Your creditors and the credit reporting agencies should automatically update information on your credit reports. Creditors continually send new information, and agencies usually remove listings after the legal reporting period has passed. Sometimes, there is a slip up, and the agencies do not report your latest data, or the agencies do not purge old items. You can update the information on your credit reports yourself if this happens. This will present you in the best possible light when you apply for new loans, credit cards or accounts.
Step 1
Exercise your right to get free credit reports from Experian, Equifax and Transunion. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), a federal law, requires them to give you a free report annually. Your request must be made through annualcreditreport.com, which lets you get the free reports online or order them through the mail or over the telephone.
Step 2
Look for outdated information on all three credit reports. They may each contain different items because each credit reporting agency compiles its entries separately. Look for current accounts that are not showing the latest data or old items that are past the reporting period, which creditinfocenter.com explains is usually 7 years.
Step 3
Make a list of information that needs to be updated by each credit reporting agency. Use it to compose separate letters to Equifax, Experian and TransUnion asking each of them to update the relevant items. Explain what needs to be done. For example, your latest payment history or a changed credit limit might not be reflected on current accounts, or your reports might still show a car repossession that happened more than 7 years ago.
Step 4
Mail the letters to each agency by certified mail and ask for a delivery receipt as recommended by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC explains that each agency has 30 days to investigate and update the information. The clock starts ticking when they receive your letter.
Step 5
Review the credit reporting agencies responses and recheck your credit reports to make sure they followed through with the proper updates. Each agency is required by the FCRA to tell you the results of its investigation and tell you which items it is updating based on the information it obtained. You are entitled to another free copy of each credit report to ensure they follow through with their promises.
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