This is a question I get asked quite often. There is no way to put a date or time period to it. There is a general time line that you can expect, but you see, you are not in control of how soon or how long it takes for the credit bureaus or collectors/creditors to respond to your dispute.
So, here I want to explain a basic time line to give you a general idea.
- You get your credit report - same day usually, unless you request it by mail from the bureaus, then expect 15 - 30 days.
- Review and highlight the negatives on your report. Categorize them into collections, charge offs, and judicial. Usually, collections are 3rd party collectors, charge offs should be original creditors, and judicial will be tax liens, bk's, judgments, etc. Write their correspondence address on your list as you will be using this on your letters and for mailing. This can be done the same day you get your credit report, so you are still at 1 day.
- Start writing letters. You will write one type of letter demanding validation from the 3rd party collectors. You will write a different type of letter to original creditors. Now, you can demand validation from them, or if its something simple like 1 or several late pays, you can be specific and just tell them you want to validate the late pays because you don't recall ever being late. Then you request for them to remove the late pays from your report. Many times they do just that. Instead of the hassle of validating, they just remove them, especially if they are old.
- For the judicial entries, guess what? You can actually demand validation for those baddies! The thing is, courts don't verify or validate, so I would be shocked to hear that someone got validation back from the court. Tax liens are a different story though. Those would be disputed with the IRS. You would demand validation the same as you would of a 3rd party collector. That is what they are. The IRS is a collector and not a government agency. They've done a good job at fooling everyone, haven't they! Writing the letters can take you anywhere from a few hours to 2 days at most. So, I would say, you are now on Day 2.
- Now that you've finished the letters, you will need to mail them. These letters need to go CMRR (Certified Mail, Return Receipt). So, some time before you start your credit repair, or after, just trying to cut time here, pick up some green cards and green and white certified mailing supplies from the post office. They are free! It should take you no more than an hour to get everything addressed - envelope, green card and receipt, and ready to go to the post office. You do need to go to the post office to mail these. Cost is under $6 a letter. Okay, that is still day 2.
- Collectors and creditors will have 30 days to respond to your dispute. But, you should receive your green cards back within a week - 2 weeks, tops.
- Next step is to write your letters of disputes to the credit bureaus. These do not go out before you get the green cards back. You must wait till you get those first. 1 letter to each Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. You can dispute every item on each one at the same time. But, DO NOT DISPUTE THE BK AT THIS TIME!!! So, getting the letters written, envelopes addressed and mailed, 1 day. You're up to about 2 weeks.
- The credit bureaus are to respond to your dispute in 30 days. So, the time line now is about 45 days
The disputing process is a little more detailed than what I've given here because I'm just giving general info, but figure a 30 - 45 day cycle for each round of disputes till you get most or all of the items off. Expect 2 to 3 rounds at the least and more like 6 -12 months, sometimes longer when there are BK's and things like that.
If you have any questions, please feel free to comment below or email me. I'll respond as soon as possible, usually within a day or two, many times, the same day!
When disputing something on your credit report make sure that the facts you have are correct first and don't dispute something that is in fact correct.
ReplyDeleteBad Credit Loans, you are partially correct in that if you know they have the goods on you its a waste of time. But, if you haven't disputed and it's negative, you should dispute.
ReplyDeleteThe reason is, even if something is correct, if it is negative, you want it off. Just like in court, the burden of proof falls on the plaintiff/accuser. Well, in credit repair, the burden of proof falls on the accuser - the one reporting the negative item(s). They have to prove you owe them and/or that their reporting is correct.
Many times they do not have the proof. Furthermore, if it is a 3rd party collector doing the reporting, they have absolutely no rights. The law says that "the right of subrogation does not exist for a stranger to the transaction". This means that if they were not on the original contract, they can not be substituted in. If they buy a bad debt, they have become a substitute payee. It is clearly explained in AmJur and there is plenty of case law backing this up.
So, if it is negative, you should dispute to get it removed. The law says that they cannot continue reporting or verifying with credit bureaus what they cannot validate with you. That is considered collection activity and it is a violation of law to commence collection activities after a request for validation has been made and before they have fully validated and proved 100%, their claims.
Early Warning Services is a terrible company. Do not work for them. They chase good employees away and do not like A personality types.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, I looked up Early Warning Services. Obviously, you don't like the way they treat their employees, and it is probably similar to the way they treat the people they report on. I don't know them but I know they are very similar to ChexSystems, which I can't stand!! They are the type of company that doesn't verify correctly and really can screw up someone's ability to open a bank account, which is based on one sided vengeance driven bank reporting and not on facts. They most likely make it next to impossible to remove their fraudulent reporting while at the same time they claim to be trying to prevent fraud! Thanks for the heads up!
ReplyDelete