If There’s a Mistake on Your Credit Report, It’s Your Lender Who Can Best Help You Fix It, Not the Bureau

You didn’t know that, did you? You didn’t think your lender would help you fix your credit ? Well, it’s not exactly the lender; it’s your loan officer who is your best friend when it comes to fixing errors.

Remember that your loan officer doesn’t get paid unless your loan closes. If there’s a mistake on your credit report that’s lowering your credit score or otherwise blocking your AUS approval, your loan officer has some contacts that you don’t have.


Credit-reporting agencies solicit lenders’ business every single day. They hire sales reps, just like many other businesses, to make sales calls. No matter what lender or mortgage broker you end up using, there’s a credit-reporting agency representative who is paid to get business from that lender or broker.

These agencies are not direct employees of the three major credit bureaus; they are employees of companies that pull data from these bureaus and report and provide those data to lenders who want to issue credit decisions for their consumers as part of their business or trade. These sales reps promise things such as lower prices for reports, timely reporting, and finally assistance when there are problems. Fixing mistakes on credit reports is where these companies earn their keep—and it’s your loan officer who knows them.

Forget about credit explanation letters—your loan officer can fix this for you. If it’s a mistake. What’s a mistake in the world of credit reporting? A mistake is something that can be proven wrong by third-party sources. Did the creditor say you were late on one of your payments to it? You can’t simply tell your loan officer, ‘‘No, that’s not correct’’; instead, you will have to provide your loan officer with third-party documentation verifying that what you say is correct.

Find that cancelled check and get a copy of that old statement, give it to your loan officer, and have her take a look at it. If in fact you can show that what was due was paid on time, through a date cancellation on the back of your check, or show how the account was paid online, then all your loan officer has to do is show that documentation to the credit agency
sales rep and he will wipe it clean—something that can take months when consumers try to do it by themselves. Credit agency sales reps get paid to do things like this, and your loan officer has a vested interest in getting mistakes fixed and fixed fast.