How to Get Stuff Off Your Credit Report

You can request the removal of credit reporting errors.

Your credit report contains more than a list of your current debts and payment histories. Current and past information about you, such as names, addresses and derogatory public records, also appear within your credit file. This data is provided to the credit bureaus by your creditors. Should any of your creditors make a reporting error, that error will be reflected in your credit report and can influence your score. The federal government provides consumers with a method to dispute and have inaccurate information removed from their credit records.

Things You'll Need

• Credit reports
• Copier
• Red pen or highlighter
• Documentation
• Dispute letter
• Picture ID

Instructions

1. Pull your credit reports and review them for inaccurate information. You are permitted one free annual credit report from each of the credit reporting agencies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. You may request your free credit reports by mail or access them online through www.AnnualCreditReport.com.

2. Evaluate your credit reports for reporting errors. Look for accounts that do not belong to you or accounts that reflect inaccuracies such as the wrong dates or payment amounts. Also look for variations in your name or Social Security number and addresses you never lived at.

3. Check for old derogatory entries, such as credit card charge-offs, collection accounts or delinquent medical bills. These entries are only permitted to appear in your credit record for 7 ½ years from the "date of last activity", which should be stipulated in the account data. Derogatory entries become obsolete after this time period and can be removed.

4. Make copies of any of your credit reports that contain errors.

5. Circle or underline the errors on the copies with a red pen or highlighter.

6. Compile any documentation you have proving that the reports were made in error. This may be old credit card statements, payment receipts or, in the event of a personal information error, a copy of your Social Security card.

7. Write a dispute letter to each credit reporting agency whose credit record of you is inaccurate. Explain which information on the report is inaccurate or obsolete and request that the credit bureaus remove it.

8. Mail the documentation, dispute letter, credit report copy and a copy of your picture ID to each credit reporting agency whose record contains inaccurate or obsolete data.

9. Wait for each credit bureau to receive your dispute and conduct an investigation into your claim. The Fair Credit Reporting Act allows 30 days for a full dispute investigation. When the investigation is complete, you will be notified via mail of the information that has been removed from your credit file and will be provided with an updated copy of your credit history.

Tips & Warnings

• Pulling a credit report from all three credit bureaus is important. Because some creditors do not report consumer information to all three bureaus, your credit reports may each reflect varying information.

• You have the right to add a 100 word consumer statement to your credit report that explains any information within your credit file to lenders who may review it.

• Free credit reports pulled online anywhere other than AnnualCreditReport.com are not free and require you to sign up for credit monitoring before accessing your credit history. AnnualCreditReport.com is the only free credit report provider backed by the Federal Trade Commission.

References

• TrueCredit: Credit Report Guide
• FTC: The Fair Credit Reporting Act (section 612:A:1/605:A:4/611:(b)) (PDF)
• FTC: Free Annual Credit Reports

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• AnnualCreditReport.com
• Americans For Fairness in Lending: Credit Reporting and Scoring