Editorial policy
Last updated:
Credit and legal information has to be right, or it is worse than none. This page says how Dispute Command pages are written, where the facts come from, and what we do when something changes or turns out to be wrong.
Where the facts come from
In order of preference:
- The law itself. The text of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the related regulations, linked from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute and the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations.
- Federal agencies. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission.
- The credit bureaus’ own pages. Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, for addresses, portals, and their own policies.
- Nonpartisan research. The Congressional Research Service, for how a rule changed.
If a claim cannot be traced to a source on this list, it does not go on the site. The full list is on the sources page.
How rules and practices are labeled
Some things are law, such as the 30-day dispute period. Some are bureau policy, such as how medical collections are handled. Some are practice, such as how long hard inquiries stay. Each page says which is which. Policy and practice can change without a new law, so those pages carry a date.
Examples
Examples use hypothetical situations and are labeled as examples. A faceless site cannot document personal results, so none are claimed. Nothing here says what any reader will get.
Dates on every page
Each page shows two dates. “Last updated” changes only when the content changes. “Sources checked” shows the month the legal and factual claims were last compared to the sources listed on the page.
How often pages are re-checked
- Every six months: bureau addresses, phone numbers, portal pages, and any topic that depends on a policy, such as medical debt.
- Within the same week: when a statute, a regulation, or a bureau policy that a guide relies on changes.
What we will not publish
- Templates or tactics that claim to remove accurate information.
- Advice to tell a bureau an account is not yours when it is.
- Guarantees of any outcome.
- Before-and-after claims, testimonials about score changes, or personal results.
No paid placement
No credit bureau, creditor, or company pays to be mentioned or to change how a page describes them.
Corrections
If something on a page is out of date or wrong, tell us through the contact page, ideally with a link to the source that shows the current rule. We would rather fix it than leave it.