Credit bureaus have created a way to speed the dispute process. Still though, this system, in more ways than one, can indeed bring more harm to your credit repair attempts than the good it can bring. This breakthrough article will completely trip you out! Keep reading ...

Because credit reporting agencies get so many dispute letters every single day - hundreds of thousands - they wanted to come up with a way to keep up with the consumer complaints. But not only to keep up the pace on all those incoming letters, but they really needed a system to process them as well. And because the credit bureaus' response time is restricted only to 30-45 days (depending on how the consumer retrieved their credit reports), they really needed a speedy route to react to these consumers' disputes. As a result, they created 2 computerized methods to carry out this mission.

OCR, which means 'Optical Character Recognition', is parallel to a gigantic scanner on steroids, as the experts put it. This machine is constructed to apprehend the words in your dispute letters and to even actually determine the meaning of dispute letters as they come in. And in addition, it's also designed to database and mate dispute letters against the hundreds of thousands of other dispute letters that have already been retreived and dealt with.

E-Oscar, on the other hand was made to process those dispute letters. Designed and created by the credit bureaus themselves, both the e-Oscar and OCR technologies were made to speed the process in replying to dispute letters. But unfortunately, automated systems don't always work with the best intentions of the customer.

After being opened by one machine and put on a conveyer belt, the Optical Character Recognition device is the first primary tool that your letters are exposed to when it reaches the credit reporting agencies. This smart software looks at the dispute letter, gathers the data from it, analyzes it, and then interprets it. The OCR software will instantly determine if it could be further processed through e-Oscar to the company reporting the incorrect data or classified as senseless and basically put into the waste basket. If the OCR machine establishes that the dispute letter is unique enough to be processed, the next automated machine kicks in - e-OSCAR - but if not, you've just wasted your time and energy.

Through the E-Oscar system created and utilized by the credit bureaus, dispute letters are basically processed by the machine, according to the OCR machine's interpretations, and then squeezed into a two character code. Furthermore, only one dispute can be entered at a time for each reporting item. So what this means is that if you have multiple disputes about a particular credit item (for example, the dates the account was opened or the last date of activity on it, the actual balance on that account, late payments if any, or even the reporting credit limit, and so forth), only one of your disputes may actually be processed - usually the first one listed. So this also translates to the fact that you've wasted valuable time and energy on your letter, thus some of your information reported in the credit report may not get disputed.

Although, in the beginning, it seemed like automation would speed up all the work, and logically speed up processing our disputes, the truth still remains the same and that is ... these machines have limitations and faults too. Here’s a rather disturbing fact about this that’ll really blow your mind - were you aware that e-Oscar has a feature called “reply all” which actually allows the data furnisher to respond to a collection of disputed files all at once as “Verified” without ever really completing a "reasonable" investigation as required by law - instead just hitting "reply all" to verify 20, 50, or even 100's of disputes, sent to them in a batch file from the credit bureaus' e-Oscar system, without ever even looking at them?! Is that not insane or what! What’s even more disturbing is that this is perfectly legal so that being said, it's just that much more important that you do all you can to ensure your credit reports - all three - are accurate and thus, so are your credit scores.

Your personal credit score is so important that we must take a stand against our disputes being electronically processed in error. And therefore, your main goal in credit repair is to devise a plan to get around the computerized system so that your letters ultimately fall into the hands of a credit bureau staff member. We have to assert that it should be real human beings who should be processing the information about our financial records and disputes because unfortunately, these super machines are just that - machines, and they don't always grasp the complete concept of our what our disputes letters are about. Most would agree that it's totally cruel to consumers when credit agencies do not follow through on their obligations to hard working, good citizens like yourself as commanded by law.

About the Author: Yusheeka Davis is an advocate for protecting consumer credit reports & rights. She's written many free articles. Her company, Start Fresh Credit Report Assistants, offers many free credit repair services, including free credit report audits, identity theft assistance, & expert advice. For free credit assistance, feel free to visit Yusheeka's credit repair website today.