Fixing Your Negative Credit Report
Posted on April 30, 2008
Filed Under debt | 29 Comments
by Howard Brule – Credit Reports are more important than ever. Virtually all loans in the U.S. are qualified by the information contained in your credit report. So it is important to make sure yours is up to date, and contains as few negatives as possible.
Credit reports can contain information that is false or outdated, so it is very important to get a copy of your current credit report, examine it very carefully, and correct errors where they exist. Here’s how to do it.
Begin by getting a current copy of your credit report. Go to annualcreditreport.com and request your free credit report. All U.S. residents are entitled by law to one free credit report per year.
You can also call 1-877-322-8228 and request your free credit report by automated telephone service. Once you have provided the necessary information your free credit report will be sent to you by mail in about two weeks.
Unfortunately your credit score will not be included – just the report. You can get your credit score by paying a small fee, or by asking someone (like a lender) who has access to this information – perhaps an institution who has recently turned you down for a loan.
Now, if you find bad credit marks on your report that you think are incorrect, you can dispute them. Make a list of them and write a very simple “dispute letter” giving the details as you know them, and indicating why you are disputing the points in question.
You can find a sample dispute letter at this address:
http://www.privacyrights.org/Letters/credit1.htm
along with more information on how to file one.
If the credit agency does not remove the item you are disputing and you think they are wrong, you can send another letter asking them to tell you how they arrived at their decision. This is called a “method of verification”. They must either provide verification for their decision, or remove the negative credit mark from your credit history.
You can find a sample dispute letter along with many other credit repair forms at this address:
http://www.creditinfocenter.com/forms/
Then start working on adding positive credit marks to your credit report. Start immediately by getting a few department store or gas company credit cards – cards that are easy to get. Buy a few small things with each of the cards and then be sure to pay them off on time. Not just the minimum charges.
Be very diligent in making all your payments on time – lease payments, credit card payments, rent payments, loan payments – because payments on time will potentially add positives to your report, while late or missed payments will add negatives.
In a few months of diligent work your credit report will begin to improve.
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29 Responses to “Fixing Your Negative Credit Report”
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I have a loan for some water recreational vehicles and I sent a check for the first payment. I told them to do a direct debit from my account and they messed up the routing number to the bank. They said everything was fixed on their end and my payments were being withdrawn from my bank account. I went to look at a motorcycle and my payments for the recreational vehicle are in the over 30 days. They did not correct my first payment that they messed up on the routing number what can I do to correct this when the bank was at fault with the routing number?
Thank you