When you’ve got negative credit accounts popping up all over your credit report, you’re going to want to do all you can to get it taken care of, either on your own or via credit repair services – especially if you believe the information reported is inaccurate.
Luckily, the credit bureaus understand that not all of the information they report is always 100% truth, so they each give you the option to dispute any credit account you think looks wrong via regular mail.
All 3 have since expanded their dispute departments to cover requests being made online, so you don’t even have to worry about your queries getting lost in the mail, or having to wait longer than a month for a response. Simply sign onto the appropriate credit bureau’s website, check off which accounts you want disputed, leave an explanation for why you’re disputing the account (if you want to) and you’re done.
Simple, right? It is, and that’s why I recommend you should steer clear of them.
You see, my problem with keeping your disputes online only is that the process is so overly simplified that it almost completely cuts out the follow-up options you normally have available to you had you sent your disputes via regular mail. My problems with the online-only approach don’t stop there; Ialso recommend you keep your disputes to regular, certified mail because:
You don’t get a copy of the dispute.
Again, the credit bureaus’ online dispute page simply consists of you disputing an account, leaving a note on why you’re disputing it, and pushing Submit. Once that’s done, you’re given no physical copy of the disputes for your records – something that can be easily avoided by sending the disputes via certified mail, and keeping copies for yourself.
You give up some of your rights by disputing online
Yup, you read that right, and it’s the main reason I recommend sticking to snail mail for your disputes. If you take the time to read the Terms & Conditions of using the credit bureau’s online dispute service, you’ll see that by doing so, you’re entering into a binding arbitrary agreement with the credit bureaus that prevents you from taking them to court over your disputes.
If it comes down to it, you don’t want to give up your right to take the credit bureaus to court should they persist in reporting information that you know is inaccurate