What You Can Actually Dispute on Your Credit Report
Credit bureaus are legally required to accept disputes for incorrect information—such as inaccurate trade lines, payment history or amounts owed. However, disputing accurate information is dishonest, can flag you as a bad-faith actor and may ultimately harm your financial standing.
Transcript
ELLEN Anything on your credit bureau can be disputed. ELLEN All right. I have a question from Kari here. KARI Hello, my name's Kari and I'm from Central Florida. Besides the normal things we could dispute, what else can we dispute as well? Thank you. ELLEN All right, so Carrie has kind of a question that a lot of us have: disputing things on your credit bureau. The credit bureaus, by law, have to accept disputes if any information that they're furnishing is wrong. The important thing there is, if the information is wrong. ELLEN We get a number of customers who are disputing, you know, the existence of their credit bureau. And that can be the case, right? Your credit bureau file may reflect trade lines that belong to someone else. And if that's true, you should dispute them. ELLEN Your lender may have reported you as delinquent when you were not delinquent. If the information is wrong, dispute it: whether that’s the presence of the tradeline, the payment history, the delinquency status, the amount owed. ELLEN But if the information is correct, it is dishonest to dispute it. When you dispute information that is correct, it also can suggest that you’re not a good faith actor. So you can be kind of shooting yourself in the foot if you’re disputing information that is valid. So something to be mindful of. Thank you so much for your question, Carrie.
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