5 Easy Steps to Repair and Improve Your Credit Score

Posted by leo on December 10th, 2017

Credit Repair: Use these 5 Easy Steps to Repair and Improve Your Credit Score

Are you worried of your bad credit? Do you get tempted by the television advertisements that promise to fix your credit and improve your score? Well, before you move on and pay someone to help fix your credit, don’t forget the following three things.

1. FTC believes that no one has the ability to legally remove accurate and timely credit information from the credit report.

2. You can do everything that a credit repair company does for free. Credit repair company provides a service which it will save you time in exchange of money. The firms don’t really use any magic tricks that you don’t know yourself.

3. Don’t work with a credit company that promises to do things that are too good to be true. Don’t work with companies that promise to delete your bad credit 100%.

If you want to repair your credit yourself, you should instead follow the below steps:

1. Get your Credit Report for free from all the 3 Bureaus

You require to review comprehensively your credit report from all the three credit reporting agencies. If you don’t know to do it, can AnnualCreditReport.com help you get your report for free. While you review the report, monitor any information that you think is incorrect. Credit scores are created using data from credit bureaus, therefore you need to make sure that the data from TransUnion, Experian and Equifax is accurate.

2. Did you encounter an error with an existing account?

If you can recognize the account but still believe that the information is not correct, you need to get in touch with the financial institution that reported the information. For instance, if you are to recognize the credit card, but fail to see the late payment. You need to speak with the credit card company. Usually, the bank or credit card company has the ability to repair the issue and update the credit bureaus directly. It is possible to see a huge balance on the credit card that you have never used, this could be because someone stole your credit card information. Talk with your credit card issuer so that they fix and update the reporting with the credit bureaus.

3. Have you ever found accounts that aren’t yours?

If someone opened an account with your name, without your notice, chances are that you could be the victim of Identity Theft. The right place to start with managing your identity theft is the IdentityTheft.gov. This is a website owned by the government that will help you notice any theft and receive a recovery plan.

4. Take advantage of the CFPB

If you aren’t able to resolve the problem with your financial institution, you still have another option. You can always forward your complains to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. You can report your complains through an online website, and a committed support attendant will look into your situation.

5. Develop your credit using the traditional way

For you to have good credit score, it is a must that you have positive information reported into your credit report every month. The easiest way you can achieve this is using the credit card. Try to ensure that your utilization is low. And make sure that you pay you clear financial statement balance every month and on time. If you do every time, your credit score will finally improve.

The earlier you can notice a problem with your credit report, the easier it will be for you to solve. To make sure that you receive notification about any issues in the future, signup with a reputable credit monitoring service.

Image credit: kreatikar