Remove Negative Credit

Slappy Doo Hoo wrote:

How do you put comments on your credit report? I've never seen that before.

I've seen a lot of people's credit get ruined from divorce. Unfortunately, it's pretty difficult to get the bank just to wipe out late payments. If you co-sign, getting a divorce doesn't clear you of financial obligations on that loan.

It's part of your rights under the FCRA:

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Your Credit Rights
Key Rights Contained in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is a federal law that regulates how credit reporting agencies use your information. Enacted in 1970 and substantially amended in the late 1990s and again in 2003, the FCRA restricts who has access to your sensitive credit information and how that information can be used.
Summary of Key Rights

The FCRA is a complex piece of legislation and contains numerous provisions not discussed on this page. Below are several important features of how the FCRA that are designed to help consumers (for the complete text, visit the Federal Trade Commission). The FCRA protects you by ensuring that credit reporting agencies:

Disclose your credit report to you upon request. Credit reporting agencies must give you the information in your file if you ask for it and provide the agency with proper identification. See "To Receive Your Credit Report" below for more information.

Limit access to your information. A credit reporting company may not provide your credit report to any party that lacks a permissible purpose, such as the evaluation of an application for a loan, credit, service, or employment. Permissible purposes also include several business and legal uses. For details, see the full text of the summary of your rights.

Get your consent before providing your information to an employer. An agency may not give your credit information to an employer or potential employer unless you first give that employer written permission to request your credit.

Investigate disputed information. If you tell a credit reporting company that your file contains inaccurate information, the agency must promptly investigate the matter with the source that provided the information. If the investigation fails to resolve the dispute, you may add a statement explaining the matter to your credit file. For more information, see Fixing Errors on Your Report.

Correct or delete inaccurate information. A credit reporting company must correct or, as the case may be, delete from your credit file the information that is found to be inaccurate or can no longer be verified from your credit file. The credit reporting company is not required to remove accurate data from your file unless it is outdated or cannot be verified.

Delete outdated information. In general, negative information that is more than 7 years old (10 years for bankruptcies) must be removed from your file. Source

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To dispute inaccurate information on your Experian, Trans Union or Equifax credit report, write to the bureau that supplied the information. In your letter be sure to include:

* Your full name, first, middle and last and including any applicable suffixes (Jr., Sr., II, etc.)
* Your complete mailing address
* Previous addresses for the past five years, including zip codes
* Your Social Security number (this is necessary to access your credit report)
* Your Spouse's name and spouse's Social Security Number (if applicable)
* Your date of birth
* The name and account number of the creditor and item in question
* The specific reason for your disagreement with the disputed item
* Your signature

Mail dispute to:

Experian's National Consumer Assistance Center
P.O. Box 2002
Allen, TX 75013

Equifax Information Services
P.O. Box 740241
Atlanta, GA 30374-0241

Trans Union Corporation
P.O. Box 390
Springfield, PA 19064-0390

Or call these numbers for more information:

Experian 1 (888) EXPERIAN
Equifax 1-800-685-1111
Trans Union 1 (800) 916-880

SOURCE