Posts Tagged ‘12 Months’

Credit Repair Fast

February 10th, 2010



When you have bad credit and a low credit score, the faster you can fix the problem, the faster your life gets back to normal. Rather than just accepting your status, learn what you can do to understand the credit process and what you can do to track and repair problems that may appear on your credit report.

The place to begin is with your credit reports. The idea behind looking at a current credit report is to see exactly what is being reported about you. Federal law requires that the nationwide consumer reporting companies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, provide you with a free copy of your credit report once every 12 months, if you ask for it. To order your free report, visit Annual Credit Report dot com, call 1-877-322-8228, or complete and mail the Annual Credit Report Request Form.

1. In order to make credit repair fast, you need to be aggressive and diligent in your efforts. Make a list of mistakes and errors you find, then compose a letter to the bureau reporting the error, and asking them to remove it from your files. Send all correspondence by certified mail, and ask for a signed receipt.

Some credit repair companies will even send a dispute letter knowing that the item they are disputing is accurate. If the bureau doesn’t verify the item, or can’t do it within the 30 days allowed by law, the bureau has to remove those items immediately. The result is a big, and fast, positive pop to someone’s credit score.

2. No matter how horrible your credit picture is today, credit bureaus and lenders are most concerned about your latest credit management habits. Be sure you make all payments on time, and preferably early. Never, never, never ever make a payment late. This is critical if you want to rebuild your credit.

3. If you have any outstanding collection accounts, you can probably work out some kind of payment arrangement with them, either a discounted payoff in full at anywhere from 30

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Bad Credit Report Repair Done Easy

February 2nd, 2010



Usually it’s about the time that someone needs to buy a new car or is about to purchase their first home that they realize that they are going to need to do a little bad credit report repair. While it can be quite costly to hire a professional to help you get your credit rating back on track quickly, there is hope for people who are the more do-it-yourself type and want to save some money.

Bad credit report repair can be done on your own if you have the time and some organizational skills. It is not difficult work to fix your credit, it is just a matter of understanding exactly what makes up your credit score, identifying the problem areas, and then workings swiftly to resolve those issues. All of this can easily be done on your own, without the help of an expensive professional.

The first thing that you need to do is order a copy of your credit report from each of the three credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax and Trans Union. You can order a copy from each of the three agencies for free every 12 months, and it only takes a minute. Just go to the Annual Credit Report website, enter in your contact information, and you’ll instantly have an electronic copy of your report, which you can save to your hard drive and print out. Just be sure to visit the official Free Credit Report website, as there are many other that suggest you can receive a free report, but only if you sign up for a trial of their monthly credit monitoring service. The official site, however, has no strings attached.

Once you have downloaded your report, print if off and take out two different color pens or highlighters. You are looking for two things that you want to distinguish from each other. The first thing you are looking for is errors on your report. One in four credit documents include misinformation, so chances are you will find some. The other thing you are looking for, which you want to highlight in a different color, is the accurate information that is negatively affecting your credit score. Each report will be slightly different, so thoroughly and carefully look at each document.

Once you have done that, the next in your bad credit report repair plan is to remove the false information and eliminate the negative information. To do this, make two columns on a sheet of paper that that are labeled, “misinformation” and “negative information.” List your items in the appropriate column, but rank them in terms of their greatest impact on your credit score. For example, if you have a bankruptcy on your credit report that did not occur and a typo in your employer’s address, you want to list the bankruptcy first since having that removed will have the greatest impact on your credit score.

Once you have your items ranked in the proper order, you will have an idea of where you need to focus your energy to improve your credit score the fastest. When disputing items on your credit report, you don’t want to do them all at once. Just take care of the biggest problems first in order to get the most cooperation from the credit bureaus and getting them to act fast.

By: Ryan J. Taylor

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Bad Credit Repair – Understand Your Credit Report

December 30th, 2009



Due to changes made to the Fair Credit Reporting Act as of December 2003, the three credit bureaus TransUnion, Experian and Equifax are now required, at your request, to provide you with an official credit report, at no cost. This is allowed once every 12 months. You are encouraged to take advantage of this, and make sure that what is getting revealed to lenders and potential employers is totally accurate information.

With identity theft at an all time high (40 million Americans had their identities stolen a few weeks ago in the biggest case of identity theft in American history), it is very important to ensure that your credit report is correct. There are millions of people in need of bad credit repair that may not even know it because their credit reports have been compromised by identity thieves.

Before you can understand your credit report, you must obtain it. It is very simple to obtain a free copy of your credit report. You can use three different methods:

1. You may contact each of the three credit reporting bureaus directly either by phone or in writing:

Equifax

P.O. Box 740241

Atlanta, GA 30374

1-800-685-1111

Experian

P.O. Box 2002

Allen, TX 75013

1-888-397-3742

TransUnion

P.O. Box 1000

Chester, PA 19022

1-800-888-4213

2. You may use AnnualCreditReport.com and make your inquiry online.

3. You can call the toll-free Annual Report number at 877-322-8228 for more information.

Once you have your credit report in hand, how do you read it? There is a lot of information in these reports and it can be confusing. To begin your bad credit repair, you must be able to understand your credit report, right? Here is an outline of the information it contains:

The I.D. Section. This is where any information regarding your name, home address, social security number, date of birth, and spousal information (if applicable) is located. You will want to make sure this information is correct, because these are the components that define you.

Credit History. This is the main part of your report. You will want to examine this very closely and take your time. Any information that is incorrect should be disputed immediately. It will have a complete list of your open and paid credit accounts. Any late payments made will also be listed here. For each account, the following will be listed:

1. Company name

2. Account number

3. Your responsibility on the account i.e. individual, joint, co-signer, etc.

4. Date the account was opened

5. Number of months the account history has been reported

6. Last activity which will be your last payment or last charge

7. High limit – the highest amount your account has reached

8. Terms – if this is a car loans, the length of your loan may be included

9. Balance due on account

10. Past due amount at the time of the report

11. The type of account it is – revolving (like a credit card), installment (like a car or home loan) or open (like a line of credit)

12. Date reported – the last time your account information was updated on the account by the creditor

Collections Accounts. If any of your accounts have gone to collections in the past seven years, they will be listed here. If there is something that looks unfamiliar to you, it is important to dispute this immediately.

Courthouse Records. This is also known as public records. If there have been any judgments on any of your accounts i.e. bankruptcy records, child support settlements or any court-decided accounts, they may show up in this section. Again, inaccuracies should be disputed immediately.

Inquiries. This section will contain information on companies that have checked your credit in the last 24 months. Again if a company or inquiry looks unfamiliar, you will want to investigate this and see why this company is checking your credit. Multiple inquiries can decrease your credit score.

If you have been denied a loan, credit, or employment because of your credit score, do not be afraid to ask for information about it from whomever denied you. It is important to know what is being seen by potential lenders and employers, because what they see results in the approval or denial you will get.

If any portion of your credit report is inaccurate, or if you have outstanding debts, you should immediately begin the process of bad credit repair Higher credit scores will lead to more loan, credit card, and employment approvals along the ability to qualify for lower interest rates and money-saving promotions (such as cash-back, 0% APR, and travel rewards). Your credit report is very powerful and can impact your quality of life. Understand your credit report and take control.

-Ken S

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By: Ken S

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