How To Get A Closed Account Removed From Credit Report?
This is so because a closed account listed in your report will in one way or another lower your score. If you close the account in good standing, then the closed account can negatively contribute to the average length of credit history and the total credit utilization ratio. Fortunately, there are ways you can take to reverse the process of removing closed accounts from the credit report.
First, identify whether the closed account is causing a loss, or detracting value in some way. Navigate to annualcreditreport. com and access the credit report to examine the accounts you currently have as well as the ones you have had in the past. It is thus very unlikely that having one or two closed accounts will harm your score much when you have one or two currently open accounts that are in good standing. However, if there are closed accounts and they are significantly pulling your score down, it may be best to have them deleted.
If the company is large, the next step would be to determine the history of the accounts. Were you or the credit card company to close them? Were there any payment installments that were missed in the period before the closure? If you have ever closed accounts that are always in good standing and if there are no outcomes of missed or even late payments from such accounts, then it wouldn’t be very hard to get removed. However, if the accounts indicate certain negative signs such as the cases of late payments, the process becomes somewhat challenging but manageable.
Now consider whether these accounts were closed a long time ago or they are quite recent. If they have been closed for a year or two then you do not have the authority to remove them. Credit bureaus are allowed to report credit information, good or bad, for up to seven years of the credit reporting period. However, if the accounts have been closed for over seven years, then yes, there should be no qualms for one to request for deletion of the specified accounts. The credit bureaus are obliged to delete the accounts that have been reported to the bureaus and have been in the credit report for more than seven years.
Based on this background information you’ve gathered, you can now proceed with the process of requesting removal. Your first procedure is to dispute matters with the three agencies that provide credit reports including Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Disputes can be lodged through an online facility, through mail, or by making a phone complaint. If there are specific accounts you would like omitted, take note of each account and the rationale as to why it should no longer be reported. Some of the reasons may be the fact that one has never been a defaulter and that the account was closed more than seven years ago of the person’s own accord.
In most cases, just submitting the disputes suffice to warrant the removal of the requested accounts by the credit bureaus. But sometimes they will conclude that it is possible to report those accounts as closed accounts are not necessarily ineligible for reporting. But if you get a notice from the bureaus rejecting your dispute, do not lose hope, there is more to try. The next logical step in your analysis is to go to the sources of the financial information – the financial institutions themselves.
Obtain contact details for the banks or lenders who are providing the credit bureaus with details that the accounts are closed. Contact them and inform their customer service departments that they should forward present facts concerning those accounts. For instance, ask them to change the values of the account to zero balance if you owe, and the account is closed by your own decision, with no sign of missed or late payment. That way, the banks will independently submit the positive account details to the credit bureaus, which can override the previous negative reporting details concerning the closures.
It is also important to check up on the financial institutions now and then to confirm whether they have indeed communicated with bureaus as well as in a bid to ensure that fresh, positive information is reported. And then, revisit the three credit bureaus after several weeks also, depending on the information shared. There are often good outcomes that can be achieved when the actual source of the credit information is eliminated if you want to get rid of the closed accounts you do not like to see on your reports.
It does require some effort in arguing, presenting other facts, and persistently making a success out of the process of requesting the elimination of closed accounts that had to be removed. However, if one is willing to undergo these steps, it can lead to a greatly improved credit rating. Low credit use and the presence of fewer inactive accounts lead to higher scores for the majority of customers. Therefore it can be said that it is worth going through the dispute process to improve your credit health status as it may demand some effort.
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