How to resolve issues in your credit report if you are looking to buy a house

When you file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau disputing something on your credit record, you expect some relief. But you might not always get it. And under the Trump administration, help is even harder to come by, according to a March report from ProPublica.

Of course, not every complaint is legitimate. A CFPB spokesperson told ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative newsroom, that “the complaint system [is] inundated with submissions from bots and third-party credit repair firms.”

But ProPublica found that two of the three major credit bureaus have substantially scaled back the rates at which they provide relief. TransUnion is rendering relief roughly half as often as it once did, and Experian is hardly doing so at all. The third bureau, Equifax, did not see a similar decline -- likely because it had entered into a consent agreement with the CFPB at the tail end of the Biden administration to fix deficiencies in its processes.

Now, four Democrat senators, led by Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have sent letters to TransUnion and Experian expressing their concern.

Warren was a key architect of the 2011 creation of the CFPB, which in recent years had been putting pressure on the three bureaus to improve their complaint resolution programs. Under Trump, however, the CFPB was ordered to stop almost all of its work and to let go of most of its staff. The firings have been paused by litigation, but the White House is now refusing to fund the agency.

As all this plays out, consumer complaints about credit reporting have skyrocketed, with more than four million lodged with the CFPB in 2025. Compare that to a reported 150,000 in 2019. The credit bureaus claim that “many complaints are illegitimate,” reports ProPublica, “including a large volume filed by credit repair organizations that charge customers to challenge negative information on their reports.”

The truth is, consumers don’t need to pay anyone to get their credit records fixed. You can do it yourself, and you have every right to. Here’s how:

Start by contacting the furnisher of the erroneous information that is, the company that provided the information to the credit bureaus. This may be your bank, mortgage lender, landlord, credit card company or any group with which you have financial dealings.

Explain the error in writing, whether it’s a closed account, an account that isn’t yours or a simple misspelling of your name. You can use a template letter from the CFPB website (CFPB.gov) as a guide. Your letter should include your complete name, address, phone number and your credit report confirmation number, if available. Cover each error you want fixed, including any relevant account numbers, and officially request that the information be removed or corrected.

Include documents that support your dispute: copies, not the originals, in case anything gets lost. And send the package by certified mail so you have a record of when it was received and by whom.

Generally, furnishers must investigate and respond to your complaint within 30 days of receiving it. If a furnisher determines it provided incorrect information about you, or if the information cannot be verified, it must update or remove that information and notify all three credit reporting agencies after making the necessary corrections. Then, the three bureaus must update your credit records.

If the furnisher decides the information about you is accurate and should not be updated or removed, you can contact the bureaus and ask them to include a statement explaining your side of the dispute in your credit reports. The statement is then added to your file and provided to whomever requests your credit report in the future.

A second option is to dispute the misinformation directly with the bureaus. You can contact them online, by mail or by phone. If you suspect that the error is a result of identity theft, visit IdentityTheft.gov, Uncle Sam’s one-stop resource on the issue.

The bureaus must investigate your gripe, forward it and all relevant information to the associated furnisher and report the results back to you. But they are not required to look into disputes that they determine are frivolous or irrelevant, including any that do not contain enough information to investigate.

The bureaus are required to send you a notice explaining that they have decided the dispute is frivolous, and why, within five business days after making the decision.

A third option is to bring a lawsuit against the furnisher or the bureaus. The bureaus, and smaller credit reporting companies, can be held liable for damages and attorney fees. In the case of a willful failure to comply with the law, the company can be liable for actual or statutory damages and punitive damages. But be aware that time limits apply, so pay attention to deadlines.

You should check your credit reports at least once a year to make sure there are no errors that could keep you from getting credit or the best available terms and rates on a loan. You can now request and review yours from the three major bureaus at AnnualCreditReport.com.

Lew Sichelman has been covering real estate for more than 50 years. He is a regular contributor to numerous shelter magazines and housing and housing-finance industry publications. Readers can contact him at lsichelman@aol.com