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The Credit System (Part 2)
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May be represented by anyone of your choice at the credit bureau.
May dispute any information on the credit report that you feel is listed incorrectly. The credit bureau must re-investigate the information and within a reasonable time, verify the information. A reasonable time has been construed to be 20 working days by some credit bureaus.
May have derogatory information such as late payments and judgments taken off the credit report within 7 years. Bankruptcies will come off in 10 years.
May place a 100-word consumer statement in your file to tell your side of any derogatory information.
May have the credit bureau notify those you name (at no cost to you) who have previously received incorrect or incomplete information on you and provide them with the corrected credit report.
May have your credit report withheld from anyone, who under the law, does not have a legitimate need for the report.
May sue the credit bureau if it willfully or negligently violates the law.
Consumer RightsThe FCRA grants you a number of important rights, including: The right to know what ..... The above nine items just list a few of your consumer rights.
The Federal Trade Commission
The federal Trade Commission is responsible for correcting any credit report problem which a consumer has not been able to correct through the credit bureau.
Good Credit RatingLearning How To Get Connected With Good Credit: Obtaining credit can be incredibly easy or extremely ..... FTC Headquarters
Federal Trade Commission
Pennsylvania Avenue & 6th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20580
(202) 523-3830
California : 450 Golden Gate Ave., San Francisco, CA 94102
California : 11000 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027
New York : 26 Federal Plz., New York, NY 10278
Texas : 8303 Elmbrook Dr., Dallas, TX 75274
Illinois : 55 E. Monroe St., Chicago, IL 60603
Ohio : 668 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH 44114
Washington : 915 Second Ave., Seattle, WA 98174
Colorado : 1405 Curtis St., Denver, CO 80201
Scoring For CreditFTC, October 1993 How does a creditor decide whether to lend you money for such things as .....
Georgia : 1718 Peachtree St., Atlanta, GA 30367
Massachusetts : 150 Causeway St., Boston, MA 02114
Free Government GrantsAnyone thinking about going into business for themselves, or wanting to expand an existing .....
If you feel there is a violation of your credit report, you may write to the nearest FTC office with a copy of it going to the FTC, Washington, D.C. office.
Don't expect the FTC to take an active interest in your case. They are there to monitor the credit bureau and only to take an active interest in the problem if there are many complaints about the same problem. If you have written the FTC, continue working to correct or restore your credit during this time.
Analyzing And Disputing - The Repair Process
Disputing information on your credit report...
This method is for direct correspondence with the credit bureau. If you find anything inaccurate, incomplete, incorrect, or obsolete, you have the right to dispute that item on your credit report.
The credit bureau then has a reasonable time to contact the creditor and have them verify the disputed item. A reasonable amount of time under the Federal Law has been construed to be 20 working days. However, you need to understand that with this type of transaction, it could take from four to eight weeks to receive your reply back. Technically, if the credit bureau does not respond back within 30 days, the incorrect or inaccurate item must be removed. If, after the credit bureau investigates the item and the information is found to be inaccurate or no longer can be verified, the credit bureau must delete the item in question.
It should be noted that when a negative item is more than two or three years old, many creditors will not respond to the credit bureau because of lack of records. Therefore, by law, the bureau should remove the item from your report. Since most creditors do not have the space to retain records for a long period of time, there may not be any documentation about your payment history.
Understand also that the creditor does not have to provide documentation to the bureau of the disputed item. They simply check various boxes on the statement as to whether you were late, paid on time, etc.
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