What Happens When An Account Is Verified During The Dispute Process?

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), consumers have the ability to dispute inaccurate or incomplete information on their credit report. Any information that is inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable, must be removed or corrected, usually within 30 days. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a consumer reporting agency may continue to report information it has verified as accurate.

You may be thinking to yourself “Great, now what?”. But, if you have ever gone through the dispute process, or are thinking about disputing information on your credit report, don’t get discouraged if you receive a letter from the credit bureaus saying “Your account is verified” without any details of the investigation. Actually, this is quite common for many people and unfortunately, they give up as they become frustrated with the e-Oscar method of investigation.

Now, you may be asking, “What in the world is the e-Oscar method of investigation?”. The Online Solution for Complete and Accurate Reporting, a.k.a. e-Oscar, is an automated system that data furnishers (the people who put your credit account information on your credit report) and credit reporting agencies use to create and respond to consumer credit history disputes. When you go to the e-Oscar website, you will see that they state: “ The system primarily supports A utomated C redit D ispute V erification (ACDV) and A utomated U niversal D ataform (AUD) processing” The automated credit dispute verification is their fancy way of saying that instead of the credit bureaus calling the creditors themselves to check the information a consumer is disputing, it's done electronically through a computer.

You can find the full details on their website here:
http://www.e-oscar.org/about-e-oscar.aspx

The way the e-Oscar system works is that once the credit reporting agency receives the dispute letter from the consumer, the employee at the credit reporting agency reads the letter and selects a two digit code that best represents the nature of the letter. There are more than 20 codes that can be chosen from and it’s at the credit bureau employee’s discretion what code best describes the dispute. If the credit bureau cannot resolve the dispute internally, the credit bureaus are required to send supporting documents to the furnisher of the consumer’s account.

Again, do not get discouraged if you receive a letter stating that your account has been verified. You have a right to send a method of verification letter to request hard evidence that goes back to the original creditor. Under the FCRA, the credit reporting agency is required to give you a method of verification within 15 days of your request.

This is why it’s so important to work with a reputable credit restoration agency, such as Buildworth Strategies, that is experienced in disputing errors on consumer credit reports. Errors on your credit report can affect your credit score which can affect your ability to open new lines of credit or receive the best interest rate possible, costing you more money in the end. The dispute process can be time consuming and frustrating but working with professionals at BWS will help you get the best results possible.

You can learn more about account verification during the dispute process by watching this video on the Keeping it Real with Credit YouTube channel: