Did Collections get it wrong? Learn about your legal rights…
Federal law protects you from a collections department reporting inaccurate or unsupported items on your credit report.
If a company becomes aware that they reported incorrect information to a credit bureau (like Experian, Equifax, or TransUnion) they must inform the credit bureau.
If you think that a collections department should remove a negative item from your credit report, here’s how to request it:
Under federal regulations, you can dispute your credit report directly with the original company. To submit the dispute, send a letter containing your identifying information (account numbers are best), a description of the dispute, and any supporting evidence to the collections department at the address they provide on your credit report (if any), or the notice address provided in your contract.
Send your letter by certified mail so you can prove that they received it. In most cases, the company has 30 days from receiving your letter to finish a reasonable investigation and send you the results. If they agree that you’re right, then they have to notify the credit bureaus to delete the information!
If you don’t trust the company to fix your issue on their own, federal law also requires the credit bureaus to investigate information reported as inaccurate. The credit bureaus will investigate your collections dispute by reporting it to the original company, so reporting to the collections department and the credit bureaus will increase your odds of getting results.
To report the dispute to the credit bureaus, use the following links: TransUnion customer service click here, Experian customer service dispute click here, and Equifax customer service dispute click here. In most cases, the credit bureaus are responsible for sending you an outcome to their investigation within 30 days of your submission.
If the company’s collections department and the credit bureaus refuse to correct the issue, you can continue to dispute the issue by filing a consumer arbitration against the and contesting the negative information in a hearing.
You can start an arbitration claim through FairShake here.
If you do not receive the result of a company collections investigation within 30 days of informing the company, you may be entitled to up to $1000 in damages under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
If you think you have a credit reporting claim against a company, you can file a consumer arbitration to enforce your rights through FairShake.
Get justice when a business lets you down:
FairShake’s Ultimate Guide to Consumer Complaints
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