Whatever your background or record, you can take some simple and quick steps to begin your own credit repair. It costs nothing and you can begin right away - but the results can be tremendous!
The first step is to get copies of your credit report, read them, and understand them. There are three credit reporting agencies, and there can be differences in your file between them.
The law now provides consumers the right to one free credit report from each of the bureaus, Experian, TransUnion, and Equfax. You are entitled to one from each company every year.
The Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, has set up a website where you can order them: annualcreditreport.com. Be careful of any other website that claims to offer you free reports - this is the "official" site, and any others have strings attached.
You can begin your credit repair efforts once you have your reports in hand. You will want to go through them carefully, line by line.
The reports will either include a "dispute" form, or give you a web address where you can download them. This is where you will begin fixing your credit score.
Make a note of each and every entry that is either incorrect, outdated, or inaccurate. For each of these, you will be filing a dispute. You will want to list why the entry should be removed, such as a debt that has already been paid but hasn't yet been removed.
By federal law, the credit reporting bureaus have up to 30 days to verify each dispute. If they don't do so, or don't do it within the 30 days, they must remove those entries from your credit report.
With just this simple step, some of these negative entries will be removed from your credit report. They will no longer contribute to a low credit score, and your score will immediately go up - sometimes by hundreds of points!
The first step is to get copies of your credit report, read them, and understand them. There are three credit reporting agencies, and there can be differences in your file between them.
The law now provides consumers the right to one free credit report from each of the bureaus, Experian, TransUnion, and Equfax. You are entitled to one from each company every year.
The Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, has set up a website where you can order them: annualcreditreport.com. Be careful of any other website that claims to offer you free reports - this is the "official" site, and any others have strings attached.
You can begin your credit repair efforts once you have your reports in hand. You will want to go through them carefully, line by line.
The reports will either include a "dispute" form, or give you a web address where you can download them. This is where you will begin fixing your credit score.
Make a note of each and every entry that is either incorrect, outdated, or inaccurate. For each of these, you will be filing a dispute. You will want to list why the entry should be removed, such as a debt that has already been paid but hasn't yet been removed.
By federal law, the credit reporting bureaus have up to 30 days to verify each dispute. If they don't do so, or don't do it within the 30 days, they must remove those entries from your credit report.
With just this simple step, some of these negative entries will be removed from your credit report. They will no longer contribute to a low credit score, and your score will immediately go up - sometimes by hundreds of points!
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