Credit Score Repair: Read these tips on credit score repair and fix your bad credit.

Good credit is important to functioning in society today. When you have bad credit, life can be difficult. Unfortunately it is easy to make mistakes in handling your credit which leaves you with a low credit score. When you have a good credit score you have many more advantages when it comes to leveraging your wealth. Raising your credit score can be done.

First you want to obtain your credit reports from all three credit bureaus. You can do this by going to the Equifax website where you can order a 3 in 1 report that will show your records from all three credit bureaus. You can also find out what your FICO score is. You can even choose to monitor your FICO score if you want so you can tell how well your credit repair is working. Be sure to pull your records from all three bureaus. These are where your creditors report to but they may not report to all three so your reports may be different. You want to find out how many black marks you have with each bureau and investigate your reports for errors.

When you get your reports, go through each one thoroughly. This is vital to start your credit score repair.  A lot of the information will be identical but some will be different. You will also find that each bureau figures your credit in a different way and can give you a different score. Not all of your creditors will report to all three of the bureaus and you can never be sure which bureau report a potential creditor will pull so you want to repair them all. Make a note of every derogatory mark on your reports.

After this begin work on removing negative marks on your credit reports. Do this by sending hand written dispute letters to the credit bureaus. They make forms available for this purpose but you may get a better response if you hand write your dispute so the employee who opens it can tell it is a real dispute from you and not an automated letter from a credit repair company. Your dispute will be read by a real person at the credit bureau so you are probably better off to handle your correspondence in a personal way.

Attack the errors on your credit reports. When you get false information removed you might see a sudden jump in your credit score. If the derogatory remarks are valid then the credit bureau will not remove it if it is verified by the reporting creditor. In that case, you can contact the creditor directly and ask them if they will remove the negative mark. If you are a current customer in good standing, they may do so.

Decide to either make payments or let bad credit expire. It may be best to leave old bad credit marks alone. Most of them will expire and be removed from your credit report seven years from the date of last activity. If you dispute an old bad credit mark, it might re-age it so that the seven year clock starts all over again. This will make your credit score go down because it shows as a new bad credit mark rather than an old one.

Juggle your credit cards around and you might see a quick rise in your credit score. It is best to keep your available balance between 30% to 50%. If you have one card that has nearly zero balance and one that is close to being maxed out, move some of your balance over so that both of your cards are in the 30% to 50% range.

Please be careful with new credit lines and old accounts. Having an open old account on your credit report will be a benefit to you even if it is not currently active since the credit bureaus factor in how long you have had your credit established. New accounts on the other hand will probably lower your score for awhile after you open them. Your credit score fluctuates frequently depending on your actions, that is why it is so beneficial to monitor your credit. You can do that at the Equifax website by signing up for their Equifax Credit Watch Gold, plus it provides you with identity theft protection in the amount of $20,000.

Since you are reading this article, you know how important good credit is. These few steps can help you improve your credit and help you maintain good credit. You may think you need professional help from a credit repair agency, but it really isn’t necessary since you can do it all yourself. It is at least worth a try before you spend money on credit repair.

Technorati Tags: Credit Score Repair, Fix Credit Report, How to Improve Credit Score, How to Repair Credit, Increase Credit Score

1) If your family trusts you and they are timely with paying their own bills they can add your SSN on to their account as a "co-applicant" not an authorized user. This means that you don’t get a card, and you dont get to go and charge money on the account, but when they make their monthly payments on time it will also mirror over to your credit file… Since they are simply paying their bills the way they always do and you aren’t borrowing any money or using the card you get to coat tail and get a little credit history built up… This works well for parents that want to get their children’s credit history built up before they are 18. My little sister is a co-applicant on my credit card – by the time she turns 18 she will have a 10yr old credit file… and will qualify for all sorts of loans and beter terms for things…

2) Passbook savings accounts & bank loan – this is an old trick that used to work well, however you may have a little trouble considering how rare passbook savings accounts are now. Here is what you do… go to your bank that you have a checking account with (if you don’t have a bank you check with- get one) if you are on good terms with them talk with a rep there and tell them that you want to get a loan for $500 – and simultaneously open a PASSBOOK savings account (where they issue you a passbook – like a passport that must be presented to deposit or withdraw from the account). Explain that they can place the loan funds into the passbook savings account AND hold the passbook as collateral. You simply want to make payments and have them report those payments to your credit file.
a. now you have a $500 loan which is reporting to your credit file, you also have a savings account where you place those $500 in funds. The bank is holding the passbook, so you arent going to be able to take the funds out and spend them.
b. make a $100 payment toward your loan 1 month.
c. make a $100 payment the following month
d. repeat
e. repeat
f. repeat

You have paid off your loan in 5 months, you also now have the passbook with the $500 in it and it ended up costing you $25 in interest… but on your credit file it will look like you paid a loan off early… and will be the positive mark that you need to be able to go out and get a credit card.

3) secured credit cards – you put $200 up to secure the use of the VISA or MC service label… so you are essentially making credit card purchases with money you already paid to the CC company- be careful of the fees and such that can be charged -there are a lot of sub-prime (low/no credit) lenders that are very predatory.

Best thing that you can do is find a good bank or credit union that you can be a part of, credit unions work well to help their clients and are valuable tools for people trying to establish themselves credit-wise. The better your account standings are (dont bounce checks, or overdraft, nsf, etc) the more services they will be willing to offer you as far as loans, credit cards, etc.

hope that helps.

Other ways to improve your score are to always pay on time, and maintain stability in job and residency. Too many short jobs or short term residences have negative effects on the score.

Also what are some of the ways i can build it, is ti better to pay off my balance in full or just more than the minimum and keep a balance?

Please and Thank You

Stop applying for so many cards. That pulls your score down. Every application for credit, whether you get it or not, is a ding to your score. Don’t be in a rush. You have one, now take care of it. Don’t max it out. Knowing First Premier, it’s probably a $300 card, that’s ok. That’s where I started. Try to get and keep it down to around 25 or 30% of the limit. Don’t apply for any other credit for 6 months or longer. If you stay in the lower balance area and don’t apply for anything else, your score will go up quite a bit. The big guys want to make sure you can handle credit before they give it to you.

info from the Credit Secrets Bible

CREDIT REPAIR FACTS and FALLACIES: 6 Ways to Separate Fact From Fiction!

Credit bureaus like experian, equifax and trans union are not government agencies. They are privately held for profit companies….

So many consumers freak out about their credit report and the credit bureaus. It’s the like the credit boogeyman is chasing them in a bad credit dream (or credit nightmare).

So much information is conflicting it’s easy to get confused. Most banks and credit bureaus like trans union, equifax and experian would love you to believe that the only thing that can repair your credit report is time.

Laughs….

How about all the errors and inaccurate information? Can that only improve or heal over time as well?

let’s face it. You’re worth more to the credit bureaus and banks with bad credit then good. You’re worth more with a low credit score than a high credit score. So, is it any surprise the system is slanted and almost all the errors are in the favor of the banks and credit bureaus like experian, equifax and trans union?

Hmmmm….

Can 100% accurate information be removed from your credit reports? Actually, contrary to popular belief, it can. Nothing prohibits a credit furnisher of information (FOI) from removing accurate information from a credit report.
Even if it is negative or derogatory. Remember, credit bureaus are really in the business of selling information.

It just happens to be that negative information is more profitable than positive (wait a minute. That sounds like the news). Anyway…

Even if you’re a “good citizen” you have to understand that each bureau has it’s own sources and methods for calculating your credit score. It does not all come down to a company called Fair Isaac, FICO or www.myfico.com in Minneapolis Minnesota.

Different credit bureaus generate different consumer credit scores. Sorry. We don’t make the rules. We just help you learn how to play the game better.

And no matter what anyone says, credit repair is not INSTANT and guaranteed (even if Johnny Cochrane comes back from the dead and becomes your personal credit attorney).

The credit system is really unpredictable and part of the process is a random roll of the dice. In the end, it is persistence and experience that makes the difference.

A good credit restoration company will do a better job that you ever could on your own but it will not happen for $49 a month. To do it right it will cost much more.

Credit restoration can be done on your own and every situation is different. Whether you choose to do it on your own or hire a company that fact is that it is better to do something than nothing.

Unfortunately, most people are doing nothing (at least right now anyway). Don’t make this mistake. The time to invest in your credit is NOT when you need it, but 1 to 2 years BEFORE you need it.

Please sign in to rate this video.

Thank you.

Duration : 0:9:59

Technorati Tags: credit, facts, fallacies, fico, improve, myfico, repair, score, truth

Duration : 0:5:59

Technorati Tags: credit report, credit score, free credit report, improve you credit score