How to Follow Up a Credit Dispute Letter

The Fair Credit Reporting Act orders all Credit Reporting Agencies to conduct immediate investigation on disputes filed by consumers. After 10 days upon receiving your dispute letter, the agency must send notice that an investigation is on the way.

You may have to wait up to 30 days for the investigation to be completed. After this period, you should receive a letter from the credit reporting agency, informing you of the result of the investigation. If your dispute has been found to be valid, you should be provided with an updated credit report, free of charge.

What happens if you dispute has been found to be invalid? In that case, you should still be notified by the credit reporting agency about the status of your complaint. Nevertheless, there are instances when credit bureaus are slow in responding to a dispute.

If you have been waiting past 10 days for without any notice or response from the agency to whom you submitted your credit dispute letter, what can you do? Should you just let go of the matter and live up with incorrect details in your report? Certainly not!

How to Send a Follow Up Letter

You should send a follow up letter informing the bureau that you intend to file a formal complaint to the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) if they refuse to take appropriate action right away.

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Benefits Of Having Low Interest Credit Card

Credit card issuers are facing tough competition and one of the best marketing strategies they came up with are low interest credit cards. Obviously, people are more attracted to a low interest rate credit card and they’re most likely to pay attention to these credit cards compared to credit cards with standard rates and costs.

What are the benefits of having low interest credit cards? Are they really as good as they promise to be? Which particular low interest credit card should you choose? How can you make the most out of your low interest credit card? Let’s try to answer these questions one by one.

Benefits of Low Interest Credit Cards

• Ideal when you carry over a balance. It is recommended to pay off your credit card balance in full each month. However, if you’ve made a large purchase, it may be necessary for you to carry over your balance for the next month. In this case, a credit card with a low rate of interest is your best partner because you’ll only have to add a small additional fee for the interest rate.

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Protecting Your Credit Against Fraud & ID Theft

Consumers are constantly reminded to keep on guard against identity theft and fraud. If you suspect identity theft, you can place your report on fraud alert. This way, when someone tries to open an account under your name, creditors who may inquire about your report will see the alert and contact the owner of the report before approving the application.

Nevertheless, a fraud alert can be ignored. There are instances when creditors do ignore the warning and approve the application. To provide consumers with a more reliable protection against ID theft, credit freeze was introduced.

Understanding Credit Freeze

What is the difference between a credit freeze and fraud alert? Unlike a fraud alert, a credit freeze blocks new creditors from accessing an individual’s credit report. Not even the owner of the report can take a look into it while it’s on freeze. To make the credit report available for inquiry, the owner must first request for the freeze to be lifted.

Without access to the credit report, no creditor will grant approval for a new credit application. Obviously, if an identity thief attempts to open an account using your name or steal your account information, it will not be possible since no one can access your report.

Protect Yourself from More Risks

In what other ways can you protect your identity from fraud? Below are practical tips to help you:

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How to Get Out of Credit Card Debt Using a Credit Card

Credit card debt is indeed, a serious problem. If you cannot settle your charges at the quickest time, your debts can quickly build-up because of the high interest rates that you incur each month. Add the late penalty fees if you fail to make your payments on time and you can really be in big trouble.

Is there a way to solve credit card debt? This article talks about how you can use a balance transfer credit card as an alternative. Let us first define what balance transfer credit cards are:

What is A Balance Transfer Credit Card?

Credit card issuers came up with balance transfer cards for people who are having trouble keeping up with their repayment. This strategy is an effective way to acquire new cardholders who are already customers of other credit card companies.

By offering a lower rate or zero interest, people are easily attracted to sign up for the new card even when they already own credit cards from other issuers. Now that’s a great marketing strategy for credit card companies. But what benefit can people get out of it?

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What are My Rights When in Debt

Are you bothered by creditors who constantly remind you of your past due debts? Would you like to be free from stressful contacts with your creditors? Are you aware of your rights as a borrower? This article focuses on the consumer rights included in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Hopefully, by the end of this article, you’ll be able to take the proper action against creditors who may be violating your rights as a borrower.

Stop Your Creditors

Can you really stop your creditors from collecting the debts you owe? According to the Federal Law, you can stop a creditor from making further attempts to contact you about your debts. How is this done? Send a letter to your creditor or the collection agency advising them to stop contacting you about your debts. However, take note that this doesn’t change the fact that you have unpaid debts to pay.

You are under the obligation to pay back what you owe, and although a creditor may have stopped contacting you after you sent your letter, a creditor can still take legal action against you if you fail to make your payments. Yes, you can be sued if you ignore your responsibility to your lender.

Limitations of Your Creditors

Are you being represented by an attorney? If yes, then collection agencies should be directly contacting you about your debts. Instead, the debt agency should be collecting your debts through your lawyer. If your creditor continues to contact you despite your advice to contact your lawyer, you can report it to the Federal Trade Commission.

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The Rules on Using Credit Cards

How you use your credit cards play a big role in staying away from debt problems. Some of the steps on the correct use of credit cards are pretty obvious however, putting them into practice is where the challenge comes in. In this article, we’ll discuss some important reminders about you can use your credit cards wisely and keep that plastic money from causing trouble in your life.

Don’t charge everything on your credit card. Some people with reward credit cards may reason that charging every single purchase on their card enables them to rack up those reward points more quickly. But charging every single expense on your credit card puts you at risk of not being able to pay off your monthly balance completely.

Do not charge more than what you can afford to pay off. Again, your goal should be to pay off your balances in full at the end of each billing cycle. Don’t be tempted to pay only the minimum payment even if your credit card allows it. Remember that paying off your balances each month enables you to save a great deal by not incurring the interest rate.

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How To Write A Credit Dispute Letter that Works

The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives consumers that right to dispute negative records in their credit report. By sending a dispute letter to the credit bureau, negative charges or remarks can be verified and if found inaccurate, must be deleted from your report.

However, in order to ensure positive response from the credit bureaus, you need to make sure that you will send a proper letter of dispute. In this article, let’s discuss the step-by-step guide on how to write and send an effective letter of dispute.

Get your credit report. The first step is to order a copy of your report from the three major credit bureaus (Experian,Equifax,TransUnion). Take note that each bureau makes it own report so it’s important to get a copy from all three.

Examine. Check your report for unauthorized charges, false details or outdated remarks which can give pull down your score. If you do find errors, it’s time to prepare your dispute letter.

Specify the items in dispute. You must clearly point out the item in dispute. In your letter, state the exact information that you want to be verified or you think is incorrect. Include a photocopy of your report with the items on dispute marked or encircled.

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