Is there anyway to dispute derogatory items on my credit report?

When I lived in Florida I tried to get DSL in my apt. I contacted Verizon to get eveything set up and they mailed me everything. I found out that the phone jack in my place was not wired at all, so I called them to cancel it. A little over a year later, a collections agency contacted my parents looking for me. I contacted them and found out what the issue was. Apparently Verizon had charged my for the little time I had the modem and service. Once I found out about the charge I immediately paid it. A couple of weeks later my credit score drops 100 pts. After a year they finally put 2 derogatory items on my report. Is there anyway to dispute this and get it off of my report. It took them a year to contact me and when they did, it only took me a few minutes to get it paid. The rest of my report is spotless, does this not count for anything?

Public Comments

1. Yes, you need to write a letter to each reporting company and tell them to put your dispute in your credit report. Provide proof that you paid the bill.
2. Go to creditexpert.com Its like 9 bucks and it walks you through it and will monitor your credit for you. Help me out a lot ! Hope that helps
3. You can dispute things that are inaccurate, are owed by someone else, were paid on time, etc. But if you really did order the service yourself and really did not pay for a year, I am not sure what basis you have for disputing. The rest of your report being spotless counts for something. This is why you score is however much your score still is, in other words, this is why it did not drop all the way to zero.
4. You can dispute anything on your report and it's their responsibility to prove that you owe it not yours to prove that you do not. The catch is if the information is accurate it will not be removed. Sometimes the credit bureaus get lazy and things slip past the 30 days and get removed anyway.
5. Some of these things don't make sense, were you not living at that apartment for most or all of the year? Did they not send you even one bill? Was your adress not updated? Why did the collection agency have to contact your parents if you had a current and correct address provided? Were you supposed to return the modem and not do that? I know when my nephew moved he had to physically return the modem/cable box to terminate his service.
6. start compiling any documentation you have or can get that will support your claim. dispute the item directly with the 3 major credit bureaus and also verizon. send them copies of any documentation. send the letter to verizon by certified mail so someone has to sign for it. they have 30 days from the receipt of your dispute to process it. in my experience with verizon they can be fairly reasonable. your best bet is to deal cordially with them. you actually get alot farther by being nice yet firm. just make sure you request everything in writing and get names, phone numbers and titles of everyone you talk to.
7. You will need to use dispute letters with the correct verbage or else the agencies will through them away. Do it yourself credit repair is the answer. Check out the source website. Good luck.