How to Clean up and Remove Negative Information From Your Credit Report

If you don't know what's on your credit report, allowing lenders, employers and credit card companies to run your credit is a game of financial Russian roulette. Consumers often assume that because they have a positive history of managing debt well and paying their creditors on time that they must have good credit. Unfortunately, reporting errors occur more frequently than most people realize. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group estimated in a 2004 report that roughly 79 percent of all credit reports contain at least one error. Clean up your credit report and increase your credit score by working to remove the negative information in your credit records.

Instructions

1

Visit the Annual Credit Report website and request a free copy of each credit bureau's credit report. The website is maintained by the credit bureaus themselves -- making it the only website approved by the Federal Trade Commission for providing consumers with their free annual credit reports. If you already pulled your free reports for the year, you can purchase your credit reports directly from the credit bureaus.

2

Make a copy of each credit report. Read through the copy of each report, checking for negative items, such as collection accounts, late payments or public records, that you do not recognize or that clearly reflect a reporting error. Highlight errors when you find them.

3

Write a short letter to each credit bureau explaining that you discovered information within your credit history that is incorrect. Mail a copy of your letter along with the copy of your credit report that contains the highlighted errors to the credit bureaus. Each bureau will then contact the company that provided the information and ask that the company verify its information's accuracy. If the company cannot do so or does not respond within 30 days, federal law requires that the credit bureau remove the item.

4

Read through the credit inquiries each credit bureau has on file for you. If you discover inquiries from banks, finance companies, credit card companies or collection agencies that you do not recognize, write the company a letter demanding that it contact the credit bureau and remove its inquiry. Inquiries stemming from a money transaction aren't inherently negative, but these "hard" inquiries lower your credit score by several points each and the damage can quickly add up.

5

Write a letter to each creditor whose entry contains one or more late payments. Request that the creditor remove the late payment record as a gesture of goodwill. Not all creditors will remove a legitimate late payment upon request, but some will do so for long-standing customers.