90 day between disputes question

I have disputed multiple items in a single submission. I also use the web form and have had no trouble at all.

 

I read somewhere that this is an OLD rule-of-thumb that you can ignore now. When I did my own (meaning my girlfriend's reports because mine were blank) I didn't wait 30 days. I just waited for each dispute to be settled before moving on. Here was my gameplan:

1) Personal info (bad names, old addresses, wrong DOB). I did this online.

2) Without waiting for a turnaround on that (as a matter of fact, the same day), I started disputing late pays by CMRRR. There are two schools of thought on this--whether to tackle the big things (chargoffs, collections) first or to start with the small stuff (late pays, etc). I was a chickenshit at the time so I started small. I did two TLs at a time on all three bureaus. Most came off, a few didn't. The ones that didn't I hit with Good Will letters. All came off except one late pay on a closed card. I didn't want to dispute that because disputing a closed account sometimes erases the whole TL and in this case, the length of credit was more important to me than the one late pay.

3) After I got what I wanted on my last round of two-TLs-at-a-time disputing (and well before waiting 90 days) I moved on to step three in my own personal plan of attack (fact is, it really will vary for everyone so you have to have this plan...ON PAPER...that you draw up for yourself, before you even start.) This was a collection account from an old Verizon cell phone bill. Lots of letters but guess what? It worked and I got it removed. I focused on this one item without touching anything else on the account because I didn't want to spread myself too thin. In other words, I could have disputed this collection and my next item at the same time but since most of the process is reading and asking questions here on the board (typing and mailing the letters is the easy part) I didn't want to put myself in a position where I'd be overwhelmed by research. Anyway, eventually--GONE.

4) I tackled a chargeoff for Verizon home service. Funny thing is, the charged off account# was the account we were using at the time--in other words it was an account that we paid every month like a green grocer, never late and never should have been charged off. But here was this item for $71 unpaid which, if it were the case, I would not have a dialtone. Anyway I had to do some work but it surprisingly came off pretty easy once I got through to the right people. The good thing about big bureaucracies like Verizon is that they sometimes don't bother (but if they do, watch out).

4 1/2) This has nothing to do with credit repair but I cancelled Verizon since they are asses. Incidentally, there's a thread I started 3 days ago about ANOTHER Verizon charge which just appeared for a phone in Massachusetts that is not hers. I think they are trying to get revenge for me beating them in steps 2 and 3. Anyway, my cable internet is 5x faster and Vonage is SO MUCH cheaper with SO MANY more features than Verizon. I hope they disappear into the annals of American history someday.

5) Once that was done (and with no waiting period) I started hitting up the inquiries. Some fell off, some didn't. It wasn't a big deal about those that didn't. She had gone from 650ish to 720ish in about four or five months. It wasn't the magic "100-point-bump" that I had it envisioned but it did cross the Good to Excellent threshold. A few months later she finished paying off her credit card debt (that was the job I gave her in this whole credit repair battle) and she hit 765. That's a 115 point bump...CreditNet rocks.

 

No, I think the advice was what it was when first posted. The old common wisdom was to not bother the CRAs too frequently or you'd get red-flagged as attempting credit repair rather than just correcting bad information. But nowadays you can dispute multiple items on each dispute and move on from item to item before 90 days.

Here's how I fixed my girlfriend (with lots of advice from this board):

Don't dispute different "categories" of information on each dispute letter 'cause it's easy to lose track. In other words, if your first letter is going to be disputing personal information, it's okay to dispute bad names, addresses, DOBs all on the same letter but don't dispute bad personal information AND misreported late pays. Wait for all the items in your first "category" (personal information) to be fixed, then move on to the late pay (or multiple late pays). Once those are all resolved whether by coming off or you begging via a Good Will Letter, move on to something like collections or chargeoffs. I wouldn't do something "big" like collections or chargeoffs by category since if you have three collections, for example, and they all come back verified, you don't want to be fighting three collection companies at the same time. So dispute one collection. If it doesn't fall off, fight the CA. When resolved (or not) move on to collection #2, fight the CA, etc. After I went through all of that I did all my girlfriends' inquiries by "category" again. I sent a final letter to the CRAs disputing ALL OF THEM. Most came off.

To summarize: I ignored that old 90-day-between-dispute rule and it worked. I think that's outdated. And I also did multiple items per dispute (as sparq did) but I tried to keep them within the same "category" so I could easily keep track of what aspect of my girlfriends reports I was working on at any given time. If you have a lot to fix, or if you are fighting multiple items that are really yours, I'd be careful in wording your letters to the CRAs since they still do throw up that red flag. Try not to sound too canned. Your first letter should read something like, "I just got a copy of my report and I've noticed that you have multiple bad addresses and one misspelling of my name..." Then your next one should be something like, "Thanks for correcting my personal information. Since my first letter I've figured out what all the codes mean on your report and I see that I was reported 30 days late on XXX, XXX and XXX. But I know I never was since I use autopay through my bank..." In other words, get the point across as to what you want corrected but each time you contact the CRAs, make it sound like a natural progression in your correction of your report. Don't hammer them with boilerplate disputes that key them into the fact that you're attempting repair.