How to Correct Fraudulent Info on Your Credit Report

Your credit report is your key when it comes to proving you are worthy of a lender’s trust…and the credit they can extend to you. Being turned down due to negative, fraudulent information resulting from identity theft is a terrible experience. These are the steps you should take to correct the damage, and restore your good name and credit history. 

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) establishes procedures for correcting fraudulent information on your credit report and dictates that your credit report be made available only for certain legitimate business needs. Under the FCRA, both the credit reporting company and the information provider (the business sending the information to the consumer reporting company, such as a bank or credit card company), are responsible for correcting fraudulent information in your report. To protect your rights under the law, contact both the consumer reporting company and the information provider when taking corrective action. 

Credit Reporting Company Obligations

Consumer reporting companies will block fraudulent information from appearing on your credit report if you take the following steps: 

• Send them a copy of an Identity Theft Report and a letter telling them what information is fraudulent. The letter should state that the information does not relate to any transaction that you made or authorized.
• Provide proof of your identity, which may include your Social Security Number, name, address, and other personal information requested by the credit reporting company.

Upon accepting your identity theft report, the credit reporting company has four business days to block the fraudulent information. It also must inform relevant the information provider(s) that it has blocked the information. The consumer reporting company may refuse to block the information or remove the block if, for example, you have not told the truth about your identity theft, in which case it must let you know. 

The blocking process is only one way for identity theft victims to deal with fraudulent information. There’s also the “reinvestigation process”, designed to help consumers dispute errors or inaccuracies on their credit reports not caused by outright identity theft. For more information on this process, see “How to Dispute Credit Report Errors” and “Your Access to Free Credit Reports”, two publications from the Federal Trade Commission (www.consumer.gov/idtheft).

Information Provider Obligations

Information providers must stop reporting information fraudulently attributed to you once you send them your Identity Theft Report and a letter explaining that the information they’re reporting resulted from identity theft. But you must send these items to the address specified by the information provider. Note that the information provider may resume reporting the information if it later learns that the information does not result from identity theft. If informed by a credit reporting company that information they have provided is fraudulent, the information provider may not continue to report that information. The information provider is blocked from hiring someone to collect a debt that relates to the fraudulent account, or sell that debt to anyone else who would try to collect it.