How to Remove Items From Credit Reports

Negative information on your credit report can be removed as long as it is inaccurate. If the negative information is accurate, it can take seven years or longer for it to be purged from your credit report. By contacting credit reporting agencies and the information providers (creditors), credit report errors can be resolved. Keeping your credit report free of errors can improve your credit score and borrowing ability.

Instructions

How to Remove Items From Credit Reports

1

Contact the information provider. The information provider is usually a creditor and represents the organization under which inaccurate information appears. This may the be a credit card, retailer or other company. Contact them and report the details of the error(s) on your credit report.

2

Contact the credit reporting agencies to report the error(s). The major credit reporting agencies or bureaus are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. You can contact them via phone or Internet. A dispute letter can also be sent via mail, notifying them of inaccuracies. After being contacted, the credit reporting agency will have 30 days to conduct an investigation, unless they deem the dispute frivolous. The credit agency will contact the information provider with the data you provided. The information provider must then conduct its own investigation and respond to the credit reporting agency. If the disputed information is inaccurate, the information provider must notify all three major credit reporting agencies or bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion).

3

Follow up with the credit reporting agency if you have not been contacted as to the results of the investigation. Any investigation that results in a change to your credit report requires that the credit reporting agency furnish you with the results in writing, along with a free copy of your credit report. The credit reporting agency cannot put disputed information back in your credit file unless the information provider verifies its accuracy and completeness. In addition, the credit reporting agency must send written notice to you of the name, address and phone number of the information provider. They must also, upon request, send notices of any corrections to all parties who received your credit report in the past six months. If your credit report was obtained for employment purposes during the past two years, you can request that corrected copies be sent to those parties as well.