What is a Dispute or Investigation? Why should I use this to raise my credit score?

What is a Dispute or Investigation

A dispute is where you challenge an entry on your credit report as an error that needs to be corrected. A dispute letter sent certified mail usually does this. But, you can also register a dispute over the phone or online. When you make this dispute, it triggers an investigation of that proposed error.

Why does a dispute or investigation boost your credit score?

You may have heard that "disputing" or "investigating" derogatory items will help boost your credit rating. This is true. There are currently "credit consultants" who charge $700 dollars or more to merely make use of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the law that lets you dispute or investigate your derogatory credit items on your credit report.

You can easily do this process yourself and save the fee. By law, you're able to contact each credit bureau for a credit report. You can get a free one annually online, or by phone (the latter comes in the mail) otherwise there is a fee. If you've been rejected for a credit card or any other loan application you're entitled to a report for free.

Once you see your report, you're then able to get the "confirmation or file number" from each credit report and contact the credit bureaus to dispute any items that you feel are inaccurate, or that you want removed from your record. From the time that you dispute any item on your credit report, the credit bureaus have 30 days to contact your creditors and verify that the items in fact belong to you and are accurate.

The reason this helps your credit score is not only does it clean the inaccurate items from the report, but in many cases even the accurate items drop-off as creditors lose interest in verifying the truth, especially when you've paid and the item is more than a year old. Items such as charge-offs, repossessions, bankruptcies, liens, collections, and other derogatory items can all come off your credit report via the dispute process.

To learn more about a Dispute or Investigation click here.