I’ve had the hair-pulling experience of trying to correct errors in my credit files. It was a journey to automation hell.

Let’s say a creditor incorrectly reported that you were seriously late on a payment. This information causes your credit score to drop considerably. So you contact the credit bureaus to file a dispute. (If the incorrect information is reported to only one agency, contact that particular bureau.) You provide proof of your financial innocence — copies, never the original.

The credit bureaus send an inquiry to the creditor that reported the incorrect information. The creditor (the industry calls them “data furnishers”) examines its records and sends the same erroneous data back to the bureau. The credit bureaus contact you indicating that the creditor has “verified” the information they have on you is correct. This back and forth goes on for months or, for the truly unfortunate, years.

This is credit-error purgatory.

How to clean up your credit report

Even if you are able to get the error removed, a regular computer update to the credit bureau database […]