Authored for consumers who've been denied, overcharged, or left guessing.
Find every error on your credit report. In one sitting.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that 1 in 5 consumers has an error on at least one of their credit reports. Some are harmless. Others cost you hundreds of points — and sometimes the loan. This is the eight-step working checklist we use ourselves.
The eight steps, as they appear in the document.
- i.How to pull all three reports for free, from the one federally-authorized source.
- ii.Auditing your personal information for mixed-file errors and identity theft flags.
- iii.The five most common account-level errors, and exactly what each looks like.
- iv.Reviewing hard inquiries — what belongs there, and what doesn't.
- v.Checking public records: bankruptcies, civil judgments, tax liens, aging rules.
- vi.Cross-bureau comparison — the step most people skip that strengthens every dispute.
- vii.Documenting findings in a format the bureaus will actually act on.
- viii.Filing the dispute, via certified mail, with the language that triggers investigation.
What "finding errors" actually looks like on paper.
Most credit reports don't contain obvious typos. The errors that tank your score are subtler: an account balance that's $300 off, a "late" marker on a month you paid on time, a collection that's listed twice under slightly different creditor names, or an address you've never lived at.
The checklist walks you through it account-by-account, so by the end you have a written list of every error, which bureau reported it, and what the correct information should be. That list becomes your dispute letter.
You have the right to dispute inaccurate information for free. No company or software is required — it is your legal right.
Fair Credit Reporting Act · 15 U.S.C. § 1681
- Account belongs to you✓
- Balance matches your recordsOff $312
- Date of first delinquency is correct2019 → 2021
- Appears on all three bureausOnly Experian
- Payment history is accurate—
— CFPB, 2021
The checklist is free. Reading it is the first step.
Scroll back up, request your copy, and we'll have it in your inbox before you've refilled your coffee.
Request the checklist