The Ten Commandments of Disputing Credit Report Information:

Commandment One:  Never lie in your disputes. In many states and provinces, it could be a crime for you to lie when disputing credit reports. Therefore, you are cautioned that you must never lie or make misleading statements when disputing your clients credit report. Furthermore, it is unnecessary to lie when disputing your clients credit report. Remember, your client has the right to dispute their credit report so long as they have reason to believe that is in unverifiable, inaccurate, or obsolete. In order to dispute information that is technically accurate, but should still be investigated and deleted on the basis of verifiability, you must invent other means of disputing the listing besides claiming that it is "not mine" or "was never late."

Commandment Two:  Always indicate whether the disputed listing is being challenged as "not mine" or "not late." While you must never say that the account isn't yours or that you were never late unless you have reason to believe that statement is true, the credit bureau must know if you are disputing the existence of the listing or just the information within the listing. They cannot begin an investigation unless they know whether you believe the listing doesn't belong on your report at all, or if you believe the information on the listing should be changed. If you are unclear about the nature of your dispute, the credit bureau will promptly return your letter. If you dispute a listing on the basis that you were "not late," and if the credit bureau fails to verify the listing, then the listing will be perfected and appear as a positive listing. If you dispute a listing on the basis that it is "not mine," and if the credit bureau fails to verify the listing, then the listing will disappear from the credit report altogether. Since a positive listing is much better than no listing at all, you should dispute all simple late pay listings as a "not late" type of dispute. All others must be disputed on the basis that they may not belong to you (your client).

Commandment Three:  Always tell the credit bureau the desired outcome of the investigation. You must always include what you would like done with the listing. There are two options: delete the entire listing, or erase the late pay notation within the listing. Don't bother challenging the information within a collection listing, charge-off, court record, repossession, foreclosure, or settled account. As the basic nature of these listings is negative, changing the information within the listing will yield no improvement. Severely negative listings, such as these, must be disputed on the basis of complete deletion or not be disputed at all.

Commandment Four:   Always provide a reason for your dispute. If you don't give some kind of explanation as to why you think the credit report is wrong, then the checker may return or ignore your dispute. Commandment Five: Always include indicators of authenticity in your dispute. Don't forget that the job of the checker is to reject irrelevant disputes and to investigate the bona fide disputes. You may ensure that your disputes sound authentic by adding things that only a true, frustrated consumer would write, such as "my son's a banker, and he mentioned that I could write you and you would clear up these mistakes." Original indicators of authenticity cannot be listed here, or they would cease to be effective, but you must get creative and always include sentences or phrases that will convince the credit bureau that you're for real.

Commandment Six:   Never sound too much like an expert. The credit bureaus receive over 10,000 disputes per day, and your dispute should look like any other. If you quote legal statute or you remind the credit bureaus of your rights under law without adding a personal touch, the checker will suspect that you read a book about credit repair or you are using a credit repair company. If the checker believes you are attempting to restore your (your client's) credit, your dispute will be tossed in the "frivolous or irrelevant" bin.

Commandment Seven:   Become more insistent and more threatening with each dispute. As you submit one dispute after another, it will become increasingly difficult to get the checker to initiate an investigation. Your first one or two disputes should be friendly and polite. Just like any other consumer, you can become frustrated and threatening as time passes. You may threaten to hire an attorney; you may threaten to complain to the authorities, etc. (Our sample letters accomplish this)

Commandment Eight:   Do not bombard the credit bureaus with disputes. Sending one dispute right after another is wasteful and counterproductive. You may send no more than one dispute every thirty- sixty days. If you dispute more often, the credit bureau will simply return the dispute as "frivolous or irrelevant."

Commandment Nine:   Use inaccuracies and inconsistencies as examples of how the credit listings are wrong. Remember that it will do you no good to change minor information contained in a severely negative listing. Use inaccuracies and inconsistencies as a basis of dispute. You will do well to use the other one or two credit reports to establish inconsistencies by comparing the other credit report to the report you are disputing. Remember, though, that you can only use another credit report for comparison if that report doesn't confirm negative credit listings that you are attempting to dispute.

Commandment Ten:   Create and utilize other techniques that help further the idea that the dispute letter is from a truly wronged and disadvantaged consumer. The checker is only interested in investigating disputes from consumers who have totally inaccurate credit reports due to credit bureau errors. In short, the checker only wants to help consumers who have a good case against the credit bureau and might likely sue them. According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the credit bureaus shuld legally investigate all disputes that are not "frivolous or irrelevant." In practice, the checker will only do what he or she has to do in order to avoid a lawsuit. For this reason, it becomes necessary to contrive all manner of strategy to compel the checker into doing what the credit bureaus should be doing anyway -- which is to conduct an investigation into every reasonable dispute.