INACCURATE IDENTITY DISPUTE

The first thing you will check on your credit report is the accuracy of your identity information. This will include the correct spelling of your name, date of birth, social security number, mailing address, and employer. 

These data points can be used to verify if negative items on your credit report belong to you.

The first task is to clean your credit report of inaccurate identity information. 

NAME

It is not uncommon for your credit report to list your accounts under multiple versions of your name. Your accounts may reflect different variations of your name — Robert Smith, Rob Smith, and Robert A. Smith, for instance.

This is unacceptable. You should have only one name listed and not multiple spellings. Dispute the different variations of names listed and demand that only one name be listed on your report. Provide two forms of ID with that name to be listed.

DATE OF BIRTH

Check your credit report to ensure your date of birth is listed correctly. If it is not, dispute this and include two forms of ID that show your correct date of birth. 

SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER 

Oftentimes, your credit report will only show a partial social security number for security purposes; usually the first few numbers or last few numbers of your social security number. 

Check these numbers and make sure they match your social security number. If not, dispute and include two forms of ID that show your correct SSN. 

MAILING ADDRESS

Your credit report will undoubtedly contain multiple addresses.  You will want to dispute these addresses and ask only your current mailing address to be listed.

EMPLOYER

Many credit reports will have employers listed, oftentimes numerous employers. If this is the case, dispute this information. 

It is important to start your credit repair process with cleaning up the data points of your identity first. It is your identity data points that the credit bureaus will use to match and verify the negative items you dispute. 

Don’t make it easy to match these data points. Clean up your identity data first before disputing any other items on your credit report. 

The template letter below disputes all of the identity areas talked about. If your credit report does not contain an error in one of these data points, remove that paragraph from the template letter before mailing to the credit bureaus.