Looking for do-it-self credit repair? Well, you are not alone. Many people are experiencing the negative after-effects of having bad credit.
Bad credit happens when a person’s credit score shows a large amount of negative reports having to do with any outstanding credit balances. Since credit helps many people obtain a job, a decent place to live, a vehicle, or money to obtain an education, it’s imperative that a person take steps to fix their bad credit.
A lot of people might not know this, but once they obtain a bad credit report, it’s not impossible to fix it. Credit repair is going to take some time and effort, and a good credit score won’t happen to them overnight. But if they work at it and take a few simple steps, they can have a good credit report within time.
Steps For Do-it-yourself Credit Repair
There are credit repair companies and credit repair services that can help you; however, here are some steps you can take yourself to remove bad items from their credit report.
The first thing that a person needs to do is to order a credit report from all three of the major credit reporting bureaus – Equifax, Transunion, and Experian. The great news is that in the U.S., it’s mandatory that a consumer receives a free credit report once a year. You can get it from AnnualCreditReport.com.
It should be noted that in fixing one’s credit report, they will probably have to order multiple credit reports through the year. At the very least, they will get their first credit reports for free. Once they have ordered a copy of their credit reports from all three of the major credit bureaus, they need to look at all of the accounts that are being reported.
Check For Mistakes In Your Credit Report
They need to check for mistakes. Mistakes can be any amount of money that is reported to be owed, and the amount of money is incorrect. Mistakes can also include an account for which a person is stated to be in debt, and they don’t owe the money.
People would be alarmed to know that it has been said that up to 85%, even 90% of all credit reports have mistakes on them. That means that there is a very good chance that one’s credit report has a mistake, and for this reason alone a person should order their credit reports to fix it, and to get these mistakes off of the credit report. This is the most important thing you can do to repair your credit.
Dispute The Mistakes
These mistakes are helping to bring down one’s credit score. Mistakes can be disputed. One needs to turn in any dispute letter.
A dispute letter can be drafted by one’s self, and there are on line resources that helps a person format a dispute letter correctly.
All three of the major credit companies have a website, and may also provide information on how to draft a dispute letter.
Once a dispute letter is drafted and sent to the credit reporting bureaus, the creditors have 45 days to dispute the dispute letter. If they don’t dispute the consumer’s dispute letter, then the account information has to be fixed, or the account has to be removed from the credit report.
It should be noted however that if a creditor is able to claim and show support that the incident being reported is legitimate, it can be put back on the credit report.
Remove Old Accounts
Another point for a consumer to keep in mind is that under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a creditor can only report in outstanding debt for up to seven years. After seven years, they need to take that outstanding debt off of the credit report.
A person can petition the credit reporting bureaus to remove old credit accounts. Removing the old accounts will certainly help to improve one’s credit score.
It’s also important for the creditors to report on outstanding debt from the time that it actually went to collections. This is important, because many credit reporting companies and collection agencies will sell the debt to each other, and they will report the debt from the date they received it.
So it’s important for a person to keep track of when the account actually went to collections, because this will make a big difference as to when it can legally come off the credit report.
Negotiate With Lenders
After a person has taken care of all the mistakes on the credit report, and they have determined what accounts are actually legitimate and which ones should have phased off of the credit report, they can then make negotiations with the creditors as far as payments.
Making payments on outstanding accounts can help to bring the account current and can also help a person’s credit score.
The bottom line is when a person follow the above credit repair tips to remove the mistakes and to take care of any outstanding debt, and when they keep up with their current accounts, they will see that in time their credit situation will turn around. They will be able to have a good credit score that they desire.
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