In 1970 the Fair Credit Reporting Act or the FCRA was enacted. This law gives consumers the right to dispute any item showing on their credit report that may be inaccurate, incomplete, untimely, misleading, unverifiable, biased, ambiguous or unclear. This includes foreclosures, charge-offs and bankruptcies.
The fact is that incorrect credit such as phony identities; erroneous balances, untimely listing, overly ambiguous listings and more are very common on credit reports. It is estimated that as many as 75% of all credit reports contain mistakes. You can dispute anything that shows up on your credit report for any reason if you feel that it is not quite truthful. The creditor and credit bureau will then have a certain amount of time to verify the accurateness of the listing. If it cannot be verified within the time frame then it must be removed from the account.
The FCRA gives you the rights to credit repair however; it does not give you the right to “debt repair”. You do not have the right to remove legitimate and correct debt that is showing on your report. If you owe a legitimate debt you are legally responsible for it until it is paid off. You cannot legally use credit repair to evade a genuine debt.
There are critics of credit repair that tend to fail to differentiate the two issues. Debt repair is not legitimate and it is not legal. Then again, credit repair is a effective and legitimate service that many people can benefit from.
You do not have the right to doubt an honest, reliable and correct listing on your credit report. However, if the listing is ambiguous or ambiguous, unverifiable or unfair, or even outdated you have the right to issue a dispute. But you cannot just get rid of valid debt because you have a right to credit repair.
If you have undue debt that there are a couple of legitimate things that you can do. You can pay it down or pay it off. You can merge all of your debts into one, fixed-rate loan or you can work with your creditors to see if they will allow you to settle your debt, which will relieve you of the debt but will also damage your credit.
But credit repair cannot be used to get out of paying a legal debt. Credit repair is for inaccurate credit but it cannot legally be used for debt repair. However, do not let this dissuade you from taking benefit of your rights to credit repair. If you have damaging or wrong credit you have the right to try to get it removed.
You can issue disputes and do credit repair on your own or you can use a legitimate credit repair business. There are a few superior companies that operate within full compliance of the law. These companies offer a useful and beneficial service that can help you clean up your credit if you have listings that are inaccurate, misleading, incomplete, biased, or ambiguous.
