January 2nd 2009
You Can Begin Your Own Credit Repair Today - Here’s How!
Regardless of your track record or credit history, you can take some simple steps and do your own credit repair. You can begin right away, and it won’t cost you anything - but the improvement can be gigantic!
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.
The Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, has set up a website where you can order them: annualcreditreport.com. Be careful of any other website that claims to offer you free reports - this is the “official” site, and any others have strings attached.
You can begin your credit repair efforts once you have your reports in hand. You will want to go through them carefully, 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.
For every entry that is incorrect, inaccurate, or outdated, you will be filing a dispute. Provide the correct information, or why it is incorrect, such as a debt that has been paid but not removed.
By law, the credit reporting agencies have 30 days to verify the information being disputed. If they cannot verify it, or don’t do so within the allotted 30 days, those entries must be removed from your credit report.
With just this simple step, some of these negative entries will be removed from your credit report. They will no longer contribute to a low credit score, and your score will immediately go up - sometimes by hundreds of points!



































