Familiarizing yourself with the five C's—capacity, capital, collateral, conditions and character—can help you get a head start on presenting yourself to lenders as a potential borrower.
The scoring model most often used by lenders are FICO scores. Both TransUnion and Equifax also share “educational credit scores .” These types of credit scores were developed with the intention of helping consumers understand their credit scores more fully.
A 609 letter is a credit repair method that requests credit bureaus to remove erroneous negative entries from your credit report. It's named after section 609 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), a federal law that protects consumers from unfair credit and collection practices. Written by Natasha Wiebusch, J.D..
This information is reported to Equifax by your lenders and creditors and includes the types of accounts (for example, a credit card, mortgage, student loan, or vehicle loan), the date those accounts were opened, your credit limit or loan amount, account balances, and your payment history.
Most U.S. consumer credit information is collected and kept by the four national traditional consumer reporting agencies: Experian (formerly TRW Information Systems & Services and the CCN Group), Equifax, TransUnion, and Innovis (which was purchased from First Data Corporation in 1999 by CBC Companies).
The four fundamental methods of verification are Inspection, Demonstration, Test, and Analysis. The four methods are somewhat hierarchical in nature, as each verifies requirements of a product or system with increasing rigor.
The method of verification is a powerful tool against the credit bureaus. You may have to threaten to sue or even actually sue them if they refuse to sufficiently comply with your request for the method of verification. But don't worry, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FRCA) laws are on your side.
If the item has been verified as accurate, then the credit bureaus are no longer investigating it. That means the credit bureaus will remove the “in dispute” label by removing the XB code. Once the XB code is gone, then the item is fair game in the eyes of FICO because it has been verified and is, arguably, accurate.
If you'd like to remove a closed account from your credit report, you can
contact the credit bureaus to remove inaccurate information, ask the creditor to remove it or just wait it out.
Removing a Closed Account from Your Credit Report
- Dispute inaccuracies.
- Write a goodwill letter.
- Wait it out.
Here's what you need to know: The Fair Credit Reporting Act's (FCRA) Section 611 allows for consumers to challenge questionable items on their credit reports. This includes late payments charge-offs, collections, tax liens, bankruptcies, judgments, foreclosures, or any personal identification information.
Any information that is inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable, must be removed or corrected, usually within 30 days. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a consumer reporting agency may continue to report information it has verified as accurate.
To write a well-crafted 609 letter, first gather the following documents and make four copies of each:
- Credit report with the account in question circled and/or highlighted.
- Birth certificate.
- Social Security card.
- Passport (if you have one) — the page showing your photo and the number.
Filing a dispute has no impact on your score, however, if information on your credit report changes after your dispute is processed, your credit scores could change. If you corrected this type of information, it will not affect your credit scores.
Your letter should identify each item you dispute, state the facts, explain why you dispute the information, and ask that the business that supplied the information take action to have it removed or corrected. You may want to enclose a copy of your report with the item(s) in question circled.
If you believe any account information is incorrect, you should dispute the information to have it either removed or corrected. If, for example, you have a collection or multiple collections appearing on your credit reports and those debts do not belong to you, you can dispute them and have them removed.
You need only dispute with the credit bureau(s) whose credit report(s) reflect the inaccuracy. All three credit bureaus have an online dispute process, but opt for the mail-in option instead. Send it (with copies of supporting documentation) via certified mail with return receipt requested.
If your credit dispute is rejected, the Fair Credit Reporting Act gives you the right to add a 100-word consumer statement to your report explaining your position.
- File a dispute with the credit reporting agency.
- File a dispute directly with the reporting business.
- Negotiate “pay-for-delete” with the creditor.
- Send a request for “goodwill deletion”
- Hire a credit repair service.
- Work with a credit counseling agency.
- Get a free copy of your credit report.
Common violations of the FCRA include:
Creditors give reporting agencies inaccurate financial information about you. Reporting agencies mixing up one person's information with another's because of similar (or same) name or social security number. Agencies fail to follow guidelines for handling disputes.Most dispute investigations at TransUnion are complete within two weeks, but some may take up to 30 days. If you don't agree with the results, it may be a good idea to contact the lender directly and provide any documentation you have to support your claim.
Disputes are involved in a complex process that may involve different time limits. Typically, disputes that reach the chargeback stage will take between 30 days to 45 days to be resolved.
In rare circumstances, items deleted from your credit reports can, in fact, reappear on your credit reports even after the dispute resolution process has been completed. This practice is referred to in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) as "reinsertion."
Be sure to request dispute removals well before you really need them to be removed. While TransUnion disputes are reportedly removed right away (during the phone call, in most cases), Equifax and Experian disputes can take up to 72 hours to be removed from your reports.
To help you get started, here's a guide to six steps for cleaning your credit reports.
- Request your credit reports.
- Review your credit reports.
- Dispute all errors.
- Lower your credit utilization.
- Try to remove late payments.
- Tackle outstanding bills.
The addresses that appear on your credit report have been reported to the credit bureaus by current or past creditors you've done business with. Old addresses don't need to be removed or disputed just because they're outdated; they're actually left there on purpose and may be used for identity verification purposes.
Here's how to remove negative information from your credit report:
- Review your credit card statements and other financial documentation for mistakes.
- Request proof of the negative information.
- File a dispute.
- Wait.
- Add positive information to your credit reports.
How To Remove Derogatory Items From Credit Report Before 7 Years
- Dispute negatives with TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian (the "Bureaus")
- Dispute negatives directly with the original creditors (the "OCs")
- Send a short Goodill letter to each creditor.
- Negotiate a "Pay For Delete" to remove the negative item.
These are the three most common errors related to personal information on credit reports:
- Wrong Address: 56%
- Misspelled Name: 33%
- Wrong Name: 17%
There are 3 ways to remove collections without paying: 1) Write and mail a Goodwill letter asking for forgiveness, 2) study the FCRA and FDCPA and craft dispute letters to challenge the collection, and 3) Have a collections removal expert delete it for you.
Generally speaking, negative information such as late or missed payments, accounts that have been sent to collection agencies, accounts not being paid as agreed, or bankruptcies stays on credit reports for approximately seven years.
If the collection has lowered your score by 100 points, getting it deleted should increase your score by 100 points.
