If you have inaccuracies or problematic listings on your credit report, you may have considered the credit repair option. The Fair Credit Reporting Act or the FCRA was enacted back in 1979 to ?promote the fairness, accuracy and privacy of personal information on credit reports?. This law also allows consumers to dispute information on their credit reports, which is important because it is estimated that as many as 75% of all credit reports contain inaccuracies and erroneous credit.
You can dispute errors on your credit report and the lenders and credit bureaus have a certain amount of time to verify the validity of the information or it must be removed from your account. You can accomplish credit repair by submitting the disputes on your own or you can engage the services of a professional credit repair company.
However, it is important to note that the Federal Trade Commission has stated very explicitly ?No one can legally remove accurate and timely information from a credit report. The law allows you to ask for an investigation of information in your file that you dispute as inaccurate or incomplete?.
This statement seems to be very straightforward and it is one reason why credit repair critics try to dissuade you from trying to repair your credit by convincing you that credit repair is futile. However, the fact is that you can make significant changes to your credit score and your credit report by taking steps to repair your credit.
The FTC quote may seem to be clear but there is actually quite a bit of ambiguity. In fact, up to 75% of all reports contain mistakes and erroneous information. Credit repair companies actually offer a valuable service. You can always take the steps to repair your credit yourself also, but it can be time-consuming and frustrating and you may not want to attempt such a project if you are like many people these days and short on time.
Also, who defines what information is ?accurate and timely?? Frequently mistakes and miscommunications happen between consumers and lenders. Something that is considered?accurate? may not be that at all when the entire story is revealed.
Also, many credit reports have listings that belong to someone else, duplicate entries, listings that have been on the report for longer than 7 years and even listings that are the result of identity theft. These things need to be removed from your credit before they cause you undue problems.
You have the right to dispute anything on your credit that you deem to be misleading, ambiguous, unverifiable, biased or questionable. Occasionally there may even be issues that the lender believes are accurate but that you were never able to defend yourself from because your side of the story was never told. Lenders don?t always get things right just as consumers also make mistakes. That is one reason why it is so crucial to have the opportunity to be able to dispute anything on your report that is inaccurate, untimely, misleading, incomplete, ambiguous or questionable either on your own or with the assistance of a professional credit repair service.
