How To Remove Fraudulent Accounts From Your Credit Report
Imperial Ethics Credit Repair · Glendale, Arizona · 7 min read
A fraudulent account is not an ordinary dispute, and treating it like one is why so many people get nowhere. There is a specific remedy in federal law for exactly this, and most victims have never heard of it.
Why ordinary disputes fail on fraud
An ordinary dispute asks one question: is this information accurate? The bureau passes that on to the company that reported the account, and that company checks whether it exists in its records. It does exist, because someone opened it. So back comes the answer: verified.
The account is real. What is false is that it belongs to you, and a routine verification is not designed to establish that. This is why victims file dispute after dispute and watch the same account survive every round.
The right tool: FCRA section 605B
Section 605B of the Fair Credit Reporting Act creates a block rather than a dispute. Give a credit bureau a valid identity theft report identifying information that resulted from the theft, and the bureau must block that information from your file within four business days of receiving it. The bureau must also tell the company that reported it that the account may be the product of identity theft.
That is a far stronger position than asking for verification. The burden shifts, and the timeline is measured in days rather than a thirty day investigation window.
What a valid request contains
Send it to every bureau reporting the item, in writing, in a way you can prove you sent. The paper trail is what matters if the bureau does not comply.
When a bureau declines to block
A bureau can decline in limited circumstances, including where it reasonably determines the request was made in error or on the basis of a material misrepresentation. If your documentation is complete and specific, those grounds are narrow. A refusal on a well-documented request is worth escalating rather than accepting.
Do not stop at the bureau
Blocking at the bureau does not oblige the creditor to stop. Write to each lender and collection agency directly, with your identity theft report attached, and tell them not to re-report or sell the account. Skip this and the same debt can come back through a different collector six months later, and you begin again.
When The Lender Or Collector Keeps Reporting Anyway
A creditor or collector that continues reporting an account after receiving proper notice that it is the product of identity theft has a serious problem. Federal law puts duties on the companies that report your accounts, not only on the bureaus, and ignoring a documented identity theft report is a failure of them.
This is where our partner FCRA attorneys come in, at no out-of-pocket cost to the client. The objective is not only getting the entry off your report but holding the party that reported it accountable for the harm it caused.
Keep the freezes on
Cleaning up the accounts does not take your Social Security number back out of circulation. Leave your credit frozen at all three bureaus, lift it temporarily when you genuinely need to apply for something, and keep watching your reports for at least a year afterward.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Imperial Ethics Credit Repair is not a law firm.
Identity theft repair is free for our clients
You did not cause it, so we do not bill you for it. Send us your report and we will find every account that should not be there. Partner FCRA attorneys at no out-of-pocket cost where the law has been broken.
