Anyone ever challenged something on their credit report?

[ColoradoMama]

I'm totally out of my league here. Mazda American Credit (an incredibly sleazy company btw) put something on our credit report several years ago that was wrong. It was their screw up and they told us over and over that they would take care of it. Well, I just found out it was on our credit report as a negative reporting for us (yea, yea, yea I know - get a report every year. I will from now on - trust me). So, I challenged it. Well, I got a report back. I'm having trouble reading it, but what I think it changed was the date of our supposed screw up. Sort of like this - they said it happened in December and now they're saying it happened in January. So, that is how our credit report reads now is that we made this error one month different when we weren't in error at all!!!!! I'm so angry I could spit. Don't I have any friggin rights here? Anyone know anything about this?

[Kathryn]

Type up a document with the account number, account name, account address, your name, address, social security number, phone number, and a reason "I never made a late payment". Send one to each bureau and it should come off. If it doesn't, do it again until it does.

[KariM]

What Kathryn said.

Contact the credit reporting agencies directly with your information. Also contact Mazda at the same time.

Here's a good article to walk you through the process:

http://tinyurl.com/ytaxos

[cristeen]

Be sure to send it Certified Return Receipt. And follow up on it. I had one heck of a time with one of the bureaus claiming they never got my letter, blah blah blah... since I had the return receipt that was signed and dated, I sent them copies of all of it and they had to clear my report of the items.

You have to be proactive and assertive or they will ignore you.

[Lady Lilya]

I had one mistake on my credit report when I checked it 2 years ago for the first time.

When I was a college student, I had opened an account with one of those debit cards that is accepted like a credit card, but the money comes straight out of your account. I used it for ONE thing, to pay $6.50 on the internet to have my SAT scores sent to another school (I was in the process of transferring schools). But, they never actually charged it to the card.

After a few months, I changed schools and moved to another city, so I wanted to close my account. But, I was still expecting them to take this $6.50 from my account. I went to talk to the bank, and they guy said he would set it so that I could leave $6.50 in the account, and when the balance went to 0 it would be automatically closed.

I didn't realize until about 5 years later that what had actually happened was that at the end of the month I didn't have the minimum balance in the account and they charged me $8, put the account into the negative, and then closed it with a black mark on my credit. (Several months later I got a bill from the SAT people for that $6.50 that they forgot to charge, and paid it by check.)

However, since things only stay on your credit record for 7 years, and since I read about how much hassle it is to get something corrected, I just left it. It should be gone by now.

[ColoradoMama]

Thanks for the info ladies! I appreciate it.