How to dispute Bad Credit Entries with the Credit Reference Agencies

You can request a free credit score report from credit reference agencies such as Experian or Equifax very easily and the request can simply be made online. When you first get your hands on your credit report, you may well see errors so be prepared. It's well known that credit reports contain errors over 50% of the time. When you open a dispute on a derogatory entry, the creditor has one month in which to respond. They can respond by either providing proof to enable the entry to stand or by removing the derogatory item. For example, the creditors need to be able to prove that you actually did have a late payment.

Many large companies, in the same way as major department stores, actually lose data about payments that were late. If you try to dispute a late payment, the creditor needs to send a letter requesting deletion to the credit reference agency. If your credit report shows late payments to a company that is has since gone into liquidation, dispute them in writing because the information is no longer verifiable or available. If you dispute these items in writing, the credit reference agency will automatically remove them. Don't forget to look for any missing entries or information. You may have several good credit entries that were NOT reported by one of your creditors or lenders.

COMMON RESULTS of DISPUTES:

Negative entries will be removed permanently from your credit report for the following reasons:

(1) Creditor failed to maintain proper records to substantiate the entry on reports.

(2) Creditor failed to respond within the time period of one month, and so the derogatory entry had to be removed. (This is the reason it is so important to submit the dispute form via registered post. Not only to ensure its delivery, but to have documented time of when it was received. Your creditors are usually so overloaded with disputes, they rarely respond within the time period that is allowed by the law.)

(3) Debts were not substantial enough to waste their time with.

Conclusion

So you can conclude that it certainly makes sense to request your free credit check and if it does contain any errors, then disputing them can be time very well spent.

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