If you’re a Michigan consumer who’s working on improving a low credit score, you should be monitoring your credit reports. It’s important to know your credit scores too (yes, you have more than just 1), but remember that this three digit number only represents a snapshot of what’s contained in one of your credit reports. If you want your credit scores to be as high as they should be, you’ll need to frequently check your credit reports over for mistakes. Because credit reports from each of the major credit bureaus are typically different, you’ll need to look at all three in order to catch all inaccuracies. If you find an error on any of your credit reports, you should dispute the item immediately.
When Michigan Consumers should Dispute Items on their Credit Reports
There are unscrupulous credit repair companies in Michigan that will try to get you to dispute every negative item on your credit reports. These disreputable companies make it hard on the good credit repair companies that will tell you the truth about what can and cannot be disputed. Negative information that is valid and current can legally remain on your credit reports until it expires. However, expired items and inaccurate information should be disputed and removed.
Surprisingly, about 80% of consumer credit reports contain errors of some type. Many of these mistakes are unnecessarily bringing down credit scores in Michigan. This is why, if you haven’t looked at your credit reports in a while, you should go to annualcreditreports.com. Here, you can request free copies of your credit reports from TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. You are entitled to do this every 12 months.
If you do find an error or multiple errors on any of your credit reports, you should send written disputes to the appropriate credit bureaus. After a credit bureau receives a credit report dispute from a consumer, it has 30 in which to conduct a reasonable investigation of the claim. If a dispute is found to be valid, the item(s) in question will be removed, and the consumer will receive confirmation of the removal.
Sometimes a credit bureau will deny a dispute on the grounds that a consumer hasn’t provided enough supporting evidence. This is why, even though it’s possible to dispute credit report errors with an online form, it’s better to do it in writing. This way, you’ll have as much room as you need to provide a detailed explanation. You’ll also be able to send along any documents that you have that support your claim. See this short video How to Fix Your Own Credit Report and why You Should NOT Do It Yourself.
If a credit bureau fails to complete an investigation within the 30 day time limit, a disputing consumer can send a follow-up letter demanding that the items(s) be removed immediately. This is because, at this point, the credit bureau in question is in violation of the FCRA if it continues to report the disputed information without conducting a reasonable reinvestigation. Credit bureau violations of the FCRA happen a lot more frequently than you might think. For this reason, you may want to consider getting a FREE credit repair lawyer to assist you with the credit report error disputing process. If you’re a Michigan resident, expert help from an experienced attorney is just a phone call or an email away.
How Michiganders can Get a Free Credit Repair Lawyer
At Credit Repair Lawyers of America, we believe that hardworking Michigan consumers deserve accurate credit reporting, and we have plenty of experience when it comes to working with the credit bureaus.
Don’t let errors on your credit reports bring your credit score down. At Credit Repair Lawyers of America, we’ve been cleaning up credit reports for consumers since 2008 for free. How do we do it? All of our fees come from the defendants in cases that are settled. This is why our clients pay nothing for the work we do.
Let’s start the conversation about what we can do for your credit. Set up your free consultation today by calling Attorney Gary Nitzkin at (248) 353-2882 or contact us on our contact page. You can also visit https://youtu.be/HzPeLWJaUPc for a short video about our firm.
