My credit report is wrong. How do I dispute it myself?

Find the error first

Get your reports from all three bureaus, free, at AnnualCreditReport.com. Read each one separately, because an error can appear at one bureau and not the others.

These are errors you can dispute:

• an account that is not yours, or one that belongs to someone with a similar name;
• a wrong balance, credit limit or payment status;
• a late payment you made on time;
• an account listed twice;
• a debt shown as open that you paid or settled;
• a wrong date, such as the date an account first went delinquent.

What to send, and to whom

Dispute with the bureau that shows the error, and with the company that reported it to the bureau: the lender, card issuer or collector. Each bureau takes disputes online, by mail or by phone.

Include:

1. your full name and address;
2. each item you dispute, and why it is wrong;
3. copies, never originals, of anything that supports you, such as a statement, a payoff letter or a letter from the creditor;
4. a copy of the report with the items marked.

Keep a copy of everything you send and the date you sent it. If you mail it, certified mail with a return receipt proves the date.

How long it takes

The bureau generally has 30 days from receiving your dispute to investigate. The law allows up to 45 days in two cases:

• you send more information that matters to the dispute during the first 30 days, which can extend the investigation by up to 15 days;
• you are disputing information on a free annual report, where the law sets a 45-day limit.

The bureau has to send you the results in writing within 5 business days of finishing. If anything changes, you get a free copy of the corrected report.

If you are applying for a mortgage soon

Tell your loan officer about any dispute that is still open. Underwriting systems treat disputed accounts differently. Fannie Mae’s system can assess the file without them and then require the lender to investigate whether you owe the account. A score can also leave a disputed account out, so the score can change when the dispute closes.

A dispute and a rescore do different jobs:

• A dispute is for information that is wrong. You file it, and the bureau investigates on the law’s timetable.
• A rescore is for accurate information that has changed, such as a balance you paid down after the statement closed. Only a lender can request one, through its own credit order, and it usually completes much sooner.

Who does what

You file your own dispute, and you do not need anyone’s help to do it. A loan officer can point you to the process and, for accurate updates a file can carry, request a rescore. BestQualify’s guides do not file disputes for anyone.

Credit Technologies prepares mortgage credit reports for lenders from the bureaus’ data. If you dispute something on a report it prepared, it follows the same federal dispute rules the bureaus do: it sends your dispute to the bureau that supplied the information and tells you the result.

If the investigation does not fix it

You can ask the bureau to add a short statement of the dispute to your file. You can also submit a complaint to the CFPB.