May 26 2009
Grasp The First Steps To Credit Repair
Having awful credit can make life difficult. When you have bad credit you are denied many of the things that other people enjoy and it often seems like you cannot get ahead. You can wait it out if you have the time or you can take steps to improve your credit.
In 1970 the Fair Credit Reporting Act or the FCRA for short was enacted by Congress to protect consumers against inaccuracies and inconsistencies on reported credit. This act allows consumers to dispute inaccurate and untruthful listings on their credit report. It as well allows the consumers to receive a free copy of their own credit report once per year. An amendment in 2003 made it so that the consumer could receive this report at no charge.
The very first action to repairing and improving you credit is to acquire this report. There are several places online that offer you the opportunity to get this report but just bear in mind that one report per year is free of charge and you should not be paying anyone to get your one free report each year.
After you get the report you need to verify the information and check for inconsistencies. It is estimated that up to 75% or more of all credit reports are inaccurate and have mistakes. This is actually a benefit to you as you can dispute those mistakes and if they are not verified within a certain time period they must be completely removed from your report.
You have the right to dispute your credit and do what you can to fix and improve your credit. You can do it on your own or you can hire a specialized company to help you out. In no way are you required to hire someone to help you and you may find that you would desire to do it on your own. Though, the process can be trying and time-consuming and you may be glad about the fact that someone else can help you get it completed. Hiring a professional credit repair service is not something that you need to do but it is a advantage if you have too much on your plate as is and you can use the convenience of letting someone else handle it to get it done in a timely manner.
Regardless of whether you do it on your own or enlist the help of a professional you need to know that it is unlawful to get fair and honest reporting removed from your credit. If the bad credit is actually all yours you may be better off just improving the credit you now have and working on your overall financial situation.
Before you start to repair your credit make certain that you do some research into what you are doing. There are some things that may come as a shock. For instance many people are surprised that it may be better to leave an unpaid charge-off alone rather than try to pay it off. The reason why is that negative credit stays on your report from the date of the last activity and if you pay off an old debt you start the clock at zero again and add another 7 years or more.
There are several different things you can do to improve your credit together with repairing old and inaccurate reporting and doing things that will raise your credit score. The FCRA gave consumers the right to know and participate in what is reported on their credit report so take advantage of that fact if you have credit troubles.