Dispute Process

Hi Marcy,
I am in the process of disputing items on my credit report as well. I first started off disputing items on my credit report before I sent a debt validation letter to any collection agency. Because, the credit bureaus have 30 days to respond by law. collection agencies on the other hand can take their sweet time when you send them a debt validation letter. However, in any debt validation letter, I would say that they have 30 days to respond otherwise the debt would not be considered valid. You should be sending validation requests to the collection agency AND the credit bureaus at the same time. The credit bureau will then send an inquiry to the collection agency that is being reported on your credit report to verify the account. So if the credit bureau doesn't respond within 30 days, it has to come off your report. Also, by law the credit bureau is supposed to tell you how you can contact the collection agency and what information was provided to them from the collection agency if you request it. Now if the credit bureau comes back and says the account is verified and the collection agency has not responded, you have proof that of further collection activity from the collection agency which is a violation of the fdcpa. Because further collection activity on a debt that you requested to be validated and it has not been validated is a violation. I would then re-contact the credit bureaus and tell them that the collection agency did not validate the debt and of course send them proof. That????????s when I would request from the credit bureau their method of verification as I mentioned above. Credit bureaus may say that kind of request has to come from the creditor but that is not true. And any such request that they don????????t honor could be a violation called ???????willful non-compliance??????? under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. They have to be able to provide reasonable information as to how they validated the debt especially since the collection agency did not provide you with any information.
I disputed my items online instead of writing letters to all 3 bureaus. It was quicker and it can be easily verified as if I had sent the bureaus certified letters. The online method uses drop down menus and choices. It also has an entry for "other" where you can fill in a comment.
For reasons, I would put "Not my account". Don't just select verify because all the collection agency does then is just send a quick one page form with your name on it to the credit bureaus that says "Yep, that person has an account here". If you select "not my account", then someone at the collection agency has to physically look up your account and all that good information to verify that it is your account.
Again, keep in mind that collection agencies cannot collect while a debt is being validated.
As for disputing items such as your charge off or any other collection agency that has been paid, yes you can dispute those items. You can dispute ANY item on your credit report whether or not it is valid. There are a host of ethical reasons that you may have to ponder if you decide to dispute accurate items though. That will be a personal choice and I have my own opinions that are probably not in the mainstream of everyone else. I started a whole forum discussion on that very issue. You can read it in Credit Repair and SOL http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/collection-agencies/sol-discussed.html
Anyway, good luck and we are all here to help. I know I????????ve thrown a lot at you but it????????s a long battle that you have to be constantly on top of.

Outlaw, great post. Thanks for sharing your experience. I see you took a long time in writing this one. :)

marcyredcross, follow the advice given above. If you still have any queries, post it right here.