Dispute Equifax

A dispute can be filed with Equifax by creating a dispute letter and mailing it to them. In your letter you will need to include a reason as to why the listing is inaccurate.

This letter can be created by you or you can hire a credit repair service to do it on your behalf. If you choose to do it yourself realize you have to dispute the item with 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.

Reasons to dispute a listing are; item is out of date, information is wrong, not my account, account paid in full, and more. The Fair Credit Reporting Act says that you have the right to dispute any mark on your credit report.

In addition this act says the bureaus must remove a listing from your report if it can not be verified. 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.

It is common for bureaus to respond to a dispute letter with another letter that requests more information about the dispute. This is said to be a stall tactic the bureaus use to avoid conducing and investigation.

This is because it will only cost the bureaus money to investigate disputes. The bureaus customers are businesses and only because of government law is there a dispute process.

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 do not have to wait seven years for a bad credit item to be removed from your credit. You can dispute the listing and have it removed immediately.