Following Up and Keeping Track

If you are fortunate and have some good luck, all of the items you
disputed will have been corrected and your new reports sent out to you
within 30 days. It's more likely that one or two of the agencies have
challenged your disputes and/or that you haven't heard back from them.

For the agency that did change your report, or remove items from your
report, great! Now you need to send another dispute letter to that
same agency to deal with any of the remaining items that you didn't
dispute the first time. Same procedure, keep copies of everything
send off the new dispute return receipt post and hope for the best.

If your dispute was challenged by the agency as frivolous, you will
want to send out a second dispute letter making note of the original
dispute, it's date, and perhaps a reminder of the law under the FCRA.

It is up to you to convince the agency that your dispute is genuine
and not the result of a 'dispute mill' or a service that basically
challenges everything on the report.

Again, personalizing the letter will help the agency see your dispute
as the honest effort of an abused consumer to correct a harmful
error.

There are numerous ways to overcome the objections of the agency's
review. Use your imagination to add to the possible responses you can
provide to support your claim.

I have seen six or seven standard responses to dispute letters from the
three agencies. The most common response is the claim that the dis-
pute is either unjustified, dishonest or frivolous. Sometimes they will
answer with a stalling tactic by asking for more specific information.
Whatever the response to your dispute, there are many ways to reply
and hold them accountable for verifying the item under dispute.

While you are waiting for the initial response to your first disputes
it is a good time to get organized so that when the responses come you
will be able to track each dispute and respond accordingly.

Start with three file folders. Mark each one with the name of a dif-
ferent reporting agency; Experian, Equifax, Transuniuon (EXP,EQX, TRU).
Always keep a clean unmarked copy of your report from the specific
agency in the file, ex.: TRU file folder holds the TRU report.

For every piece of paper that relates or applies to a specific agency,
keep a copy of it in that agency's folder. Copy everything! You
should still have 2 copies of the credit reports from each agency, one
which you've made notes on and one that is clean. Copy each dispute
letter for the folder and save the postal return receipts in the proper
folders. Make a copy of every response letter you receive. Copy,
Copy, Copy. You may need some of this stuff later.

One of the things that you are doing by tracking and copying everything
is building a case. It's awfully hard for the agencies to keep up with
all the disputes coming through their offices. Those of us who keep
really good track of the process can prove when they've fallen behind
and are subject to regulatory requirements. It's at this point when
our work pays off since you may be able to force the removal of items
when the agencies have fallen behind on reasonable timeliness of
response.

Think about the ways you might personalize the many dispute letter
templates available so that your dispute appears credible and original.