Repairing Your Credit is as Easy as 1-2-3
By Don Blackhurst
1. Review Your Credit Report For Errors.
After you have received a copy of your credit report, you need to look
through it very closely. If you do not yet have a copy, TrimYourDebt has
negotiated with one of the credit bureaus to offer consumers a free look at
their credit report and credit score. It is a 30-day free trial offer, so you
get the information right up-front and you can cancel free of charge within
30-days. To check your credit report for free,visit this site to find out
now.
It is important to first review all the personal identifying
information in your credit report such as name, address, social security number,
birth date, and so on.
You should then evaluate each account that is
reported about you to the credit bureau. Determine whether any of this
information is in any way inaccurate, incorrect, erroneous, misleading, or
outdated. If you find that any of the information in incorrect, then you should
move on to the next step.
2. Dispute the errors with the credit bureaus
and your creditors.
You should dispute inaccurate information with both
the consumer credit reporting agency and the furnisher (creditor). Disputing
with both allows you to cover all of your bases to ensure that the corrections
are consistently made by both sources. You should follow up with these
companies to ensure that the inaccurate or incomplete information is removed in
a timely manner. You should then continue to monitor your credit information on
a regular basis by ordering and reviewing your consumer credit reports from the
major credit reporting agencies on a regular basis.
3. Repeat until
satisfied.
It is very important that each questionable item, except for
erroneous personal data, is dealt with individually. If you attempt to have the
credit reporting agency correct several items at once, it will be easier for the
agency to claim that your request is frivolous or irrelevant. If they make this
determination, then your requests to correct inaccuracies will be
discarded. Make sure that you use a clear and concise statement indicating
that the accuracy or completeness of a specific item is "disputed" or
"challenged". Remember that explanations of why an item might be derogatory will
not help you, only actual disputes of specific items will get the results you
need. As soon as the credit reporting agency provides you with an updated
credit report indicating that the disputed item has been removed from your
report, you should send another letter challenging the next most damaging item.
Repeat this process, until each and every disputed item has been deleted from
your credit report.
If you would like more detailed information about
repairing your credit history including sample dispute letters to send to the
credit reporting agencies, you will find more details available here.
About the Author
Don Blackhurst has been working in the banking and finance industries for
over 15 years and has an MBA with an emphasis in Finance. He is the co-founder
of TrimYourDebt which provides free
budgeting tools, debt planning, and credit help. |
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