17.3.3.3 Also Notify the Collector and Original Creditor of the Dispute

At the same time they notify the CRAs, consumers should directly notify the collector or original creditor furnishing the disputed information. The critical dispute notice must be directed to the CRA, which will then ask the collector or creditor to reinvestigate. But consumers strengthen their position when they also notify the furnisher of the inaccurate information. It is also helpful to put the original creditor on notice of the judgment, if it is not on notice already.

Sending a detailed notice to the collector and original creditor prevents any argument from furnishers that they failed to receive adequate information to conduct an adequate investigation. Previously, the nationwide CRAs, in forwarding the consumer’s dispute to the furnisher, often reduced the consumer’s detailed dispute letter to an electronic message, with the underlying dispute translated to a generic two-digit dispute code (for example, “01 not his/hers”) and perhaps a short, one-line paraphrase of some aspect of the dispute (for example, “Consumer states belongs to husband only”). While the nationwide CRAs began making the consumer’s entire dispute available to the furnisher in 2013,¹⁰⁷ supplying the furnisher directly with a copy of the detailed dispute letter being sent to the CRA by the consumer thwarts any claim by the furnisher that it did not understand the consumer’s dispute because of the abbreviated notice that it received from the CRA.