CheckDispute Guides

What a document fingerprint proves — and what it does not CheckDispute · Sources checked September 20, 2026 A document fingerprint proves one thing: whether a file has changed since the fingerprint was generated. That is the entire claim, and it is a useful one when you are about to approve a letter about your own credit report. It does not prove the statements inside the document are accurate, that an entry on your report is an error, that a credit bureau will agree with you, or who wrote the file. This guide separates the two so you can use a fingerprint for what it actually does — pinning down exactly which version you approved. What is the purpose of hashing a document? To detect change. The federal Secure Hash Standard, published by NIST, specifies hash algorithms that generate digests of messages and states that the digests are used to detect whether messages have been changed since the digests were generated . A digest , or fingerprint, is a short value computed from the ful...

How to share a credit report more carefully CheckDispute · Sources checked September 20, 2026 Sharing a credit report safely starts with scope, not with software. Send the smallest part of the file that answers the question the recipient actually asked, send a copy rather than your only copy, and keep a dated record of exactly what left your hands. A leasing office checking whether one collection is paid does not need your employment history or your open-account balances. This guide covers how to choose which pages to send, what you can ask a recipient to do with them, who may lawfully obtain a report about you, and what a shared page does and does not prove. How do I send someone my credit report? Decide what to send before you decide how to send it. Ask the recipient which single question they are trying to answer — whether a particular collection is paid, whether an account is current, whether the name and address in your file match your application — then find the pages that an...

Before uploading a financial PDF: the questions to ask CheckDispute · Sources checked September 20, 2026 Whether it is safe to upload a financial document as a PDF is not a property of the file. It is a property of the company you hand it to, and from the outside you can only judge that by asking questions that have answers. There are five: who inside can open it, how long it is kept, whether the retention rule is written down, whether it is encrypted while it moves, and what "deleted" does in practice. This guide turns the FTC's own guidance to businesses into those five questions, and shows you how to send less in the first place. What is the safest way to send financial documents? Send less of the document. The safest version of any transfer is the one that moves the smallest slice of information that answers the recipient's actual question, in a copy you keep a duplicate of. On the transmission itself, the FTC's guidance to businesses on protecting pers...