Improving My Credit History, Credit Score With Form Letters
I am new to this group but after reading alot of the posts and reading books on REI, it appears my credit rating is more important than I originally thought. I have worked on my credit before with Lexington law firm and later by another lawfirm which I paid $400 to dispute the negative items. Neither one did very much very fast and I did most of the work.
Trying to get my credit report straightened out has been nothing short of a nightmare.
There is a form letter generator that is free that I just now used to generate several letters. I don't know much about REI yet but I do know a little about credit repair so I wanted to contribute something to the forum in exchange for the information I am receiving by reading it. I am not offering legal advice, just explaining how I did it. I wish I had known about this form letter generator a few years ago, but it did not exists until April of 04 anyway.
I used the form letter generator available at www.creditboards.com , search on the word generator.
http://www.creditboards.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=34593&highlight=generator
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It is a freeware program supported by donations that creates all the forms needed to properly dispute negative entries. It is difficult for me to write the letters myself from scratch because I am busy and not good at writing legal letters. When I tried to write the letters myself, I always spent the entire weekend doing it and put too much emotional static in them. Not a good way to spend the weekend.
Also, there is a procedure that I used. I did not just send out Certified Registered Return Receipt form letters. (CRRR). I used the 1-2 punch. I did it backwards a few years ago, contacting the credit bureau before the creditor, or at the same time and that did not work at all.
The right way: First I sent the CRRR verification form letter to the Original Creditor (OC) (or Collection Agency CA) requesting validation of a negative entry, giving them 30 days to respond in writing. Then if they don't respond, I send a copy of the green card to the Credit Reporting Agency (CRA) , also CRRR, demanding they remove the negative inaccurate information regarding the OC. If they fail to respond within 30 days, I can sue them. There is also a letter, Intent to Sue (ITS) where I can offer to let them pay me $1000 and we can avoid the hassle of going to court.
Looks like the credit reporting agencies are going to a system called e-oscar in Oct 2004 so they will no longer accept paper disputes after that. I interpret this to mean that if I want to fix my credit score by sending letters, I better do it before Oct.
I hope this information is useful to somebody who has incorrect negative info on their credit reports.
I'm the creator of the Form Letter Generator. I found this thread by doing a search for my program (to see what came up). I'm glad it is helping out.
I read your post and wanted to clear up a few things that I saw that IMHO are wrong or misleading.
#1 - The 1-2 Punch works this way:
You send your dispute letter (CMRRR) to the CA. Once they have recieved it and you have the green card back, then you send your dispute to the CRA's. What this does is lock the CA into the 30 day time period required by law for the CRA's. A CA isn't required to do anything just from your dispute letter, unless you lock them into the CRA's time frame.
#2 - OC's are handled a diffent way with the 1-2 Punch method. You dispute with the CRA's first to get FACTA protections, then you send you dispute to the OC if the CRA's verify the incorrect info. If the debt is valid and within the SOL for your state, I suggest that you don't send anything to the OC, as that could promt legal action (depends on the situation and the OC).
#3 - The CRA's are going to the e-oscar system this year, but this only effects OC's and CA's. You can continue to send your disputes via mail.
-Jazkal[ Edited by Jazkal on Date 06/23/2004 ]