Written by: Eric Bank
Edited by: Lillian Guevara-Castro
Your credit score can suffer when errors creep into the credit reports maintained by the three national credit bureaus — Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. You can dispute errors and seek their removal via formal credit repair letters.
You can write these letters yourself, although it requires time, effort, and knowledge. Alternatively, you can consider subscribing to a credit repair service that specializes in fixing credit report errors.
Read on to see our reviews of what we consider to be the three best services for credit repair letters. You’ll also learn how to save money by writing your own letters.
The Best Credit Repair Services
All three of the following companies provide credit repair services, including creating, dispatching, and tracking formal credit repair letters to the major credit bureaus. These services monitor your credit reports and help you remove inaccurate and unfair derogatory items such as incorrectly reported hard inquiries, charge-offs, late payments, and bankruptcies.
Each offers multiple service levels at different price points to provide you the services you need.
- Since 2004, Lexington Law Firm clients saw over 81 million items removed from their credit reports
- Get started today with a free online credit report consultation
- Cancel anytime
- See official site, terms, and details.
| Better Business Bureau | In Business Since | Monthly Cost | Reputation Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| See BBB Listing | 2004 | $99.95 | 8/10 |
Lexington Law is a full-service credit repair company that offers you a free credit report consultation, negative item preview of your TransUnion report summary, and more. Lexington Law will review your credit report for inaccurate negative items and send formal credit repair letters to the credit bureaus and your creditors.
Lexington Law offers its services for $99.95 per month. They monitor your credit reports each month and work with you to identify potential mistakes. It then sends out credit repair letters to dispute and correct errors.
The company recommends you subscribe for at least six months to get the full benefit of its credit repair services.
- Free online consultation
- CreditRepair.com members saw over 8.6 million removals on their credit reports since 2012
- Free access to your credit report summary
- Three-step plan for checking, challenging and changing your credit report
- Online tools to help clients track results
- See official site, terms, and details.
| Better Business Bureau | In Business Since | Monthly Cost | Reputation Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| See BBB Listing | 2012 | $69.95+ | 8/10 |
CreditRepair.com offers you a free personalized credit consultation, credit report summary, score evaluation, and credit repair game plan. You can subscribe to the company to challenge, dispute, and monitor inaccuracies on your credit reports. Its service includes creating and tracking formal credit dispute letters sent to the credit bureaus.
When you subscribe, you get a personal online dashboard, a score tracker and analyzer, access to a mobile app, text/email alerts, and TransUnion credit monitoring. The company reports that it filed an average of 28 challenges per client who signed up in 2018.
- Best-in-class support
- In business since 1989
- Rapid 35-day dispute cycle, tailored to your situation
- 90-day 100% money-back guarantee
- Low $79 cost to get started, cancel or pause membership anytime
- See official site, terms, and details.
| Better Business Bureau | In Business Since | Monthly Cost | Reputation Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| A+ | 1989 | $79 | 9.5/10 |
Sky Blue Credit Repair will analyze your three major credit reports for mistakes and unsupported information and send formal credit repair letters to dispute any inaccuracies. It also coaches you on how to raise your credit score by taking specific actions.
Sky Blue Credit Repair commits to disputing five derogatory items per credit bureau every 35 days. You get an unconditional 90-day money-back guarantee if you are unsatisfied with its service. It also provides other extra services, including cease and desist letters, goodwill letters, debt validation, and debt settlement consultations, all at no extra cost.
Free Do-It-Yourself Credit Repair Letters
If you are a DIY type of person, you can personally dispute items on your credit reports at little or no cost. Start the process by requesting free copies of your three credit reports from AnnualCreditReport.com, the only source of federally authorized free credit reports.
You can then dispute any derogatory items you find online or by mail. You don’t have to write a formal letter if you prefer to communicate through the mail. Instead, you can print and mail a dispute form to each bureau.
Here is a summary of the dispute form links and addresses for the three credit bureaus:
Equifax
- Online
- Dispute Form
- Mail to: Equifax, PO Box 740256, Atlanta, GA 30374-0256
Experian
- Online
- Dispute Form
- Mail to: Experian, PO Box 4500, Allen, TX 75013
TransUnion
- Online
- Dispute Form
- Mail to: TransUnion LLC, Consumer Dispute Center, PO Box 2000, Chester, PA 19016
If you decide to mail in the form, consider sending it via certified mail with a return receipt.
How Do I Write a Letter to Fix My Credit?
The credit bureaus are, by definition, bureaucracies. In other words, they have a professional, all-business attitude.
If you wish to write them a letter to fix your credit, we suggest you adopt a similar attitude. That is easiest done by using a free template letter that has been optimized for the credit bureau operations. You can get a free template from the Federal Trade Commission.
By law, the credit bureaus must investigate and respond to your letter within 30 days. You should send the letter via certified mail with a return receipt so you can document the date it was received.
At a minimum, your correspondence should follow these guidelines:
- Write a separate letter for each disputed entry.
- Attach your credit report highlighting the disputed item. Also, attach copies of any other relevant documents.
- Keep your letter short, clear, and to the point. Give the necessary facts, including why you consider the entry to be incorrect.
- Send a copy of the letter to the source of the incorrect information if you know who that is.
- File all correspondence so you can easily retrieve it when necessary.
If you prefer more support, you can consider credit repair software and ebooks.
What is a 609 Dispute Letter?
You may see references on the internet to a so-called 609 Dispute Letter that promises, for a fee, to magically remove negative information from your credit report. Don’t waste your money on these templates, as there is no evidence that they are any more effective than any other dispute letter.
These letters get their name from Section 609 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which outlines your rights to get copies of your credit reports from the three major credit bureaus.
Section 609 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act outlines a consumer’s right to obtain copies of their credit reports.
Section 611 describes how consumers can exercise their rights to correct inaccurate information on the reports. However, the Act does not specify any kind of 609 Dispute Letter.
The supposed “magic” behind the 609 Dispute Level is the incorrect contention that the credit bureaus must provide consumers all relevant information, such as cashed checks and executed credit applications, or else remove a derogatory entry from the report. However, the Act only requires the bureaus to share the information they have in their systems.
Save your money — you can submit a credit dispute letter of your own design, and you don’t have to sprinkle any 609 pixie dust on it.
Do Pay for Delete Letters Work?
If you don’t mind doing a little haggling, you may be interested in negotiating a pay for delete letter. The letter from you to a creditor offers to repay a defaulted balance in return for having the transgression removed from your credit reports.
You can get a free pay for delete letter template from Lexington Law and the other reviewed credit repair services.
In the absence of a pay for delete agreement, you have no guarantee that a derogatory item will be removed even after you repay the balance. Items such as account defaults and collections can remain on your credit reports for up to seven years. During the first several years, these items actively lower your credit score.
As to whether a pay for delete letter works, the answer depends on the creditor. Many mainstream creditors, including banks and credit unions, are not interested in this kind of negotiation.
However, small businesses and utilities may be more receptive to a pay for delete agreement, especially if the account is in collection.
In other words, a pay for delete letter may be worth a try, especially if the derogatory item is several years from expiration. But first, write a debt validation letter to the collector asking for proof that the debt is real, that the collector owns the debt, and that you are the one who owes the money.
Do I Have to Dispute All 3 Credit Bureaus?
The three credit bureaus are independent companies that do not necessarily share the same information. That’s why you need to check your credit history on all three credit reports. That way, you know where to send letters to dispute incomplete, inaccurate, or outdated information.
You will need separate correspondences with each credit bureau that lists a particular derogatory item. Removing a dispute on, say, Experian doesn’t mean the same dispute will be removed from Equifax or TransUnion if it appears on more than one credit report.
While you certainly have the right to dispute any item on your credit report, you don’t want to go overboard. The regulations allow the credit bureaus to ignore frivolous disputes. A bureau may reach that determination if you dispute every item on your report or repeatedly request a reinvestigation of a rejected item.
But don’t be deterred if you receive a frivolous dispute letter that you believe to be wrong, as you can resubmit your request with supplementary information. In addition, Sky Blue Credit Repair and the other reviewed credit repair services offer support to respond to frivolous dispute letters.
Removing Inaccurate Negatives to Quickly Boost Your Score
You do not have to put up with erroneous information on your credit reports that damages your credit scores. You can dispute inaccurate or misleading information through credit repair letters addressed to the credit bureaus.
The bureaus must, by law, respond to your letters and diligently attempt to correct the errors.
The three credit repair services reviewed above can help you dispute bad information on your reports. In fact, they offer a variety of services that can help you rebuild your credit. Alternatively, you can write and send dispute letters yourself if you have the time and inclination.
There are other resources you can use, such as software, ebooks, and templates. However you approach the problem, removing inaccurate derogatory information is one of the fastest ways of boosting your credit score.
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