Federal law allows you to dispute inaccurate information on your credit report. There is no fee for filing a dispute. You may submit your dispute to the business who provided the information to the credit reporting company and/or to the credit reporting company who included the information on your credit report.
The Federal Trade Commission's website has information about how to dispute errors on credit reports, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's website provides additional guidance about disputing information on credit reports.
If you submit a dispute to a nationwide consumer credit reporting company, the company may make changes to your credit report based on the documents and information you provided. Otherwise, they will contact the business reporting the disputed information, supply them all relevant information and any documents you provide with your dispute, instruct them to investigate your dispute, and:
If you submit a dispute with a business, they will conduct an investigation and will send you the results of the investigation directly. They will notify the credit reporting companies of any changes that need to be made to the information as a result of the investigation.
If a dispute results in a change to your credit report, you will have up to 12 months to order a second free report through AnnualCreditReport.com in order to review the changes.
To submit a dispute to a credit reporting company, contact the credit reporting company who has the inaccurate information on your credit report. You may submit a dispute with each of the credit reporting companies over the internet or by mail.
You may also submit documents in support of your dispute. Documents may be uploaded for online disputes or submitted by mail. When mailing documents, please only submit copies of documents and not originals. Documents will not be returned to you following the investigation.
To submit a dispute with a business:
The Federal Trade Commission's website has more information on correcting your credit report, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's website also provides additional information on disputing information on your credit report as well.
Types of information you should be prepared with:
Depending on how you submit your dispute (through the internet or by mail), you may also be asked to provide the following additional information:
You should list each item on your credit report that you believe is inaccurate, including the creditor name, the account number and the specific reason you feel the information is incorrect.
You may also submit documents to support your dispute. Depending on the type of information disputed, the following documents may be helpful in resolving your dispute:
If you have been mistakenly reported as deceased, you should contact the credit reporting companies using the contact information provided below:
You will need to allow up to 30 to 45 days for the investigation of your dispute to be completed by the credit reporting companies.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has additional information regarding the length of a dispute investigation.
If you still believe that the information on your credit report is not accurate following your review of the investigation results from the credit reporting company, you have several options:
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