10 Steps to Repairing Your Credit. #7 Is Extremely Important

6. Write to Credit Bureaus

If your creditors are unwilling to grant you a goodwill adjustment on your credit report, the next thing you need to do is write to the credit bureaus.  All three credit bureaus have an online form for you to dispute your credit report.  DO NOT DO THIS.  This will just put you at a disadvantage.  See, credit bureaus by law have to respond to your credit dispute within 30 days of the day you sent in the dispute.  If they do not, then they have to remove the item in question from your credit report.  Thus by sending postage mail instead of online, you are allowing yourself some extra days for the mail to get to them.  Every day after the postmark date counts towards the 30 days.  If you submit your credit dispute online, they get it instantaneously.

If it doesn’t work the first time, write to them again.  Most often, it will take more than one try to get them to remove a late payment off your credit report.  That’s why you need to be diligent and foolhardy.  This method also works with collection accounts too but it is slightly more successful with late payments.