Too late to purchase credit reports?

[BigMistake]

Is it too late to purchase my credit reports if I already got free ones?

From what I've read my understanding is to pay for credit reports instead of getting free report so credit bureau has 30 days instead of 45 days to reply. My question is that I already got my free reports from annual credit reports, so do they automatically have 45 days now, even if I purchase reports now?

[jjgross]

You can still buy and use that report number to dispute rather than using the free report.

[BigMistake]

I'm very leery about just purchasing a report anywhere. So, assume you are saying I can actually call each credit bureau and purchase a report now from them even though they just gave me a free one?

[jjgross]

That's the way to go as long as your paying for it you can buy one every month if you wanted to.

[BigMistake]

Thanks jjgross!

[freems4]

But; don't that count against you on the CR. I have you the free reports and always got my back within 30 days when I had to dipute them.

[Hal Jordan]

I would recommend buying your credit reports from myfico.com

[Lian]

You are apparently referring to FCRA 612(a)(3), which states that the reinvestigation period for disputes through a CRA is not later than 45 days from the date of request for reinvestigation "that is made after receiving a consumer report under this subsection' (i.e., after obtaining a free credit report). Note that the date is not extended to run 45 days from the request for the free credit report. The "request" referred to in section 612(a)(3) is the request for reinvestigation (i.e., the date of the dispute), and not the date of receiving a free credit report. Their action of providing the free credit report while the investigation is ongoing cant extend the period until the report is provided, and thus a CRA cannot fail to provide the report, and thus delay the expiration of its reinvestigation period. And the date still falls back to the date of the dispute, not the date of providing the report.

That section of statute, at least to me, is extremely nebulous as to its application to disputes other than the one during which the free credit report is provided. I would not interpret it to mean that the dispute investigation period, once one has ever received a free credit report, is for all time thereafter extended to 45-days. That just does not make common sense within the framework of section 611(a)(1).

What does make sense to me, and is consistent with the language of section 612(a)(3), is that if a consumer requests a free credit report during the period that a dispute is under reinvestigation, that extends the period for that investigation to 45 days. Not only does that interpretation make simple sense, it is consistent with the entire differentiation of the 45 vs. 30 day period in section 611(a)(1), which pertains only to extending the period for that dispute when the consumer submits information after filing of the dispute, and during the reinvestigation period.

If a CRA asserted the right to a 45-day reinvestigation period for all subsequent disputes based on a prior request for a free credit report that did not occur during that dispute, I would challenge that assertion as being an incorrect interpretation of section 612(a)(3). Are CRAs actually doing this????