First of all it is important to realize that you are entitled to a free credit report every year from each of the 3 large credit bureaus. These credit reports although not very informative by themselves will provide the basis to knowing what your credit score is and also help you with determining what is the best way to develop your credit repair strategy.

Research into the accuracy of credit reports have indicated that as many as 30% of credit reports have errors in them. These errors are also skewed towards the negative as almost all information in credit reports will only show the negative activities in your management of your finances. It is for this reason that you must obtain your credit report. You must look through your credit report with detail and find any errors that might have taken place. Every error must be reported in writing to the credit bureaus with the supporting documents in order to prove the claim.

Once the errors are reported then the credit reporting bureaus will get back to the financial institutions about the erroneous transaction details and it is investigated there before the relevant information is then forwarded back to the credit bureaus. Most of the time the financial institutions will take up to 30 days to investigate the claim before getting back to the credit bureaus. Once the information is verified to be correct and the dispute closed it is then reported to the three large credit reporting bureaus and correction on the database are made to reflect the new chances. The whole process generally takes up to 3 months to complete.

If however your dispute to have the error corrected fails then you have to option to request to provide a statement regarding the dispute in your credit files. This statement can be in the form of evidence that you may have regarding the affected transaction to back-up your claim or even a written narrative to explain the situation.

With regards to the credit report, it should be noted that all information is kept for a minimum of 7 years. If you have been bankrupt before then the information is kept for 10 years by the credit reporting bureaus. It is for this reason that having a negative mark on your credit score and credit report can be such a damaging thing.

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