Three Things to Keep in Mind When Repairing Your Credit

credit-repair.com is a national credit counseling organization that offers credit-based financial education, legal support, and credit repair training. “Credit Repair USA consists of experienced dispute managers and attorneys who can work with you on a step-by-step basis to improve your credit from examining your credit report and assisting you to eliminate the various negative marks in terms of the FCRA (fair credit reporting act). (section 611(b) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.) Your credit score is important since it determines your ability to obtain: A mortgage, car loan, credit card, etc. A lender might also use your credit score to determine the interest rate you’ll be charged; the lower your scores, the higher the interest rate.

“A lot of people do not realize that credit repair companies often work with creditors and collection agencies on behalf of their clients. The creditors are often unhappy with what’s called an erroneous listing, which keeps showing a late payment, collection item, or charge off on a client’s account. This is considered bad debt and can hurt a client’s credit rating and cause collections to go on a vicious aggressive campaign to recover past debts. Credit counselors at credit counseling companies often work with these creditors and law enforcement to work toward recovering past debts.

“You should be aware that there are laws in place for people that have bad credit reports. Laws such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) protect you from abusive and unfair practices by collection agencies and creditors. If a debt collector or creditor contacts you about a negative item on your credit reports, you should contact the three credit reporting agencies – Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian – immediately and should report the incident to the Federal Trade Commission.

You should know that an unscrupulous credit repair company might be searching to obtain contact information for its own use, such as your social security number, date of birth, address, or more. When dealing with a credit counseling agency, you will also want to be sure that the agency is not trying to get you to change your address or contact information. Again, this is something you should be very aware of and definitely make sure never happens.

The second thing to keep in mind is to dispute inaccurate negative information with the credit bureau. The most common way to do this is through a dispute, which is basically a formal request to the bureau to have the item removed from your credit report. Disputing an item with the credit bureau is fairly easy to do and can be done through several methods including written correspondence, phone calls, and more.

The third thing to keep in mind is that repairing bad credit reports takes time. The process of fixing your credit should not leave you with the feeling of being overwhelmed. Rather, you should have the feeling that you are taking very small steps in the right direction at a time. Keep in mind that you cannot expect to fix your finances overnight but the process will improve with time.

Credit repair does take time, however. Sometimes it can be difficult to find good repair services because so many negative items are on your reports. For this reason, you will want to keep in mind that you do not need to pay for credit repair services. There are plenty of free credit reports companies online to work for you. All you really need to do is send them your negative items for review, and they will get rid of them for you.

You may find it helpful to hire a professional to help you dispute items on your credit reports. A credit repair service can help you with this task as well. Remember, though, that this process does take time, so if you do not want to spend money, you may want to try to get through this process on your own. You can find free credit reports services online if you need to dispute any of the information that is on your credit reports.