but I want to make sure I'm doing this right. Here's my deal. I have 7 negative accounts on my report. Five of them have been settled. They are reported as "pays as agreed" but they all have notes that a "settlement has been accepted on this account" in addition to showing the 180 day delinquencies and the fact that the account was closed by the credit grantor. Two accounts have not been settled yet, but I'd like to get started on the other ones if I can. So here are my questions: 1. Do I need to send a dispute letter to the creditor in addition to the reporting agencies? Or just to the reporting agencies. It doesn't make sense that I would send a verification of the debt letter to a creditor that already has been paid. Shouldn't I just sent it to the CRA's? 2. Should I dispute the same account to all the CRA's at the same time. This makes intuitive sense to me but I wanted to make sure. 3. Is there any special rule for which ones I should be disputing first? Should I go for bigger or smaller paid balances first or does that not matter? Should I pay attention to when the account was opened or the date the first major delinquency was reported? 5. Is there anything that can be done about accounts where there was NO delinquency or balance but were closed by the credit grantor after they noticed the rest of my credit was tanking? They are not reflected as "negative accounts" (at least on the equifax report I got), but those hurt your score as well, right? Thanks everybody for all the great advice I've already gotten...
1) No. IMHO, if you want to get them removed from your credit report, send them to the CRAs. The CRAs will contact the CAs requesting documentation. If the CA can't produce within 30 days, it gets stricken from your credit report. At least, this is how it works in theory. (also, it's not that disputing with the CAs *can't possibly* remove it from your credit report, it's just that if it's past the 30-day mark after initial contact, they're under no obligation to help you) 2) Yes. 3) I don't think so. The system is automated, and a computer doesn't care whether you're disputing all or one. Therefore, IMHO, dispute all the entries at once. Also, do not provide them any additional information. Start big and work down. Just say "The following entries on my credit report are invalid. Please remove them immediately." 5) (did you skip #4?) I don't think you want these removed from your account if they're not showing as negative. I've done my CRA disputes online with great success. They will try to pressure you into giving more information; don't do this. Just dispute. If they require you to insert data into a field, try to make it vague like "n/a" or "unknown". Also, all of this is IMHO. Other people will have different opinions and experiences, YMMV, etc. The one thing you can be sure of is that there are no guarantees. The credit reporting system is badly broken, and sometimes doing the exact same thing twice will yield wildly different results.
