I want to explore the one of the most important action you can take to increase your credit scores: removing inaccurate negative information from your three credit reports.

Be warned: should you decide to tackle this process yourself, it can be time consuming and frustrating.

What the Credit Reporting Agencies are Legally Required to do on Your Behalf when You Ask

The credit reporting agencies are required by federal law to remove inaccurate information from your credit reports free of charge. However, nowhere in the law does it say they have to make it easy for you.

Because the credit reporting agencies can’t charge you to remove inaccurate information from your credit reports, they make you jump through hoops…climb over walls…and inconvenience you in any way possible to accomplish this.

And just try calling them and getting through their phone menus. Sheesh!

How to Increase Your Credit Scores by Removing Inaccurate Information from Your Credit Reports

The concept is quite simple…you want to make sure there is no inaccurate, outdated, misleading, incomplete, or unverifiable information on your credit reports…especially if it’s negative.

Any negative inaccurate information that appears on your credit reports can have a dramatic impact on your credit scores.

And by dramatic, I mean bad.

I had a recent experience that once again proved how difficult it is to try to work with the credit reporting agencies.

I took time to review my credit reports a few months ago. With yellow highlighter in hand, I highlighted numerous inaccuracies on each of my three credit reports.

I hadn’t tried to speak with the credit reporting agencies directly over the telephone for years. But I was feeling adventurous…I thought I’d give them the benefit of the doubt, so I performed a little experiment to see if their customer service had changed in the last 13 years.

I mean, how bad could it be?

It should go something like this: you call each credit reporting agency…they promptly answer the phone…you talk to a real person…your issues get resolved quickly…you hang up in a few minutes…and everyone moves onto something else.

Right?

Wrong!

Not today.

Maybe on The Brady Bunch…but in the real world of mandated free credit reports…it’s just the opposite.

What I found was the entire experience was even more frustrating and stressful than I remembered. I almost needed to ask my doctor about anxiety pills.

It’s Obvious that the Credit Reporting Agencies do not want to Talk with You Over the Telephone

One credit reporting agency even forces you to go online. Talking to a person is not an option!

What about all the people who don’t have internet access or aren’t computer savvy? I guess the protection of the Fair Credit Reporting Act doesn’t apply to them.

You see, each credit reporting agency buries their telephone numbers deep into their websites. So deep it took me forever to uncover their contact information (and I consider myself to be pretty internet savvy).

And if that wasn’t enough, one credit reporting agency forced me to purchase my credit reports directly through them if I wanted their telephone number to dispute inaccurate information.

Here I am calling the credit reporting agency to dispute items on my credit report, and I can’t talk to anyone unless I know the secret code.

I already had my free credit reports.

I already purchased my credit reports-just not from them.

I even had my credit reports from my mortgage lender from a recent mortgage closing.

But the three sets of credit reports I already had weren’t enough!

In order to talk to someone at one particular credit reporting agency, I needed a certain ID code from my reports. None of the codes on any of the credit reports I already had worked.

So I bit the bullet and purchased my credit reports AGAIN…this time directly from the credit reporting agency.

And the ID still didn’t work!

I was about to call my doctor for the anxiety pills. I’m not kidding!

How they get away with this is beyond me. No wonder they frequently get in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for not abiding by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

It just became too frustrating and time consuming for me to fight with the credit reporting agencies to do something that is supposed to be my right under the FCRA.

I had enough.

I did exactly what they wanted me to do…I gave up…surrendered…waived the white flag…cried, “Uncle.”

Hey, I have books to write; seminars to conduct; planes to catch; employees to manage; etc. Life is too short to waste my free time jumping through hoops to appease the credit reporting agencies.

So I hired a lawyer.

But I didn’t hire just any lawyer.

Why a law firm is the best solution to helping you remove inaccurate negative information from your credit reports

I chose a law firm that specialized in this specific area of law.

After all, if you needed an eye operation-would you go to a foot doctor? Or when you filed bankruptcy-did you hire a divorce attorney? I hope not. Lawyers have specialties.

Don’t use your bankruptcy attorney to help you with errors on your credit reports. Lots of people assume that since the bankruptcy attorney helped with the bankruptcy, the attorney would know all about the credit reporting agencies. This is rarely the case.

Bankruptcy attorneys are good at helping you file bankruptcy, but pretty much useless in helping you remove inaccurate negative information from your credit reports.

So I did lots of research on how to find the best law firm to help me.

Here were my expectations for a law firm:

1. They had to live and breathe the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The FCRA basically tells us our rights regarding our credit reports. If you have a few hours to spare, you can go here to read it.

2. I wanted former employees of the credit reporting agencies on their board of directors, within their company rank and file, or at least as consultants. Having an insider’s perspective on how the credit reporting agencies work was essential for success and is what separates the real thing from the scumbag credit repair clinics that advertise on telephone poles.

3. They had to abide by the legal guidelines Congress created for this type of service. These guidelines are known as the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA).

4. I wanted to make sure they had many years in business with a clean record with the Federal Trade Commission.

A pretty tall order-I know.

But considering the FTC makes a regular sweep of credit repair clinics and shuts down the crappy ones…finding the right law firm was easier than I thought it would be.

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