by: Michael Saunders

Under a federal law called the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you have the right to have erroneous information deleted from your credit report. So if anything is wrong in your credit file, just write the credit bureaus and state your dispute. Errors include closed accounts that are still shown as open, data about accounts you did not open, or negative items, such as bankruptcies or liens, from someone else with a similar name or social security number. The credit bureaus have 30 days to investigate your claims. After that, they must remove any information that is found to be inaccurate or that can no longer be verified.

According to a number of consumers groups in the United States, many credit reports are filled with inaccuracies. The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) and the National Credit Reporting Association (NCRA) once released a landmark study that found that millions of Americans were in jeopardy of being denied credit or unnecessarily paying more for loans because of mistakes in their credit files. The CFA and the NCRA analyzed the credit scores of some 500,000 consumers nationwide. Then they examined dozens of credit files in great detail. Their conclusions were alarming:  (continued...)
The Shocking Truth Behind Credit Report Inaccuracies
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