Your credit report is a record of all open credit accounts you have, as well as your payment history with each of them. The three national credit reporting agencies—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—keep these records, and federal law limits what they can do with the information they gather about you. (To learn more about the national credit reporting agencies, see Nolo’s article The Nationwide Credit Reporting Agencies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.)
Federal law gives you the right to receive a free copy of your credit report from each agency once a year. You can also get a free copy if you're a victim of identity theft or if someone turns you down for a loan or some other opportunity based on the report.
When you get your free credit reports, be sure to review them and dispute any inaccurate information you find.
What Kinds of Errors You Might Encounter
The most common types of errors you might find in your credit reports include:
- information for a different person
- open accounts that are the result of identity theft
- inaccurate information, like misspellings, inaccurate names, and incorrect telephone numbers
- errors showing inconsistent information for the same account, like showing one account as both "current" and "in default" status, and
- outdated information. (Negative information, including foreclosure, can remain on your credit report for up to seven years. If you file for bankruptcy, it can stay on your report for ten years.)
Procedures for Reporting Errors You Find in Your Credit Reports
If you find that one of your credit reports contains inaccurate or incomplete information, you can file a dispute with the relevant credit reporting agency. You may submit your dispute online, via phone, or you can send a letter. Be sure to include:
- your name and address
- statements identifying the item or items you believe are inaccurate or incomplete
- an explanation why you think the information is incorrect, and
- copies (not originals) of billing statements, canceled checks, or other documents supporting your dispute.
If you decide to send a letter, send it by certified mail, with a return receipt requested, to the address that the credit reporting agency has provided for disputing information and be sure keep a copy for your records.
To find out how to initiate a dispute online—or to get the phone number or address for filing a dispute—go to the Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion websites.
Investigation Procedures
Unless the credit reporting agency deletes the inaccurate information after receiving of your dispute, the agency is required to conduct a reinvestigation of the disputed items. The agency must complete its reinvestigation within 30 days after receiving your notice of dispute, or within 45 days if you send the agency additional relevant information during the 30-day period. (If if you disputed the information after receiving your free annual credit report, the agency has 45 days.)
Credit reporting agencies must act in good faith when performing a reinvestigation and must check with the original sources and other reliable sources of the disputed information. Once complete, the agency must then give you the results of its reinvestigation within five business days, and include a revised credit report if any changes were made.
Even if the credit reporting agency deletes or corrects the error to your satisfaction, you should continue to review your credit reports regularly. You don't want this information to reappear at a later date.
The Agency Doesn’t Have to Investigate Frivolous Disputes
A credit reporting agency doesn’t have to investigate a dispute that it thinks is frivolous or irrelevant. For example, the agency doesn't have to investigate the matter if:
- you don’t give the agency sufficient information to investigate the dispute
- your dispute looks like a blanket dispute of virtually everything in your credit file that a credit repair company prepared or you prepared using a credit repair service’s forms, or
- you ask for reinvestigation of the same item more than once, but don’t provide any new information.
You May Clarify By Adding an Explanatory Statement
If the credit reporting agency’s reinvestigation doesn’t resolve the dispute to your satisfaction, you can file a brief statement about the matter. The agency then has to include your statement, or a summary of it, in any report that includes the disputed information.
If the reporting agency helps you to write the explanation, it may limit your statement to 100 words. Otherwise, there’s no set word limit. But it’s wise to keep the statement very brief. Here’s why. The credit reporting agency only has to provide a summary of your statement—not your actual statement—when it provides your file to a requesting party. So, if your statement is short, the credit reporting agency is more likely to forward your unedited comments.
Getting Help
If you continue to find errors on your credit reports, you may file additional disputes or you can consult a consumer protection attorney to get help resolving the issue.
