Have You Considered Challenging Negative Items on Your Credit Report?

By Ben Casey

How to Dispute Your Equifax Credit Report

Would you like to remove those nagging negative items from your credit report?

Your first step is to obtain a copy of your Equifax Credit Report and look for errors, inaccurate items, undesirable information, and/or information that is misleading. Damaging credit items include:

third party actions involving charge-offs

court decisions, such as judgments

bankruptcy and included in bankruptcy

home foreclosures

repossessions, i.e. auto, boat, or other personal property

payroll garnishment

payment inconsistencies

collections, paid collections, settled accounts

judgments/public records

Next, you will need to draft a dispute letter to Equifax. Be sure to include your personal information and to explain the reason for the dispute, including why you feel the negative information listed is erroneous.

Finally, you will need to wait 30-45 days to receive Equifax's determination.

What Happens After I Mail my Dispute Letter?

If your dispute is successful, continue the process to attempt to remove all negative entries from your credit report. Once this step is completed, clear up any remaining issues, such as discrepancies involving personal information.

Equifax will delete any negative item that cannot be verified. Be aware that Equifax, when notified by creditors, will update items on your credit report. Depending on what the creditors report, this could be bad or good information. For example, Equifax might revise your credit report to show additional late payments.

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.

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