Dispute Letters
The official government website is located at www.AnnualCreditReport.com. You will receive a free credit report but will not receive your credit scores.
Dispute letters do not have to be complicated or long winded. Matter of fact the simpler they are the better. You do however, need to provide all the information about the item that you are disputing.
Here is a sample dispute letter that would be used to get an account updated after a payment has been made.
DATE: _____________
CREDIT BUREAU
Address
SUBJECT: Your Name
Your Address
Your Social Security Number
Your Date of Birth
Customer Service:
I have paid in full the following account:
Sears/124567890 Amount: $400.00
Please find enclosed a letter from this creditor referencing this payment. Please make all
updates to my account as specified in this letter.
Please mail me a copy of my credit report to the above address as soon as this information has
been investigated and corrected.
Thank you,
Signature
Your Name Printed or Typed
When you review your credit report you will see a code like (TU, EF, XP) along side each credit item which indicates which of the credit bureaus is showing this item in your credit history file with them.
You will need to send your dispute letter to each bureau that is reporting that credit item.
If you have a receipt for the payment, then attach a copy of it to your dispute letter.
Recently the bureaus have been asking for proof of identity before they will process some dispute letters. So you may want to send a copy of your drivers license in with your dispute letter.
If you have multiple items to dispute, I would send a separate letter for each item. If your letter only has one item that can be processed quickly by the receipient then it is not likely to be set aside for later processing and your request may get handled faster.
There are many different kinds of dispute letters but the jest of each is to clearly state the information about the item that you are disputing, giving creditor name, account number for the item showing on your credit report and any amounts associated with the item.
For additional tips concerning obtaining your credit report and how to improve your FICA scores visit How Do I Improve My Credit Score . This product will also give you a number of other sample dispute letters along with the different supporting documents that you will need to attach to your letter.
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