Finding out your identity has been stolen is tough. You'll face anger and shame that the crime even happened to you. But worse than that will be the frustrations you encounter as you're trying to clean up the mess.
Since Id Theft tends to start as a financial crime in most cases, the most important part of clearing up the damage is fixing credit complain terrors or unauthorized charges and accounts opened in your name. The key to cleaning up your credit complaint is to move quickly and be patient. The faster you catch and dispute errors, the easier it will be to clean them up. Just understand that even when errors are caught early, disputing a credit complaint entry will take time.
Your Rights as a Consumer
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) of 1970 made it a law for credit reporting agencies (CRAs)€"also called credit bureaus€"to investigate disputes about the information contained on your credit report. Even so, CRAs aren't required to handle disputes happily. In fact, it's not uncommon for a CRA to claim that disputes are frivolous or even for them to claim that your request for dispute is illegal. That's not true, which is why you need to understand your rights as a consumer.
What is true is that you have the right to dispute inaccurate and unauthorized entries on your credit report. According to the FCRA, you're also entitled to a written explanation of the results of any investigation resulting from such a dispute. If an investigation find that the information you're disputing is, indeed, inaccurate and those changes are made to your credit report, you're also entitled to a free copy of your credit complain once the changes have been made.
Once an investigation is complete and your credit report has been corrected, you also have the right to request that a copy of the updated report be delivered to every creditor that has pulled your credit in the last six month and every employer that has requested in the last two years. The catch is, you must request this services and must be done in writing.
Sometimes an investigation doesn't lead to an answer that's in your favor. If an investigation finds that you're still liable for an entry on your credit report, then you can request (again, in writing) that the dispute be noted on your credit report and that your dispute letter be included each time your full credit report is requested.
Finally, you have the right to a reasonably speedy investigation of any dispute that you make. By law, that investigation should be complete within 20 business days of the date that the CRA receives your dispute letter. That usually means you can expect to see the results of their investigation within 30-45 days after submitting the dispute. If you don't have results within that time frame, you an follow-up on your dispute and you may have the right to have the disputed entry removed from your credit report, regardless of the results of the investigation. Please note, however, this is an activity that needs to be handled by appropriately qualified legal counsel.
Since Id Theft tends to start as a financial crime in most cases, the most important part of clearing up the damage is fixing credit complain terrors or unauthorized charges and accounts opened in your name. The key to cleaning up your credit complaint is to move quickly and be patient. The faster you catch and dispute errors, the easier it will be to clean them up. Just understand that even when errors are caught early, disputing a credit complaint entry will take time.
Your Rights as a Consumer
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) of 1970 made it a law for credit reporting agencies (CRAs)€"also called credit bureaus€"to investigate disputes about the information contained on your credit report. Even so, CRAs aren't required to handle disputes happily. In fact, it's not uncommon for a CRA to claim that disputes are frivolous or even for them to claim that your request for dispute is illegal. That's not true, which is why you need to understand your rights as a consumer.
What is true is that you have the right to dispute inaccurate and unauthorized entries on your credit report. According to the FCRA, you're also entitled to a written explanation of the results of any investigation resulting from such a dispute. If an investigation find that the information you're disputing is, indeed, inaccurate and those changes are made to your credit report, you're also entitled to a free copy of your credit complain once the changes have been made.
Once an investigation is complete and your credit report has been corrected, you also have the right to request that a copy of the updated report be delivered to every creditor that has pulled your credit in the last six month and every employer that has requested in the last two years. The catch is, you must request this services and must be done in writing.
Sometimes an investigation doesn't lead to an answer that's in your favor. If an investigation finds that you're still liable for an entry on your credit report, then you can request (again, in writing) that the dispute be noted on your credit report and that your dispute letter be included each time your full credit report is requested.
Finally, you have the right to a reasonably speedy investigation of any dispute that you make. By law, that investigation should be complete within 20 business days of the date that the CRA receives your dispute letter. That usually means you can expect to see the results of their investigation within 30-45 days after submitting the dispute. If you don't have results within that time frame, you an follow-up on your dispute and you may have the right to have the disputed entry removed from your credit report, regardless of the results of the investigation. Please note, however, this is an activity that needs to be handled by appropriately qualified legal counsel.
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