Dispute Equifax

By Justin Hutto

You can dispute a bad credit listing on your Equifax credit report by creating a dispute letter. In your letter you must identify the disputed listing and provide an explanation as to why it is incorrect.

There are two options to do this; you can do it yourself or hire a credit repair service to do it on your behalf. However be aware if you do it yourself that you must send a letter to each credit bureau.

This means if you have a charge off on your Equifax credit report then you will have to send a dispute letter to Equifax. In addition if that charge off is on your Experian and Transunion credit report you will have to send a dispute letter to them also.

Common reasons to dispute a bad credit item include; information is wrong, item is out of date, account paid in full and more. The Fair Credit Reporting Act passed by congress gives you the right to dispute any item on your credit report.

In addition the act says the bureaus must remove an item if it is not verified by the creator. This act is what the dispute process is based upon.

Upon receipt of your dispute letter the bureaus will investigate. During the investigation they will ask the creator of the listing to verify the account, the dates on the account, and the account balance.

If the mark can not be verified then it is removed from your credit report. Often an investigation results in the removal of bad credit. This is a result of many businesses being unwilling to spend the time and money verifying disputed debts.

However before the bureau will investigate your dispute they must say it is valid. There is no clear cut definition of what a valid dispute is.

Many claim that the bureaus are just avoiding having to hold an investigation so they will deem your dispute invalid and respond with a letter requesting more information about the dispute. It is widely speculated that this is nothing more than a stall tactic used by the bureaus.

It only costs the bureaus money to conduct an investigation. There is no revenue in it for the bureaus, their customers are businesses.

I suggest you hire a service if you have multiple items you wish to dispute on your credit. If you have only minor damage on your report then you can do it yourself, just remember to be persistent and have some patience.

In sum you can remove bad credit items before seven years. You can dispute the bureaus and have the negative item removed.

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