Disputing mistakes on your credit report.
15 U.S.C. § 1679e
You can cancel any credit repair contract, for any reason and without penalty, until midnight of the third business day after you sign it. The company must give you a "Notice of Cancellation" form in duplicate and may not start work during those 3 days. Some states give you 5 days.
Read this right15 U.S.C. § 1679b(b)
Federal law bans credit repair companies from charging or taking any money for a service before that service is fully performed. A company that bills you up front, charges a "setup" or "first work" fee, or charges a monthly fee for work it has not done yet is breaking the law.
Read this right15 U.S.C. § 1679c
Before you sign, a credit repair company must give you a separate written statement titled "Consumer Credit File Rights Under State and Federal Law." No service can be provided without a signed, dated written contract stating the total cost, a detailed description of the services, any guarantees, how long it will take, the company's address, and a bold cancellation notice next to your signature. Any waiver of these rights is void.
Read this right15 U.S.C. § 1681n
A credit bureau or a company that reports to one that willfully breaks the FCRA owes your actual damages or statutory damages of $100 to $1,000, possible punitive damages, and your costs and attorney's fees. A negligent violation owes actual damages and fees. The claim must be filed within 2 years of discovering the violation and no more than 5 years after it.
Read this right15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(a)(5)(A)
A company that reports an account placed for collection or charged off must tell the credit bureau the month and year the delinquency began, within 90 days. That date sets when the item must come off your report, and it does not change when the debt is sold.
Read this right15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(1)(A)
If your credit report has something wrong or incomplete — like a payment reported late that you made on time — you can dispute it with the credit bureau for free. The bureau must investigate, usually within 30 days, and fix or delete information it cannot verify.
Read this right15 U.S.C. § 1681c-1(a)
If you suspect in good faith that you are, or are about to become, a victim of fraud or identity theft, you can ask one nationwide bureau to place a fraud alert for at least 1 year; it must pass the alert to the other two. Identity theft victims with an identity theft report can get an extended alert for 7 years. Either alert also entitles you to free copies of your file.
Read this right15 U.S.C. § 1681j(a)(1)(a)(1)(A)–(B)
By law, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion must each give you a free copy of your file once every 12 months when you ask through the official central source, AnnualCreditReport.com. The three bureaus have also made free weekly reports permanent on that site. Other sites may charge you or be scams.
Read this right15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b)(1)
The company that reported the information — such as your servicer — must investigate when a credit bureau passes along your dispute, and fix what is wrong with every bureau. In many cases you can also dispute directly with that company, which must then investigate and report back to you.
Read this right15 U.S.C. § 1681c-2(a)
If identity theft put accounts or debts on your report, the credit bureau must block that information within 4 business days after you send proof of identity, a copy of an identity theft report, the items to block, and a statement that they are not yours. The bureau must tell the furnisher. It can refuse or undo a block only in limited cases, such as error or misrepresentation.
Read this right15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b)
A credit bureau must follow reasonable procedures to make the information in your report as accurate as possible. An account reported with the wrong balance, status or dates, or mixed in from someone else's file, can be a sign those procedures failed. You can dispute it.
Read this right15 U.S.C. § 1681m(a)
If a lender, landlord, insurer or employer takes adverse action against you based even partly on a credit report, it must tell you, name the bureau that supplied the report, disclose any credit score it used, say the bureau did not make the decision, and tell you about your right to a free report within 60 days and to dispute errors.
Read this right15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(a)(1), (4), (5)
Credit bureaus may not report collection accounts, charge-offs and most other negative items that are more than 7 years old. For a collection or charge-off, the 7 years start 180 days after the delinquency that led to it began — so, about 7½ years from the first missed payment that was never brought current. Paying, settling or re-selling the debt does not restart this clock. Bankruptcies can be reported for 10 years.
Read this right15 U.S.C. § 1681b(f)
No one may get or use your credit report unless the law gives them a permitted purpose, such as a credit application you made, an account you have, or your written permission. A hard inquiry you do not recognise may have had no permitted purpose, and you can dispute it.
Read this right12 C.F.R. § 1006.30(a)
A debt collector may not report a debt to a credit bureau until it has first spoken with you about the debt, or mailed or electronically sent you a message about it and waited a reasonable time to learn whether it was undeliverable. This stops "passive" collection, where the first you hear of a debt is on your credit report.
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