Saturday, January 31, 2009

Credit repair - Easy steps you can take now

By Mark Taylor

We all have credit blemishes on our reports. Some of us worse than others. You as a consumer fall into one of only a few categories with regard to the current state of your credit. Its either fantastic with just a blemish or two, it's in a state of disarray and need help, or its absolutely horrid and needs a complete re-haul.

It doesn't matter where you fall in the list or how you got there, the bottom line is having the ability to remove these bad marks, your or not, is truly an asset. Even if your Mr./Mrs. Perfect you will someday be faced with at least an error on your report and knowing the steps to remove such an error is quite necessary.

As far as getting items removed or updated, there are no guarantees. With a little understanding of the process you will be shocked at what you can accomplish. Remember that an improvement on your credit reports can save you a lot of money. Better interest rates over your lifetime could add up to millions of dollars in savings.

Ok so in order to start the process the first thing you need is a current copy of all 3 of your credit reports. Fixing one report isn't enough. Order your reports from Experian, Trans-union, and Equifax. When you receive these reports you will need to look at each item and identify the ones that hurt. Now we simply challenge the accuracy of these bad marks.

Again simple common sense tells us that if its a large unpaid recent debt, then someone will likely respond and they are likely to call you as well. This call should be welcome, it's a chance to negotiate the debt pay it, and then re-challenge the accuracy of the information. (Follow me here.)

Motivation on the part of the creditor is what it's all about. Some will respond to anything but most will respond only when there's an underlying benefit, like getting paid. If the bad mark is a settled debt, or very old then the creditor / collector may not be inclined to stop what they are doing to reply to the bureaus.

Once the debt, the late pay, etc., becomes paid or so old there's no one to benefit then it's extremely likely that the reporting company will likely not respond within the allotted time of 30 days.

I personally like to write directly on the credit report - "This item is not accurate, I have never been late on any payments to this company. - Please verify and remove and forwarded me an updated copy of my credit report upon completion of your investigation."

The steps to clean credit are a lot of fun. Experiment with your credit reports and you will see some amazing results. You should even consider offering the service to your community, you can make some good money helping others fix their bad credit.

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