Credit repair efforts are best focused on areas of maximum legal leverage. If you have discovered an error on your credit report it is best addressed through the credit bureaus, as they are required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to process your credit repair dispute. Of interest is the fact that the FCRA assigns responsibility to creditors to investigate reporting errors when requested by consumers, much in the same way that the credit bureaus must. Unfortunately, in practice this is almost always a fruitless credit report repair strategy. Unlike the credit bureaus that have significant resources assigned to the dispute process, creditors will often ignore these requests. But there are cases where the creditor should be contacted.
When You Should Contact the Creditor
If you have clear documentation proving that the derogatory information on your credit report is in error you should contact the creditor to discuss. Examples include cancelled checks showing that payments were made on time, or proof that debts have been fully satisfied when they still report with balances. Providing your documentation should produce quick credit repair results. Your documented dispute could be similarly processed thought the bureaus, but going right to the source can insure a quick result.
The Final Credit Repair Effort
Another case where you should contact the creditor is if your credit bureau dispute efforts have not succeeded. Although, as mentioned, creditors are not entirely amenable to processing demands for investigation, if you have not gotten satisfaction through the bureaus, now is the time to draft a carefully crafted letter to the creditor asking them to examine your case in detail. You should also contact them on the telephone in advance and ask for the correct department or person to address your request. As always, if you need help, just call us!