Regardless of your record or history, there are a number of quick & easy steps you can take towards credit repair. It’s never too late, and costs nothing, yet the results can be huge!
The first step is to get copies of your credit report, read them, and understand them. There are three credit reporting agencies, and there can be differences in your file between them.
The law entitles consumers to a free copy of the credit report, one from each of the three agencies: TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. You are able to get one from each bureau every year.
There is a website set up by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) specifically for this purpose: annualcreditreport.com. Be leery of any other sites claiming free credit reports – there will be strings & fees attached.
You’ll start your credit repair efforts as soon as you get your reports. To begin with, you want to read each report line by line.
Along with the report, you will get a “dispute” form – or an address where you can get it. This is where your initial credit repair efforts will focus.
Make a note of each and every entry that is either incorrect, outdated, or inaccurate. For each of these, you will be filing a dispute. You will want to list why the entry should be removed, such as a debt that has already been paid but hasn’t yet been removed.
By federal law, the credit reporting bureaus have up to 30 days to verify each dispute. If they don’t do so, or don’t do it within the 30 days, they must remove those entries from your credit report.
By taking this simple step, you will find some of those negative entries will come off your credit report, and as such no longer contribute to a low credit score. In some cases, this can boost your score by hundreds of points!