What other document can influence whether you get a new car loan, a credit card, a job, a rental apartment, or a home mortgage? Or reveal potential identity theft attempts? Credit reports are commonly used for all these purposes. That may be enough to prompt you to review reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—the nation’s three major credit reporting agencies—and dispute credit report information that isn’t current, accurate, or complete.

In a one-of-a-kind 2012 study, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) selected 1,001 Americans at random and asked them to review and dispute credit report information that they felt was wrong.

Here’s what happened¹:

• 26% of total participants (262 people) identified one or more errors and disputed their credit reports
• 21% (of total participants) had changes to a credit report based on their dispute
• 13% saw their credit score change as a result
• 5% saw their credit score increase enough to improve their credit risk level by one tier

That last statistic is perhaps most important. As the FTC report notes, the credit report disputes by those 5% resulted in enough improvement to get them better loan terms should they seek one, including a lower interest rate.

The government and the credit reporting industry recognize how important, and how error-prone, credit reports are, so fair credit laws make it relatively easy to dispute your credit report. Relatively. Here are the main steps, discussed in more detail below:

• Step 1: Get a copy of your credit report and review your credit report for errors.
• Step 2: Write a dispute letter or fill out an online form for each error you uncover.
• Step 3: Collect documents that support your dispute claims.
• Step 4: File your dispute through online forms, telephone, or postal mail (certified/return receipt).
• Step 5: Allow 30 days or less to get back the results of the dispute investigation.
  

The three credit reporting agencies offer both in-common and unique dispute services, tools, and advice. Each bureau’s site explains its error-dispute processes, including:

• Information to include in your dispute letter
• What supporting documentation to include
• How to file your completed dispute package
• How to find updates as your dispute progresses 
  

The agencies urge online filing for more rapid resolution. Each bureau offers information for postal mail and telephone-based filings as well. You can begin the dispute process by obtaining a copy of your credit report from each bureau at annualcreditreport.com, a site established by law and overseen by the three agencies. If you detect errors, experts recommend marking them on the report, which you will copy and include in your credit report dispute package.

Equifax’s site offers a comprehensive list and examples of documents that could help support your case, including personal information, account-related information, and “other.”² The examples include:

• Driver’s license
• Birth certificate
• Utility bill
• Current bank statements
• Letters from a lender that support your dispute
• Proof of identity theft related to a specific account
• Cancelled checks
• Student loan disability letters
• Bankruptcy schedules or other court documents
  

These materials, together with your dispute letter stating the facts and requesting corrections or deletions (several examples are available online), are your dispute package.

You can file credit report disputes with one or multiple bureaus, depending on where you’ve found inaccuracies. Experian’s Dispute Center, for example, offers interactive tools to make reports from workstations or smartphones.³ With postal mail, experts recommend certified mail with return receipt, to assure delivery. And, it’s a good idea to record dates and all communications, whatever filing method used.⁴

Once you file your dispute, credit reporting agencies must tell information provider(s) about it. Information providers (banks, credit card issuers, etc.) are required to verify the data in question—or, if it’s found inaccurate, they must inform all three bureaus and have the data corrected or deleted. The credit bureaus’ sites offer you links to check on the status of a dispute, and FAQs that describe possible outcomes and next steps.

Once a dispute investigation is complete, credit bureaus are required to inform you of the results in writing and provide a new free report if there are changes. Further, the bureau must provide information on the “data furnisher” involved. “Data furnisher” is the legal term for any entity that provides information to a credit reporting agency. You can request that the bureau notify anyone who received your report over the last six months.

If you are unsatisfied with the results, you can:

• Refile your dispute, potentially with additional documentation.
• File a “statement of dispute,” about 100 words, that will be affixed to your file and any future reports. You can ask the bureau to get the statement to entities that recently obtained your report. A fee may be involved.⁵

In addition to errors, like inaccurate bill payment data, accounts belonging to someone else, or outdated account balances, credit reports may show several “hard inquiries,” or requests for full reports, including from sources you don’t know. Experts say unauthorized hard inquiries could be report errors or could signal potential identity theft. Importantly, too many hard inquiries can hurt credit and decrease your score. So, experts recommend you dispute any hard inquiries that you don’t recognize.⁶

TransUnion’s FAQ puts it this way: “Don’t worry, there’s no impact to your credit score because you start a dispute. However, if your dispute results in items being changed or removed from your credit report, your score may change due to that.”⁷ This could be a positive change for you, of course, or negative.

Because inaccurate credit reports can potentially harm you financially, it’s worth knowing all your dispute-related rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the federal statute that regulates credit reporting and safeguards consumers. The law stipulates your right to:

• One free annual credit report that contains all information on file at the time of your request from each of the three credit bureaus.
• Know who received your credit report in the past year (or two years if it was for employment purposes).
• Dispute a report with the credit bureau and with the company that furnished the information to the bureau. Both the credit bureau and the information supplier are legally obligated to investigate your dispute.
• Another free credit report should an application for a loan, credit card, etc., be denied because of information in your credit report. Should you choose to dispute the credit report, you must do so within 60 days of that denial.
• Add your own explanatory note to your credit report if your dispute is not resolved to your satisfaction.⁸