An Urgent Need for Credit Repair



Credit repair has become a necessity. Prior to the recession you could afford to have blemishes on your credit report; lenders didn’t really care. If your credit score was a little low you would simply pay a modestly higher interest rate. Not the end of the world. But along with the recession came the most dramatic credit crunch ever. It started with mortgage lenders as they scrambled to mitigate risk in their real estate portfolios. Over the following year every other creditor followed in step. One thing leads to another and now millions of people are finding that without some form of remedial credit repair effort they are unable to purchase anything on credit.

The Credit Crunch



The severity of the credit crunch has taken many by surprise. In mid-2006 money was flowing freely. The economic froth was beyond anything the world had seen since the roaring twenties. Even then credit repair paid dividends, it’s true, but there was no desperate need. You could purchase a home with credit scores in the low 500s. You might even get an interest rate as low as one percent, albeit an adjustable rate mortgage. But, oh, how times change. Now, for millions of people, the lack of an intelligent credit repair effort can mean no loan at all. And the non-availability of credit can mean real hardship. Just think of something as simple as automobile financing. Can you do without a car? Urban dwellers might get by with public transportation, but that is not the case for most of us.

Is Credit Repair for You?

Credit repair can change everything, and quicker than you may think. Credit repair can be done by you, but for most people it is worth considering employing the services of a professional credit repair service. A professional service will offer comprehensive clean up and restoration with a focus on credit score optimization. If you are shopping for the right credit repair company, make sure they offer more than just credit bureau disputes. Your goal is to improve your score and make your credit as lender-ready as possible. The right company will produce the right results. How about you, are you a candidate for credit repair? If you have examined your credit reports and imagine that there is little benefit to be had, I would like to share a little information that might inspire you to take a step towards credit repair today.

A Lot of Mistakes



Almost three-quarters of all credit reports contain errors. Not all of these errors are significant enough to cause major financial disruption, but a lot of them are. How many? According to a series of studies conducted by public interest research groups over the last decade about half of all credit reports include errors serious enough to cause consumers to pay premium interest rates or to be denied outright for loans. To put these statistics into perspective it helps to know that the three major credit bureaus each report on just over two hundred million Americans. Half of the total is one hundred million. That’s a lot of mistakes. Where do you stand? Here are some things for you to consider.

Your Credit Repair Opportunity



Credit reporting errors are not always easy to spot. You may have multiple errors which could use credit repair attention, and not even know that they are present on your credit reports. One of the most insidious forms of reporting errors is caused by the redundancy of illicit collection accounts. The cause is simple. Collectors buy and sell debt on a regular basis. By law, a collector is supposed to withdraw their reporting of a collection account immediately upon the sale of the debt to another collector. And yet this rarely happens for the simple reason that there is no punishment for compliance failure. Other common errors needing credit repair attention include duplicate accounts, accounts reported as open with balances that are closed and paid, underreported credit limits on revolving accounts, and file merger errors causing other peoples accounts to report on your credit.

Reach Out Today



It’s time to reach out for credit repair help. Shop the internet; call three or four credit repair services before making up your mind. Most legitimate companies offer a free consultation. I suggest that you take advantage of this. You should make a list of questions that you want to ask. Be organized. Think about the issues that are of concern to you. Make notes. It is important to feel comfortable with the company you hire. Take your time and do it right. Your credit repair project is bound to succeed. Good luck!

Copyright © 2009 Ian Webber. All Content. All Rights Reserved.



Thanks to Ian Webber for contributing this article to our Credit Repair blog:

Fix My Credit Report

step on How to fix Credit is to stay on top of your credit situation with the 3 credit bureau, request a tri merge credit report. Know what your credit says and make sure that what it shows is accurate.  

 

Dispute all inaccuracies using a credit dispute letter, Remember, you must dispute true credit report inaccuracies. If the credit bureau cannot verify the inaccuracy within 30days, they have to delete it from your credit report per Fair credit reporting ACT. The Fair Credit Reporting Act ensures that accounts are reporting 100% accurately. This includes dates and Amounts exactly to the penny. There can be NO discrepancies and must reflect the accounts true status.  

 

The most critical thing that you can do is to ensure the accuracy of each of your credit reports. After you are certain of their accuracy you can take other steps to improve your credit score. It is very important to read your credit report very carefully! Look for inaccurate, outdated, incomplete and negative information! Following is the list of common problems you may find in your credit report:   You can dispute inaccurate information with the credit reporting agency. If you tell a credit reporting agency that your file contains inaccurate information, they will investigate the items (usually within 30 days from the receipt of your dispute).   The credit reporting agency must give you a written report of the investigation and a copy of your report if the investigation results in any change. If the investigation does not resolve the dispute, you may add a brief statement to your file.   If you are legitimately uncertain about the truth of an item, then you can dispute it in good faith. The burden of proof is on the credit reporting agency to prove the accuracy with the creditor. Your dispute letter will generate an investigation, and if the creditor does not respond to this investigation, the entry in question must be deleted from your file.   credit bureaus have less patience dealing credit repair companies. They would rather deal directly with their clients. So when going the route on how to fix credit, dealing with the expensive credit counseling service actually has a negative effect and could back fire on you! They will pursue the accounts in a more aggressive manner than if you did it yourself.     If a credit reporting agency violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you may sue them in state or federal court. The dispute process is incredibly straightforward, and involves just a few steps:   Determine the items you want to dispute.   Send the dispute letter.   Keep accurate records, if needed.   Obtain the results of the dispute.   Here’s why doing it by yourself, like we did, vs. hiring a credit counseling service is a much cheaper and more effective plan.  

 

These programs charges high up front fees   They ask you to pay comfortable monthly payments subscriptions and are clearly proven by the FTC to be ineffective scams (Google "FTC credit repair firms " you will be scared to do death like I was)   credit bureaus have less patience dealing credit repair companies. They would rather deal directly with their clients. So when going the route on how to fix credit, dealing with the expensive credit repair companies actually has a negative effect and could back fire on you!.  

Thanks to Maria Martin for contributing this article to our Credit Repair blog:

Making Money Online

If your credit rating is low and you can no longer get credit you may need to look into credit repair to get your score back in line. You can hire a credit repair company to help get incorrect information removed from your credit report.

There are many credit repair companies to choose from so you should not have any trouble finding one to help you. However, be sure to do a little research so that you hire a reputable company. A good place to start your research is the Better Business Bureau. The BBB has a website to make your research faster and easier.

The credit repair company acts as a go between for the consumer and the credit bureaus. The main purpose of the credit repair company is to dispute items on the consumer’s credit report. The consumer may have tried to contact the credit bureau on their own and not had the advantage to get the items removed. If this has happened to you then you will need to contact a credit repair company to talk to the credit bureaus for you.

By contacting a credit repair service you have made the first step towards getting the help you need in correcting your credit report. They will act as a mediator between you and the credit bureau until the items are removed. While they are working with you, you will have a chance to go over your entire credit report to make sure that all discrepancies are corrected.

The credit repair companies will charge you a fee in order to perform their services. Some of the fee will go to retrieving your records from the various credit bureaus. The credit bureaus will charge your credit repair company for each item that is removed from your credit report so part of their fee is used to cover this cost also. The consumer should be aware that it can take some time for all the items to be corrected at all three credit bureaus but once all is done your credit score should start to rise.

Since credit repair takes a while to accomplish you will be dealing with your credit repair company for quite some time. The goal of the credit repair company is to get all bad information off your credit report and to make sure that it is not put back in by any lenders or other financial institutions. Even after all is complete with the credit repair company and you see the resulting rise in your credit score you need to stay vigilante. You need to check your credit report at least once a year to make sure that no other erroneous information has been put back on your credit report.

One thing that a consumer needs to keep in mind is that the credit repair company will not remove any information that is correct even if it is detrimental to your credit. It is unlawful for them to do this or even attempt to have it done.



Thanks to Jordan FeRoss for contributing this article to our Credit Repair blog:

How To Rebuild Your Credit

A list of ten credit repair tips follows. This is by no means a complete list, maybe just enough to get you started.

Credit Repair Tip #1 Look for free information before you buy anything. Did you know that the three major credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, are required to provide consumers with one free copy of their credit report every year? If not, you are not alone. Companies which sell credit reports and other credit repair tips are betting that most people do not.

Credit Repair Tip #2 Visit www.annualcreditreport.com. At this site consumers can view and print the information accumulated by the credit report agencies or credit bureaus. There is no charge for these reports, but the credit bureaus are allowed to promote the products that they sell, such as credit repair tips, on this site. Credit Repair Tip #3 There may be a lot of information on your credit report or just a little, depending on the types of credit that you have and the length of time that you have been using credit. Print the reports out and begin the process of reviewing the information that the credit bureaus have been accumulating about you. Use a yellow highlighter to highlight information that you believe may be inaccurate, misleading or unverifiable. This is information that you will dispute.

Credit Repair Tip #4 One of the credit bureaus has an on-line dispute system, but it is not very user friendly. The window is tiny and in order to read a sentence, you have to scroll from left to right. The best way to notify the credit bureaus of your disputes is to send them a letter. Letter writing suggestions are included in many books with credit repair tips, but you can view a perfectly usable example of a dispute letter at the Federal Trade Commission’s credit website.

Credit Repair Tip #5 Wait.

Credit Repair Tip #6 If you have not received a response from the credit bureau or bureaus within thirty days, send a follow-up letter: “Please remove these items from my credit report immediately. I have waited a reasonable amount of time.”

Credit Repair Tip #7 Wait.

Credit Repair Tip #8 If you receive no response from the follow-up letter, you will need to contact a lawyer, preferably one that specializes in credit repair issues. The credit bureaus are allowed to disregard disputes that they consider frivolous. There are no guidelines for disputes which might be considered frivolous. Credit Repair Tip #9 Sometimes options are recommended which are illegal, such as file segregation. Do not create more problems for yourself.

Credit Repair Tip #10 Visit creditrepairsoft.com for more credit repair tips. This site also shows how different actions affect your credit score.

There are several sources on the internet for credit repair tips. As with most information, there are hundreds of books full of credit repair tips, software programs with credit repair tips and credit repair specialists that charge for their credit repair tips, but there is a lot of free information as well. For more credit repair tips, vistit the Credit Repair Blog at



Thanks to Mark Henry for contributing this article to our Credit Repair blog:

Bad Credit Checking

Credit repair is almost an essential tool for credit survival. In recenet years, credit repair companies have experienced a surge in business that amounted to billions of dollars in annual revenue. A Consumer needs his or her credit repaired and a new credit repair companyopens up in hopes capturing a fraction of this bilion dollar industry. Keep in mind, that you do not need any professional license to start a credit repair company. All you need is a simple credit repair eBook or credit repair software and you can call yourself a qualified “Credit Repair Representative”. With that in mind, think about why you would hire someone to perform credit repair services on your behalf? It boils down to only two simple answers; Knowledge and Tme. We will discuss how to overcome these two obsticles in more depth as we illustarate to you how easy and timelesss this process can be.

By definition credit repair is the right of a consumer, under the fair credit reporting act, to dispute any credit negative or positive history items appearing in their credit reports. A credit bureau must investigate, and delete any errors at the request of the consumer. However if an item in dispute is found to be correct, though negative, then the information shall remain on their credit report. Negative items and judgements taken against the consumer shall remain on their credit report for 7 years while bankruptcies shall remain for 10 years. Sounds scary right? Well it is true. However, we are cretain that as you have read the definition of credit repair you missed some major yet hidden loopholes that can only be translated as an “advantage to you”.

The first advantage we have found is “Your right to Credit Repair”. By that we mean your right to dispute any item appearing on your credit report whether it’s a known error or unknown. Your right to credit repair is your right to understand your credit and correct the items that youthat you FEEL are inaccrate. Get the phrase “credit repair” out of your head and look at it from this angle: you are not perfroming credit repair; instead you are simply trying to better UNDERSTAND YOUR CREDIT. With that in mind, who is to tell you what you can or cannot understand? You have every right to NOT understand any if not all the items on your credit report. As a matter of fact, we want you to not understand every single negative item on your credit report. The more naïve you become about these items the sweeter the outcome. Noone mentioned that you have to be a wiz at reading credit reports, credit scores, and specifically where a negative item came from or how it showed up on your credir report. Now, that is your right as a consumer.

Now that you understand your rights, we will move on to the second loophole in the under the fair credit reporting act and that is the credit bureaus duties towrds you as the consumber. Thses laws are intended to protect the consumer against fraudulent activites and/or innacurate information plcaed on theirr credit report. Since you are “naïve” about your accounts, especially the negative ones, you now have upperhand that will enable you to overpower the strong arms of any creditor. You, the consumer, have the right to repair your credit at any given time or any given point as frequently as you please. When you dispute an item, the law clearly states that the credit bureau has 30 days to respond to your dispute as well as the million of other disputes that other folks like you are sending. Do you really believe that every dispute will be investigated and responded to in a reasonable amount of time? The answer to that is a big NO. You and many others just like you are sending disputes left and right and these credit bureus and creidotrs are overwhelmed with credit repair inquiries (disputes). There is no way on that any credit bureau can keep up with everything sent to them. This is where you win. No response means deleted negative items.

Let’s suppose you know nothing about credit repair. How do you know what to do and what resources to use? You may also ask yourself, where do I get the credit repair letters? and how do I mail them out and when??? Follow the following exmaple and you will find all the answers to your questions. Let’s suppose you have a 60 day late on your credit report from xyz credit card Company. Yoy mail out a dispute letter to the credit bureaus and day 31 comes by and no response confirming the accuracy of that late payement. Gues what, you have just cleared that negative item by sending a request back to the credit bureau demanding its removal from your credit report. Yes, it is that easy and it is almost guranteed to happen to you. This example was just the beginning of many ways you can accomplish fantastic credit repair results. Credit repair does not require massive knowledge or even any software. It can be performed with a simple how to guide which you can obtain at no cost to you at www.restoremyowncredit.com . Using their credit repair instructions you have become more efective and efficient than 99% of the credit repair companies out there. That is truve because repairing bad credit is more effective you do the credit repair yourself. Noone can accompish better results than you, and not to mention how much money you have saved this way.

Now that youknow how to do your own credit repair, let’s talk about the time it takes. Credit repair is a commitment. Tto accomplish great results you will have to spend a little time cleaning your credit. You may be fooled into thinking that you don’t have the time, but if we told you that you will have to spend a maimum of 2 hours a month on credit repair would you hire someone at a credit repair company to do the work for you? No matter how many items you want to dispute on your credit report, you will never have to spend more than a couple of hours a month working on your credit. All you need is a PC, prionter and a book of stamps. Just follow the credit repair instruction at “Restore My Own Credit . com” and you are on your way.



Thanks to Jordan Hashem for contributing this article to our Credit Repair blog:

Credit Repair Debt Consolidation