Many people go through life, using credit cards and buying items with other forms of credit, thinking that whatever the credit bureaus say is what’s truth. Then, there are people who never give the credit bureaus any credit(no pun intended), believing that they are always right and the system is always wrong. To be honest, neither of these parties are completely correct.

However, neither of them are completely wrong. Believe it or not, the credit bureaus, though they do their job relatively well, sometimes make mistakes. These mistakes often show up on your credit report, which reflects your entire credit history, your payment history, the mistakes and the improvements you’ve made, and sometimes, even mistakes that are not even your fault. In the case that your credit report shows something counting against you that you really are not accountable for, of course you want to correct this mistake, but how?

1. Find the Mistakes

You want to be sure that you have nothing on your report that does not honestly belong there. The first thing you have to do to fix those mistakes is to find them. Copy your credit report and, on the copy, highlight the items that you do not believe are correct. This will help you to present those mistakes to the credit bureaus.

2. Bring it Up

The credit bureaus, though they are probably doing the best job they can, do not have time to call in every once in a while and ask how your credit report is looking. You have to notify them in order to sufficiently get the attention you want. Nothing will be done about the errors if you do not make them known to all three of the major credit reporting agencies.

3. Prove it

Make sure that you have proof of that whatever is on your credit report is not rightfully charged to you. If you call in with a complaint, and not a detailed argument that entails proof, the process will take a lot longer, and you may end up keeping the mistakes on your credit report, whether you feel they belong there or not. Make sure that you have documented proof of and that you can back up the argument you are presenting.

4. Be Persistent

There are so many people with complaints, and so many other things that credit reporting agencies have to deal with, that even if you report your complaint to them, they may not follow through as quickly as you had hoped. If you do not see any changes within an appropriate time period, make sure you call them again and find out what progress has been made on the correction and what you need to do to further that progress. You cannot sit quietly and assume that what you have done is enough if you have not persistently inquired about your report.

People, and credit bureaus, make mistakes. It is up to us to fix the mistakes that reflect on us. Know how to do it, get it done, and get on with life.

You have taken the first steps, you’ve looked through your credit report, and you have concluded that there is a mistake on there that should not even exist. But what do you do from here on? How do you get that annoying mishap out of your credit report?

It is a rather long process, but it can be done. It has been done by many people, and you can do it alone or you can have the aid of credit repair services.

However, doing it yourself only costs you the effort, while doing it with a credit repair service will cost money, though many people believe that repair service employees know what they are doing much better than themselves. Either way, you want to get that nasty little detail off your credit report, and you want to get it off soon.

Write the Letter

The first thing you should do is write a dispute letter to the credit reporting agencies, or the credit bureaus, pointing out the problem on your credit report, asking them to eliminate this mistake, and telling them why. This first step will allow you to get your problem out on the table so that they can acknowledge that there is something wrong. There are several guidelines you can follow to ensure that your letter states clearly what the problem is, and how you would like it fixed, which guidelines you can find online or through the credit repair services that you are using.

In your letter you should include every one of the negative listings on your credit report that you feel should be taken off. This is so that you can get all of the possible errors investigated in a single act, rather than dragging the process out by disputing them one by one.

You must show all of these negative listings clearly, stating what lender was involved in this mistake, like perhaps a certain credit card company, and the amount of money which was involved, like the amount written on the bill that you paid late. These will help to specify each problem, allowing the investigation to go more quickly since you provide the information, rather than having the credit reporting agency try to find it.

What you should also include in your letter is your personal information. You need to write things like your name, social security number, driver’s license information, mailing address, etc. You also need to include, under each complaint against your negative listings, tell what you are disputing. For example, most complaints against negative reports are complaints against the accuracy of the listing, so instead of letting them guess, you need to state that in your dispute letter.

Wait

Next, wait and give a little time for the investigation to take place. It’s not a matter of whether or not they will do it. They are required by law to investigate your disputes. If it takes longer than usual, you may want to write another letter, but don’t nag them, because yours is only one of hundreds of complaints every day, so this may take time.