistance
P.O. Box 1689
Pittsburgh, PA 15230-1689
800-540-2505
Request Security Freeze

LexisNexis Risk Solutions Consumer Center
P.O. Box 105108
Atlanta, GA 30348-5108
888-497-0011
Request Security Freeze

SageStream, LLC
P.O. Box 503793
San Diego, CA 92150
888-395-0277
Request Security Freeze

A list of 50+ Consumer Reporting Companies are available for download below.

Duration:

24:25 Minutes

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