need to repair my credit

damitjo -

welcome to the forums!

There are many companies out there that claim to be able to repair your credit for you, and some might make some effort to do so, but why pay for something you can do yourself?

Go to www.annualcreditreport.com to obtain your free report from all three credit bureaus. You are entitled to a free report once per year, or when you have been denied credit. Review your report, and you can begin disputing inaccuracies online.

Here's what happens when you file a dispute:

-the credit bureau sends your info to the creditor, stating the reason for your dispute (filed bankruptcy, bill paid off, not your bill, etc.)

-the creditor reviews your account, and if it finds the information reported to the credit reporting agency was inaccurate, they will send a response back to the credit reporting agency stating that, and the information will be removed from your report, or left on your report and corrected, depending on the situation.

You can dispute anything on your report - the spelling of your name, your address, an incorrect social security number, and any of the debts listed on your report. That doesn't mean that all of your debts will be removed if you dispute them, leaving you with a squeaky clean credit report - it simply means that disputing inaccuracies is the first step to cleaning up your credit. The next step is to make sure your bills are paid on time.

If you succeed in cleaning up your report enough, and find you still can't obtain credit due to not having enough open lines of credit on your report, then you may want to consider taking out a small loan with your local bank, or obtaining one credit card and keeping it paid up in order to show good payment history. That's what new creditors will be looking for when they look to extend you credit.

Some tips on improving the credit scores.

http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/mystory/about22123.html

Be careful of any scams. There are many companies who will charge you a fee for their credit repair packages. Be aware that accurate negative information will not be removed from your file before they are past the seven years reporting time frame. This is mentioned in the FCRA laws. If anyone says they will get your negative info removed, be alert because they are trying to make easy money from you. You don't have to hire anyone for something you can do on your own. Just go through your latest credit copies and find out the actual status of each account. Like Susan said above, dispute any item that is posted inaccurately and request the bureaus to remove it. For all other debts that are behind the due dates, call the creditors and work out a payment plan. Your scores will start improving after each account gets paid off.

hello,

you cant repair bad credit by paying a company that claims to do this... the only thing that can be taken off credit reports are errors....

anyone claiming to repair for a fee are scamming you.

get your debts paid off, and pay bills on time... and your credit will over time repair itself.

I totally agree. There are so many companies out there that claim they can get rid of your bad credit, but as stated, they are scams! One of the guys that works with my husband used a company and they didn't do a thing but dispute everything that was negative on the credit report and took the money and didn't do anything else and then ignored phone calls. They took him for about $500. Please be very careful what you do. As far as cleaning up your credit, it will take some time. If it were as easy as paying someone to make all the bad stuff go away, everyone would be doing it and we would all have perfect credit.