How to Get Your Dispute Letters to do Their Job

Item Verification Essentially, any dispute letter is asking the credit bureau to verify a negative item and ensure its accuracy with the creditor.

The bureaus, in turn, must formally verify that such items are accurate, current, and complete. Often, the creditors cannot or will not facilitate a timely verification, or the bureaus find that your credit reports contain errors, so items must be removed or revised.

The following are examples that you can use in your dispute letters to get the bureaus to open an investigation:

"Demonstrate that this item appears correctly in my file."
"You are legally obligated to confirm that this account belongs on my report."
"Pursuant to federal statute, verify that this listing was indeed late."

Sample dispute letters

Printing and Mailing Your Dispute Letters Ensuring that your letter is properly printed and sealed in the envelope are standard practice.

Print your letter

Open the dispute letter you have written. Select File > Print. Make sure your local printer is selected and print the letter.

Printing problems

Make sure the document is printed on letter-size blank white paper and the ink is printing correctly. Colored paper or old printing cartridges that aren't printing clearly may make the document hard to read, and may decrease your chance of having an investigation opened concerning your questionable items.

Signature

Before putting the letter in the envelope, sign your name in the space given on the letter.

Envelope

Fold the printed document into thirds and slip it into a business-size envelope (4-1/8 x 9-1/2 inches). Before sealing, address the envelope and double-check to be sure you have the correct letter inserted.

Addressing

On the envelope, hand print in clear, legible writing the address in the bottom right portion of the envelope (see example). Hand print your return address in the top left corner (do not print the address on the envelope using your printer - this will look like it was sent from a company).

If you are sending a dispute letter to a credit bureau, use one of the addresses below. If you are sending a goodwill, or intervention letter to a creditor, you will need to find the creditor's address either on your credit report, or through their web site.

Bureau Addresses:

Transunion P.O. Box 1000 Chester, PA 19022

Equifax P.O. Box 740241 Atlanta, GA 30374-0241

Experian P.O. Box 2104 Allen, TX 75013-2104

Postage

After double-checking the address, secure a current, first-class stamp in the upper right corner of the envelope.

Seal and Mail

Seal the envelope and drop your item verification letter off to any USPS mail drop.

OPTION: Certified Mail

OPTION: While it is debatable if sending your letters by "certified mail" will have any benefits in getting an investigation opened with the bureaus, or in the right hands of a decision maker with your creditors, it will save you a great deal of headache if you should ever have to prove that a letter was sent. Simply having a "certified mail" receipt will help you track your personal records, of when letters were received, and are dynamite proof if your case should ever need to go to court.

Inherent Risks Seemingly harmless mistakes made in the process of investigating or disputing your credit could make your credit files worse.

It is important for you to understand that there are inherent risks in restoring your own credit.

Risks include:

Red-flagging the individual file as someone attempting credit repair.
• It is wise to not dispute more than a 1/3 of your negative items (or nor more than 3 at a time). Doing more can alert the bureaus that your are simply "blasting" your negatives with dispute letters, and have no real reason for doing so.

Alerting old debtors that you're trying to reconcile for past mistakes.
• Debt collectors love to find old debts from people who are looking to improve their credit scores, because they're just about willing to pay anything to get that negative item off their credit.
• HINT: Weigh your options. If you are less than two years from the statute of limitations on reporting a debt, you might be better off waiting for it to go away, than disputing the negative item and having the creditor "restart" the debt collecting process.

Unwittingly self-verifying negative information.
• This is where many self-credit restorers go wrong. With the wrong language in your credit repair letter, you can actually verify your own item, and then the bureaus will do nothing for you, except hold onto your letter as proof that you should have your negative item on your report.

Making statements that create a fraud alert.
• Be aware of language in your dispute letter that can look like someone else trying to find out information about your credit history. If you are apprehensive, better talk to a credit repair expert

Following "common sense" credit score strategies that actually lower the credit score.
• It would seem that all you have to do is be honest about your credit situation, and what got you there, and everyone should be understanding. But that's not the case. Explaining why you made late payments, or neglected a debt can only give creditors and bureaus fuel for substantiating their claim.

While restoring your own credit may save you money, when done improperly, it can cost you thousands of dollars and you may still do more damage than good to your credit.
• Most people forget about the time involved to repair their credit. When a good credit repair service has seen mmillion of deletions, and knows what works, most people are starting with sample dispute letters, and stabbing in the dark. While the information on this site is extremely valuable (and free), it cannot compare the time-savings that a good credit repair service can bring.

If you are looking for a service to restore your credit report, use on the leading credit repair companies.

Sample dispute letters