Credit Report And Bill Disputes

Bookmark this page and share it with others! (Or press Ctrl/D on Firefox)

Just The Facts

Go through your monthly bills and see if there are any possible mistakes. Perhaps they over-billed, under-billed, or made charges on your account you did not approve. If you go through your statements each month, it will avoid the painful situation down the line of disputing it later. If the mistake is caught within 30 days, it is likely to be removed easily.

If you do find a mistake on your bill, call the customer service department immediately to get to the bottom of it. Perhaps you have forgotten you made the purchase or created the extra expense. Maybe someone in your home had access to it and made the expense. The customer service will be able to tell you when exactly the charge was noted, for what and possibly who did it. They can send proof it was true.

However, if they cannot prove it was done by you or a family member it may be one of two things - a billing error or a fraud perpetrated on you by a thief. If either case applies to you, the company is most likely not going to charge you for it and will help you remedy the situation if you do this within 30 days. If it was a billing error, the company may even look into it and remove it up to 60 days later before removing it. In the case of identity theft, the longer you wait to report it, the more it will look like perhaps you made the charge and are trying to get out of it - therefore YOU MUST IMMEDIATELY REPORT IT!!

If the company is being unreasonable and you have proof you did not accumulate the debt, you can report the company to the Better Business Bureau and your State Attorney General to get the matter cleared. Most companies will not let it go that far unless they believe they are in the right. Remember, if the charge was made by someone in your household, you are in fact responsible for it - even if you did not approve it! This includes your spouse and children.

Most of the problems to dispute originate with the original creditor or service. Sometimes it goes farther than that for one of two reasons - 1) You either never got the bill or ignored it or 2) Someone has stolen your identity and the bill went somewhere else.

Yes, the Post Office DOES lose mail! In fact, their own web site will not deny that First Class Mail is not guaranteed delivery. Once a letter is sent via First Class Mail, there is no way anyone can tell exactly what happened to it. Any other business that takes your money for a promised service and fails to deliver would be in serious trouble - not the USPS! When you put your .39¢ stamp on the envelope, they are not guaranteeing your mail will get to the address at all or even on time.

Sometimes people do not get their bills. It is also not surprising some people can miss many bills. In new housing developments it can be even more common until the carrier is used to the route. Sometimes the postal carriers are lazy or uncaring about their jobs and will do a lousy job where your mail may go into someone else's mailbox. [NOTE: MOST mail carriers are honest and hard working people who do their best. Even they can make mistakes, but it is not deliberate.]

Sometimes people will pay their bills on time via mail, but the company never receives it because it is lost. If that person does not really pay attention to the statements or assumed it was paid and had no idea there was a missed payment can get in trouble.

Usually in these cases, people normally are aware something is amiss within 3 months. It would be rare if there were missed communications longer than this time, but it is not impossible. When communication is missed more than 3 months, the account is usually ready for collections and you have a new problem on your hands - handling the debt collector. Sometimes you do rightfully owe the bill. Sometimes the allegation is false and you need to deal with the debt collector.

If you are a victim of fraud, you may not know for years that something is wrong unless you check your credit records on a regular basis.

If you have items on your credit record due to fraud or because of bill collectors that may be mistakes, you do have remedies to clean up these items. However, these methods will only work when the complaint is genuine and there is proof a mistake was made. Only then will bad remarks come off your credit report. If you are trying to get out of a legitimate entry on your report, you have a 40% chance of getting out of it, but if you abuse the system and are caught your account will be red-flagged for trouble and it will be hard to get future credit.