Four Steps You Can Take Today To Repair Your Credit Yourself
Posted by Mean on 04/15/08 in Finance
With the constant onslaught of credit card offers in the mail and the easy payment terms offered at retail stores it can be very easy for someone to quickly become deep in debt to the point where their credit history is in serious jeopardy.
If you are having credit problems for whatever reasons you might want to try and fix it yourself before paying a credit repair service even more of your hard earned money. It does take some work but it is definitely doable if you are willing to take the time to do it correctly.
Step 1 – Get a copy of your credit report
Get a copy of your credit report from one or all of the big three credit reporting companies. Equifax, TransUnion and Experian will charge about $10 per report but often you can get them for free if you sign up for one of those credit protection services that are constantly advertised on the Internet. If you do this just be sure and cancel during your trial period or you will have to start paying a monthly fee for the service.
Step 2 – Examine your credit report thoroughly
You need to go through each report with a fine toothed comb looking for any errors or discrepancies. If you find anything that is wrong or looks suspicious make a note of it.
You might be very surprised at what is actually contained in your credit report. I was checking mine once and noticed a credit card issued in my name from a jewelry store. It took me a minute to figure out that 6 years earlier I had signed up for the card in order to get a free watch battery installed. I got the card and cut it up but it was still showing on my credit report as a valid charge card after all those years.
Step 3 – Dispute any credit report errors
Using either a standard dispute form or a personal letter report each error you found along with the reason you are disputing the item. It is always helpful to include any documentation you have supporting your claim. You should get a response from the credit agency within a month. If you don’t you might want to follow-up with them to see what the status is of your claim.
Step 4 – Set up a payment plan
Now comes the hard part, you need to gather all of your debt and set up a plan to pay it off bit by bit. If you find that you simply have too much debt you can try to negotiate a lower payment with a creditor but this often will mean you will pay more interest.
You might want to consider a debt consolidation loan as a means to lump all of your debt together with one easy payment to make each month. This is a very popular method that can be used to simplify your debt reduction plan tremendously.
Repairing your credit yourself is possible if you work at it but it does take a certain amount of discipline that many people just don’t have. You also must keep in mind that just as it took time to get into a bad credit situation it will take time to get out of it but with some effort and determination it can be done.
For more information about credit repair please visit Fixing Bad Credit
Tags: credit repair, credit report
tag this
Post a Comment