repair your credit score

Credit Score Repair

by Wendy Black Polisi on November 12, 2009

Most people make mistakes when working on credit score repair. They think that the only option is to hire one of the many credit score repair companies. I very often hear people say “It is impossible to repair my credit score without hiring a credit repair company!”

The truth is that you can repair your credit score without putting it in the hands of an expensive firm. You just need to understand the process.

You must deal with any current delinquencies and clean up any bad credit. Then you will want to focus on creating good new credit. This article will help you understand the basics of credit score repair.

The most critical step of credit repair is dealing with any current delinquencies. Ideally you can get all of your accounts caught up immediately. If you have a single late payment with a creditor and your account has been handled well otherwise, you should call the creditor and see if they will consider deleting the late status from your credit report. There is no guarantee they will do this but many times creditors will do this as a sign of good will.

If you aren’t able to get your accounts caught up immediately, you should call each creditor and see if you can negotiate a payment plan. Creditors are typically more than happy to work with you to help you get through a difficult time. Typically, as long as you make payments as agreed inside the payment plan, your account will not be reported as late.

Once you have dealt with any current issues, the next step in credit score repair is to clean up your credit file. The first step will be getting a copy of your credit report. You can do this for free at http://www.annualcreditreport.com.

It is important to note that if you are serious about credit score repair, you will obviously want to know where your score is now. To do this, you will need to go through someone other than the free annual credit report service, as this will not provide you with your credit score. Check your Credit Report and Score – Fast, Free & Easy at CreditReport.com.

Once you have your report, you will want to review it carefully. Make special note of any errors that could be negatively impacting your credit score. You will want to dispute any errors or negative information that you consider to be questionable. Clearing up negative information can have a huge impact on your credit score.

While you are cleaning up your credit, you will also want to make an effort to establish good new credit. Depending on your credit history, you will want to apply for either an unsecured credit card or a secured card. Either way, you want to make sure that the card you select reports to all three bureaus.

Because the mix of accounts you have is a factor in your credit score, you will want to also seek installment credit. If your credit is damaged, you may not be able to get an unsecured installment loan. The best thing to do is go to your bank and get a CD loan.

You should not make the mistake of applying for too much new credit at once. This can hurt your credit score significantly.

Credit Score Repair takes time, free credit score repair can be done! You simply need to deal with any current delinquencies, clean up as much negative information as you can and establish good new credit. Before you know it you will be well on your way to a great credit score!

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With the rapid increase of companies selling off old debts, millions of consumers are now being hounded by collection agencies for accounts that they thought they had heard the last of.

These old accounts, or “zombie debts”, are sold off in the junk debt market for pennies on the dollar. Junk debt companies use sophisticated technologies, like credit score prescreens, to determine which people are most likely to pay. They then purchase these accounts at a steep discount, often just a few cents on the dollar. The older your account, the less they will pay and hence the more potential profit for them.

These companies are notorious for breaking both the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. (Just like there are legal credit repair strategies and illegal, there are also illegal collection practices.)Abuses are so serious that there have been numerous multi-million dollar judgments brought against these companies by the Federal Trade Commission. An example is a $10.2 million dollar judgment awarded against National Check Control.

Apparently, they thought that threatening consumers with lawsuits and jail time was appropriate and got slapped for it!

If a junk debt collector calls you, just remember, there are not interested in helping you repair your credit score – no matter what they say! These are aggressive and manipulative companies that aren’t afraid to break the law to get what they want.

Let’s look at some other common abuses.

The most common abuse reported is verbal abuse and harassment, something many collection companies are guilty of.

Also very common is illegally re-aging debts on the credit bureau. When they do this, essentially, they lie to the credit bureaus by telling them that an old debt is in fact brand new. Because debts are reported for seven years from the date of last activity, when a collector re-ages a debt, they increase the time that this negative account will be reported to your credit file by another seven years. So, you can think you are doing a great job repairing credit score and find out you have another seven years to deal with a debt because of something a debt collector has illegally done.

Junk debt collectors frequently attempt to collect amounts that consumers don’t owe, and threatened to sue someone even when the states statue of limitations has expired. Some of the companies will even sue someone after the statute of limitations has expired, just to see if they can get an ignorant client and judge and actually get a judgment!

Additionally, there have been numerous claims that they offer a “pre-approved” credit card to people whose accounts they have purchased. When the client gets the card they are shocked to find that the balance of their alleged debt has been tacked on to what they owe. The companies state that this was explained to the consumer, but thousands of consumer state they had no idea that this was happening!

Junk debt collectors have also repeatedly agreed to enter into a common “pay for delete” agreement with consumers. The problem is that once the debtors keep their end of the agreement, the collectors do not! Not only do the consumers not get their account wiped out, the collectors renew the date of last activity on the accounts and leave the client subject to lawsuits and additional collections because the statute of limitations has now been renewed.

People who thought that their debt was long gone have also fallen victim to junk debt collectors. Very often, after a bankruptcy, accounts will be sold to these collectors. They attempt to collect these accounts even after they are made aware that the account was legitimately wiped clean in a bankruptcy.

In general, if a junk debt collector starts calling you, talking to them is a bad idea. Something as simple as admitting that you owe the debt can renew the statute of limitations in some states. Remember, they are savy and aggressive companies who have no obligation to tell you your rights. Add to that they are highly (financially) motivated to get the best of you and you can see how they might manipulate you into taking a course of action that is not in your best interest.

It isn’t uncommon for them to agree to “settle” the account, and then sell it to another company for the amount that you didn’t pay. You think you have heard the last of it, only to find out that the remaining balance is still following you.

The first step would be to write the company and tell them to contact you only via mail. If the statute of limitations has not expired, you will want to be especially careful. You don’t want to get sued, but you also want to proceed with caution and protect yourself.

One of the best strategies in this situation is to use debt validation strategies. To learn how to fix bad credit with debt validations strategies, check out my prior post: http://www.creditrepaircollege.com/2009/fix-bad-credit-2/

Good luck!

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