Well before stumbling upon these boards I made a boo boo I think. I got my credit reports and disputed online with the CRA's, and they came back as verified. I have read now that I should never dispute with the CRA's online but instead via mail. Is it too late to do this, or should I just go straight to the CA's and send them the dispute letters now?
I think the short answer to your question is that you can just start sending your disputes through the mail. I read the same advice regarding disputing online but I don't see the problem with it. I sent a dispute letter to equifax and they refused to investigate because I didn't provide them with enough identifying info. But that's not a problem with disputing online. The other thing is that if you opt in to viewing your results online, you have free access to your credit report the whole time. The reason I thought people were advising against online disputes was because you had to be too specific about what you were disputing and would thereby verify other stuff. But I just say that I'm disputing it for reason "other" and then say there are serious inaccuracies on the report. Seems like the same thing to me. Or maybe the issue is that it gives them 45 days to investigate instead of 30. I'd appreciate somebody clearing this up for me as well.
A big issue is that you have no paper trail if you dispute online. If you send letters (preferably certified return receipt requested) then you have proof of the dispute. If it never comes down to going to court (or threatening to) it's not as important.
Per the norm, Hedwig hits the nail on the head. In addition, you can dispute some many more data fields in writing as opposed to the tiny little boxes online or the 100 characters or so of text they allow for "other."
