A dispute can be filed with Equifax by creating a dispute letter and mailing it to them. In your letter you will need to include a reason as to why the listing is inaccurate.

You can write a dispute letter yourself or you can hire a service to write it on your behalf. You should be aware that a dispute letter must be sent to each credit bureau.

This means if you have a charge off on your Equifax credit report then you will have to send a dispute letter to Equifax. In addition if that charge off is on your Experian and Transunion credit report you will have to send a dispute letter to them also.

Common reasons to dispute a bad credit item include; information is wrong, item is out of date, account paid in full and more. The Fair Credit Reporting Act passed by congress gives you the right to dispute any item on your credit report.

In addition the act says the bureaus must remove an item if it is not verified by the creator. This act is what the dispute process is based upon.

When your dispute is filled the bureau will conduct an investigation. They will contact the creator of the negative mark and ask them to verify the debt, the amounts and the dates.

In the item is not verified then the bureau must remove it from your credit report. Frequently investigations will result in the removal of bad credit from your report. This happens because many businesses are not willing to spend the resources to verify disputed debts.

However before the credit bureau will conduct an investigation your dispute must be a valid dispute. There is no way to tell if the bureaus will deem your letter valid or invalid.

Many claim that the bureaus are just avoiding having to hold an investigation so they will deem your dispute invalid and respond with a letter requesting more information about the dispute. It is widely speculated that this is nothing more than a stall tactic used by the bureaus.

This is because it will only cost the bureaus money to investigate disputes. The bureaus customers are businesses and only because of government law is there a dispute process.

I suggest a credit repair service if you have multiple listings you wish to dispute. However you can repair your credit yourself if you have minor damage, be patient and persistent.

In sum you can remove bad credit items before seven years. You can dispute the bureaus and have the negative item removed.