How to Remove Negative Credit Letters

The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives you the right to challenge any negative information on your credit report. However, don't expect to magically erase charge-offs, collection accounts and judgment entries. If the information is inaccurate, it will be removed from your report within 30 days after you challenge it. If it's all true, it'll likely remain for the seven-year maximum required by law. However, there is one option for erasing negative information earlier.

Instructions

1

Get a copy of your credit report. Get the report for free from the website Annual Credit Report (see Resources). The site was established by the nationwide credit bureaus to offer free reports as required by federal law.

2

Identify the negative entries that you want removed.

3

Write a letter challenging all the negative entries that are inaccurate. Tell the credit bureau why the information is wrong and that it should be removed immediately. Mail the letter to the address on your credit report. You may also challenge the information online by visiting the websites for the credit bureaus (see Resources).

4

Remove other negative entries by negotiating with the creditor or debt collector. This process, called "pay for delete," works only when you still owe the debt. Contact the creditor or debt collector by finding the contact information on your credit report. Make an offer to pay the full balance in exchange for the negative information being removed from your credit report. The creditor has the authority to order the credit bureaus to delete the information. Although pay-for-delete is legal, not all creditors and debt collectors will agree to such an arrangement.

5

Challenge negative entries that have been listed on your account for more than seven years by writing a letter to the credit bureau of initiating a dispute online. By law, the bureaus must remove outdated information.