Many folks have made mistakes or had hard times in the past and now they have poor credit. Having bad credit can make your financial life much more difficult. It is almost hopeless to borrow cash for any purpose or from any source and someone with bad credit is more often than not charged excessive deposits and higher interest rates. In short, it is much more expensive all around to have poor credit.
Given enough time your bad credit can repair itself. Most listings will only stay on a report for 7 years. However, many people need results sooner than that so a hands-on approach is needed. There are some steps you can take to repair your credit and begin working towards regaining your good credit.
First off you should know exactly what you are up against so the first step is to get a credit report from all of the three foremost credit-reporting agencies, TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. You are permitted to get one free credit report from each bureau one time per year as per the Fair Credit Reporting Act. You can also receive a report that contains all three companies reports in one, however that one will cost you a fee.
Once you obtain your report, scrutinize it cautiously for mistakes, errors or any kind of discrepancy. The Fair Credit Reporting Act was enacted back in’70 to safeguard consumers from inexact and inequitable reporting. It gives you the right to dispute anything on your report that is not entirely accurate. This is important because it has been estimated that as many as 75% or even more of all credit reports have mistakes.
Once a credit bureau receives your dispute they will have 30 days in which to verify the correctness of their reporting or remove it from your credit report completely. It is wise to dispute inaccurate listings because it is predictable that up to 40% or more of all disputes end up by having the listings deleted. However, you may not succeed right away so it is important to be persistent and keep trying until you succeed.
You should also try to establish some new and good credit. Many folks with bad credit may not be able to get credit through the time-honored process so if that is the case you can always start with a secured credit card or bank note. In that case, you will be required to put the amount you are approved for into a savings account that is held as security. Make your payments on time for 6 months or so and you will make a substantial modification in your credit report.
You also need to do what you can to improve your debt to credit ratio, either by paying down debt or getting your credit limits increased. Do not just arbitrarily pay off old debts or charge-offs because credit is reported based upon the date of last activity. When you pay off an old debt you are really just succeeding at bringing the bad credit forward in time to start the 7-year grace period over again.
Credit repair can be finished on your own and it is not necessary to get expert help. However, you may find that it is helpful to get some professional expertise in order to get your credit fixed in a timely manner as it can be very time-consuming and you do need some knowledge and expertise. It may be worth looking at the services of a professional credit repair service.
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