The DisputeDriver Playbook
Every legal way items come off your report, how to get your LLC approved for business cards, and how to run a credit repair business on our software.
What's inside
- 1. How your credit report really worksWho reports what, how long it stays, and the rights the law gives you.
- 2. Clean up first: names, addresses, freezesThe groundwork that makes every dispute after it work better.
- 3. Dispute rounds with the bureausThe four-step ladder, what each letter says, and the timing.
- 4. Collections, goodwill and pay-for-deleteMaking collectors prove it, and getting accurate items removed by agreement.
- 5. Lates, charge-offs, repos, inquiries and public recordsWhat works for each kind of mark.
- 6. Identity theftThe fastest legal removal there is, only for accounts that really aren't yours.
- 7. When they don't play fairCFPB complaints, state attorneys general, and keeping your paper trail.
- 8. Build your credit while you clean itThe fastest legitimate score moves.
- 9. Set up your LLC the way lenders likeThe setup business card issuers and vendors check for.
- 10. Business credit cards that don't ask for documents"No-doc" cards for your LLC: what they are, when you're ready, and how to apply.
- 11. Doing it all in the DisputeDriver appEvery step above, done for you or with you.
- 12. Start your own credit repair business on DisputeDriverThe laws you must follow, and how to run your clients in our software.
Read chapter 1 free
1. How your credit report really works
Who is on the other end
Three big bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) keep a file on you. Companies called furnishers (your card issuers, lenders, collectors) send them your accounts every month. Your score is math run on whatever is in those files, so the whole game is getting your files accurate and complete.
Smaller agencies matter too: LexisNexis, Innovis, ChexSystems (bank accounts), Clarity and others. Lenders use them, and bureaus can get data from them.
How long things stay
- Most negative items (late payments, charge-offs, collections): 7 years from the date you first fell behind and never caught up (the "date of first delinquency"). Selling a debt to a new collector does not restart that clock.
- Chapter 7 bankruptcy: up to 10 years. Chapter 13: usually 7.
- Hard inquiries: 2 years (they mostly stop counting after 1).
- Paid medical collections, and medical collections under $500: the three bureaus say they no longer report them. Unpaid medical debt isn't reported until it's a year old.
Your rights, in plain words
- Free reports. You can get your reports free every week at annualcreditreport.com.
- The right to dispute. If something is inaccurate or incomplete, a bureau must investigate, usually within 30 days (45 if you send more information during the 30), and fix or delete what it can't verify (Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681i).
- Furnishers must investigate too once a bureau passes your dispute to them (15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b)).
- Collectors must prove a debt if you ask in writing within 30 days of their first notice (Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692g).
- Free freezes at every bureau and agency.
- You can do all of this yourself, for free. Nobody, including us, can legally remove accurate, current and verifiable information.
The one rule this playbook follows
Only dispute what you honestly believe is wrong, or what you can't confirm is right. Disputing accurate information as "not mine", filing a false identity theft report, or using a "CPN" in place of your Social Security number can be a crime, and it gets disputes thrown out as frivolous. Everything below works without any of that.
Not legal or financial advice. Nobody can legally remove accurate, current and verifiable information from a credit report, and no result, score or approval is guaranteed. You can dispute errors with the credit bureaus yourself, for free.