My friend say’s he will do it for free just to prove that it works, what can it hurt I have a score of 515
Let me first respond to our debt collector’s answer.
You have a RIGHT to dispute ANY item that is on your credit report. This RIGHT is clearly defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
You will NEVER go to jail. It is NOT fraud. Clear enough?
True….the credit bureau has the right to ignore REPEATED disputes as frivolous. But if you dispute every single item on your report, they MUST investigate them.
Why did the government give you this right? Because a few years ago Congress was presented with audits showing that more then 25% of all consumer credit reports contained errors serious enough to result in denied credit.
In 2003 Congress passed the Fair and Accurate Credit Reporting Act, in an effort to correct this problem. In their most recent study, it was discovered that there was NO IMPROVEMENT in the amount of errors on credit reports.
Nearly 21% of people who request their credit reports filed a dispute with the credit bureau.
Collection agencies HATE the FCRA laws. It forces them to take time out of their busy schedule of harassing debtors, and forces them to search for old records to prove the debt is legitimate. It costs them time and money.
For that reason, they will ignore many of the investigation requests from the credit bureau. True…..the bureau will delete the record. and true, they will just update it in a few months and it will re-appear again.
That assumes that they do their job. In many cases they don’t. And your negative credit item disappears forever.
For this reason you ALWAYS dispute every single negative item on your report. But you must also send a letter to the creditor and demand validation. You want them to send you proof you owe the debt.
In other words…you are demanding that they do their job. If it costs them time and money…oh well! That is their job.
If that means our poor collection agent has to put in a little more work, too bad.
I have helped many people fix their credit showing them how to dispute items. It will not remove them all…but it will remove a few (and maybe most) of them.