In order to remove derogatory items from your credit report you have to dispute the credit bureaus. There are two options to do this.
1. Craft a dispute letter
You must write a dispute letter. In this letter you have to identify the listing you want removed and give a reason why the listing is inaccurate.
Reasons often include; account paid in full, item is out of date, information is wrong and etcetera. You will need to send this letter to every credit bureau.
2. Hire a professional credit repair firm.
If you choose this option the firm will create a dispute letter for you and send it to the bureaus. The benefit of a firm is they have advanced dispute techniques such as; creditor direct intervention, escalated dispute information requests, and debt validation.
I recommend hiring a service if you have multiple bad credit items on your report. However if you only have one or two items then you can do it yourself.
When the credit bureaus receive your dispute letter and deem it a valid dispute then they will conduct an investigation. If the listing can not be verified then it must be removed from you credit report.
You should know that it is common for credit bureaus to use stall tactics to avoid conducting an investigation. This is because the bureaus spend potential profits when they conduct an investigation.
However the Fair Credit Reporting Act states that the bureaus must investigate disputes and if found unverifiable the listing must be removed. The hard part is getting the bureaus to deem you dispute letter valid.
If you are experiencing trouble with this I recommend hiring a professional. However you can get the bureaus to deem you letter valid with some persistence.
Frequently an investigation will result in a bad credit item being removed. This happens because many lenders are not willing to spend the resources to verify debts.
However you decide to dispute your credit, negative marks can be deleted. You do not have to wait the full seven years for these marks to be removed.
Tags: business, business and finance, credit, credit counseling, credit tips, debt, debt advice, debt counseling, Debt-Consolidation, education, finance, how to, law, legal, money, Personal-Finance