The Congress has revised the Fair Credit Reporting Act to specify what credit repair firms can and cnnot do because of the past abuses. What Congress permits these firms to do is nothing more than you can do yourself.

   In the past these firms swamped credit bureaus with repeated, spurious disputes claiming a bad debt was wrongfully placed on a credit report in the hope that the credit reporting agency would be inundated with disputes and would "give in" on some of these just to get rid of the dispute. That did not happen. Credit reporting agencys can by law refuse to investigate frivolous disputes.

 The credit report dispute process can be accomplished by you without much trouble and certainly no expense. You are entitled to one free credit report from each agency every year and you can obtain this report by going online to www.annual credit report.com. Review your report for any errors that impact your credit worthiness including the listing of multiple addresses that may be incorrect.

Each credit reporting agency provides information on how to dispute information on your report and often a form for doing so is provided. It is important to be precise about the error and accurate with account information. If you have any documentation to back-up your claim include it with your dispute form.

If you are not satisfied with the agency's first response ask for an investigation and an explanantion of what the agency did to verify the debt on your first request. It is important to be persistent in your work with the agency because their staff people are well trained in how to get rid of you. If you feel you are at a dead end call the agency and ask to speak to a supervisor. If all else fails threaten to file a law suit in your small claims court. You have that right.

Be watchful for creditors that sell your charged off debt to a third party collector who then posts it on your credit report with the charge-off date being the date they posted it. Challenge this. This is an illegal practice often referred to as redating. I have seen debts appear on a credit report one yaer after they dropped off from the original cerditor's charge-off date.

Outdated information may not be reported. Generally consumer debts can be reported for seven years and a charge-off can be reported for seven years from the date of charge-off which should be six months after you stopped making paqyments or went 90 days or more late.

Bankruptcys can be reported for ten years so use this as an absolute last resort.

The "consumer statement" is a nice tool in that it allows you to record on your credit report, within guidelines, information you believe pertinent to an item reported and which the agency refuses to correct ot delete. Your "consumer statement" should be provided when your credit history is requested.

There are several resources online to hlep you work with a credit reporting agency and you should take advantage of any help you can get. www.budhibbs.com is one such site.Hibbs has been fighting abusive credit reporting practices for a long time and I consider him to be a great source of information.