The Real Cost of a Credit Report Mistake- For YOU and For THEM

You've got a plan. You've been working on it for years, carefully managing your finances and debts, diligently paying your bills on time, and keeping just enough money in your savings for a rainy day. You're cruising toward the new year ready to find the loan that is finally going to turn your hard work into a huge pay off.

Maybe you want to be a homeowner...buy or lease a new car and get affordable car insurance...rent a nice apartment...land that job in finance or government...rent a vacation house for a week with your kids...go back to school to earn a degree...open a new credit card or take out a personal loan...make some home improvements...buy a fishing boat...finance your wedding or honeymoon...

No matter what your goals are, the chances are good that the only thing standing between your vision and your new reality is a credit check.

When your credit report gets pulled, there are three ways things can go:

1. Approved! Everything looks great. You meet the requirements. Let's do this!
2. Denied. You have legit credit issues that may need to be addressed. Maybe a forgotten bill in collections that needs to be paid. Whatever it is, it's real, but with a little patience and attention, you'll get it cleared up.
3. Denied due to errors. Totally unexpected. Wildly unfair. Now what?

The Real Cost to YOU

Not every credit report mistake causes you to lose out on an opportunity. If a prior address is misreported by a single digit, but there is otherwise no impact, it isn't necessarily a deal breaker or game changer of any kind. You should still make the credit bureaus fix it, of course. But you'll probably still coast toward your credit goals.

But a credit report mistake that changes the perception of you as a borrower, buyer, tenant, or employee can cost you everything. For better or worse, your perceived creditworthiness is summed up in a credit report and a three digit credit score. Whatever appears in that report is usually decisive. Yes or no. Dreams realized or dreams dashed. Needs met or hope lost.

Here are some of the things people lose out on all the time due to credit report mistakes:

• car loans
• mortgages
• apartment and house rentals
• affordable auto and other insurance
• jobs in certain industries, especially anything involving responsibility for financial products
• personal or home equity loans
• credit card and retail account approvals
• certain utility or cell phone plans

Missing out on the opportunity itself is bad enough, but experiencing the injustice of missing out on the opportunity because of mistakes in your credit report will break your brain, trash your sleep, and send you into a swirling cloud of stress, anger, and powerlessness.

So the real cost to you is frquently financial, emotional, and BIG.

The Real Cost to THEM

The only good news in this scenario is that the road to your opportunities is paved with strong consumer laws. And sometimes the real cost to the credit bureaus ends up being a fat check they have to write to you because they didn't bother reporting accurate credit information in the first place.

To hold them accountable though, you have to take steps to fight the errors.

1. Draft a dispute letter
2. Identify and gather supporting documents
3. File the dispute, being careful to protect your rights
4. Track the statutory time limit (they only have 30 days to investigate and respond)
5. File a lawsuit if your dispute gets ignored, the errors don't get corrected, the credit bureaus tell you the mistakes are actually "correct," the errors go away initially but resurface later, or you've suffered a financial or emotional harm

So the real cost to them depends on what they do next- follow the law and fix the mistakes or keep your credit trapped in a loop of automated data errors.

Mistake Handles It Fast!

Whether you find an error on your own before you suffer a loss (lucky you!) or after you face denials, rejections, and bad loan terms, Mistake fixes it fast! We review the reports, draft and file the disputes, prepare the supporting docs, track the timing, and if needed, file the lawsuit.

We make undoing mistakes easy.

Take control and fix it fast with Mistake!