When I was younger, I never really worried about my credit score. I paid my bills on time and life was fairly simple.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that life happens! Whether it’s been the result of an industry essentially going away leading to a business failure or unexpected medical expenses, I have always been gratefully that I knew how to fix my credit when I needed to.
One thing I’ve learned when trying to fix my credit, is that it is a lot easier to lower your score than it is to raise it! For this reason, it is always a good idea to keep a close idea on your finances and check your credit score often. While certainly there are times when you are unable to pay bills on time due to life events, one of the best things you can do is communicate with your creditors before you have a problem. If you know you can’t make a payment call them before the due date. See if they will agree to defer the payment, or perhaps accept a payment that is less than the full balanced owed.
When I know that I have fallen behind on a few payments, one of the first things I will do when trying to fix my credit fast is to find out what my FICO score is. Your FICO score is a three digit number that gives creditors an idea of your credit worthiness. The higher your score, the better interest rates you will get because you have a statistically lower chance of defaulting on your loan.
It is important to note that your score will be different on each credit bureau. This is because there is different information in each credit file and the three credit bureaus have a slightly different way of analyzing data.
For this reason, when I am trying to get my credit, I always make sure that I get a copy of all three credit reports and scores. While you can get your credit report for free, you will have to pay for your score. If you see a “free” credit score advertised, you are usually getting this in exchange for signing up for their monthly monitoring service. There is nothing wrong with this; you just need to make sure that you understand that you will be billed monthly.
The next thing I will do when trying to fix my credit score is review my credit report carefully. I make a list of any errors found in my credit report and then dispute these errors with the credit bureau.
If you have a late payment with a company that you have otherwise had a good history with, it doesn’t hurt to call them and see if they will do a goodwill deletion. What you want to do is call them and explain what happened. Be honest and accept responsibility. Then ask them if there is anything they can do to delete this negative history on your credit record. Very often, if you are a valued customer, they will do this for you.
If they don’t, I will proceed with my second round of disputes with the credit bureaus. If you are trying to fix your credit, remember, it is your right to dispute anything you want in your file. When I do this, what I am hoping for is that the lender will miss the 30 day deadline to respond to my dispute, and the late payment will be deleted from my credit history by default. Disputing can help you fix your credit fast.
Once you have done as much work as you can on disputes, you will want to consider more advanced tactics like paying for deletion and debt validation!
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