Errors on My Credit Report – How to Fix?

You’re applying for a big loan soon, and before you do, you’re doing due diligence with your credit. You check out your report… and don’t recognize many of the items listed in it. “What’s going on?” you’re thinking. You don’t recall some of this stuff.

Errors on My Credit Report Are you going crazy ?

Likely, no. In fact, errors are more frequent than you may realize when it comes to credit reports and your credit score. According to estimates, about a quarter of all credit reports that have been surveyed by the U.S. PIRG have contained serious errors.

Furthermore, about 80 percent of all credit reports surveyed contained at least one minor error.
If your credit report is revealing some incorrect information, what do you do? This is especially important if the report is impacting your FICO score to the point where credit repair is necessary. Here’s a look:

  • Know whether the information in question is actually incorrect. This may seem like an elementary point, but if you have no way to justify this, you’ll have no case.
  • Dispute it. Once you know something is wrong, contact the party (i.e., lender, collection agency) that is reporting the information. You may also elect to contact the credit agency reporting the information. Start by asking them to fix it. If that doesn’t work, then disputing it is the next step. Typically, you can accomplish this online or via mail. Disputing online is quick, but you’re able to be much more thorough when disputing through the mail, as you can include the relevant documentation to get the issue resolved.

After submitting your dispute, then you play the waiting game. If you don’t hear anything after one month, follow up with the appropriate parties. If your dispute is successful, all three credit reporting bureaus must be informed of the error.

So if something doesn’t look right on your credit report, don’t automatically assume that you need to repair credit. First, look to see if there are any errors. About 80 percent of credit reports are found to have one.