The next step is to take stock of your progress on the items you have submitted for dispute to each credit bureau. The result of each item’s dispute will dictate what you do next. Basically, you will get one of the following results from your itemized disputes:

1. The item(s) you are disputing was not mentioned in the original dispute letter, or the description of the item and reason for dispute requires further clarification from you. In this case, once you respond with more info, the 30 day clock starts all over again.
2. The disputed item was verified and proven to be accurate. In this case, you move to the next phase of your plan, which I will explain in a minute.
3. The disputed item was not verifiable in time, or at all. IN this case, the item will be changed to positive status, corrected, or removed from the report altogether.

Obviously, the last outcome is what you are hoping for. If the item comes back as verified, I recommend next doing what is called a “Method of Verification” request. This is where the credit bureau has to respond to you within 15 days and explain to you the method they used to verify the negative item on your report. This is when you will get a letter from them stating that they used their software program eOscar to verify your item electronically.

eOscar is a bad way to verify because the clerk entering in your info just puts in a code to classify your dispute. This makes the dispute very generic, and can help you in a court case if you need to go to court to remove the negative items. Because of this non-personal way of verifying info, this tells us that they never contacted the information source, which is called the ‘Original Creditor’. This is good, this means that you can now contact the OC and ask them to investigate the item, stating that it is not valid.

The OC is under no obligation to verify the item for you, so don’t use the word verification , you just say investigation.  This way they have to respond to you, as stated in the FACT act of 2003. Send the original creditor a letter requesting that they provide you with documentation that the account is yours and the debt is yours. Never admit to anything. The truth is, if the account is a couple years old, they probably won’t have any original records. Then they will have to report to the OC that the account is not a valid item.

Wait for their response for a couple weeks, then if they don’t respond, send a more threatening letter, stating that you will sue them if they don’t prove it is yours or remove it. This method has worked many many times, so it is worth the effort.

Be sure to check back often for the third step in the credit repair process.

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Two of the biggest mistakes that people new to credit repair make are 1) not disputing the items on their credit report to the credit bureau’s first (this is a biggie) and 2) not using Certified Mail, Return Receipt when sending correspondence to anyone related to their credit repair efforts.

If you don’t send the mail via CMRR, you have no way of proving (in court, or to the credit bureau) if and when you sent anything, and if and when the receiver received it. I guess you can just rely on them to tell the truth right? Wrong, don’t count on anyone’s honesty, you will be let down a lot. Cover your butt when it comes to credit repair, don’t give them the chance to take the path of least resistance, because they will, you can be sure of that.

Don’t know how to send a Certified Letter? Go here. 

Don’t know how to send it Return Receipt? Go here.

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A credit inquiry is when a third party, such as a mortgage company or a credit card company, requests a copy of your credit report and/or credit score from any of the three credit bureaus. In fact, they are “inquiring” about your credit worthiness.

Do these inquiries negatively affect your credit report/score? That depends. An occasional inquiry for things like a car, house, or education will not be held against you when determining credit risk.  The ones that can negatively affect you are the inquiries for new credit cards or lines of credit. These typically deduct 5 points from your credit score for each inquiry of this type. The ones listed will usually be only recent ones, within a year or so.

Now, if you have several credit card inquiries in a short amount of time, then that will definitely lower your credit score. Multiple clustered inquiries for credit cards put you in a high risk category for the lender. They will wonder why you are scrambling to get a bunch of spending credit in a short amount of time, and will make their decision accordingly. Other credit inquiries that get clustered, such as an automobile loan, are not held against you. To them it just looks like you are shopping around for the best deal on a car you can get, and every place you go they have to run your credit score/report.

Other companies can request a copy of your credit report without you even knowing, unless you have a security freeze on the account. Usually, debt collection agencies will check your credit report periodically so they can stay up to date on all of your past debts and new ones, as well as any updated personal information. They are not required, by law, to inform you that they will be checking your credit.

If you have multiple inquiries on your credit report, you should write to the credit bureau and request that they be removed because you never gave permission to any of the people listed. You will almost always get some of them removed, and the rest will remain, but it is worth the effort. Building and/or fixing your credit is like saving pennies. Each penny by itself is not worth much, but as time passes, the pennies will eventually add up to a large amount of money. Every small step you take will only add to your overall score.

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