Do i send dispute letters to the credit bureau or the creditor themselves?
Posted by admin | Under dispute credit Wednesday Sep 30, 2009I am trying to fix my credit and i am a little confused, do i send the dispute letters to the credit bureau for each thing i am disputing or do i send them to the person who is trying to collect the money. Also should i send my disputes one at a time or can i send more than one. What should i expect out of this. Please help me out
directly to the credit bureau!!!
To the credit bureaus – it is their information database you are disputing. Each item should be disputed separately in writing via certified mail. Remember, you can’t successfully dispute an item just because it is negative; it has to be false or inaccurate and you have to prove why.
References :
You didn’t indicate what the "dispute" is about.
If it’s something relatively minor, like an address,
then you should contact the creditor,
who will inform the credit bureau.
But, some of the bureaus keep all such information
for a given time period
(one of my recent free credit reports (see link, below)
showed my addresses going back 20 years!
Since I’ve moved a lot during that time period,
it actually filled one and a half pages;
and one of the addresses was misspelled badly!
Fortunately, that kind of mistake isn’t worth fixing).
If it’s about a late payment, fee, etc,
again, you should contact the creditor,
who will contact the bureaus, etc.
If, however, it’s about credit cards that you cancelled in good faith
(i.e., you have paid it in its entirety),
but it is still on the credit bureau’s records after, say, a year,
and you want it removed, then you should contact the bureau.
Note that all such bureaus (there are three major ones)
might have that information,
so you’d have to contact all of them to remove that info.
If you never got a recent bill,
and are being charged late fees in your current bill,
then contact the creditor,
who will then – - well, you know!
I can’t be more specific without more info.
Next time, be as specific as possible
without giving out any personal information
(and, yes, it can be done!).
References :
http://www.ftc.gov
directly to the credit bureau!!!
References :