Regardless of your record or history, there are a number of quick & easy steps you can take towards credit repair. It’s never too late, and costs nothing, yet the results can be huge!
You can begin by ordering a copy of your credit reports, going through them, and understanding them. There are three different credit reporting bureaus, and each one may have slightly different information.
By law, consumers are entitled to one free credit report from each of the these agencies, TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. You can get one from each agency, each year.
The Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, has set up a website where you can order them: annualcreditreport.com. Be careful of any other website that claims to offer you free reports - this is the “official” site, and any others have strings attached.
You’ll start your credit repair efforts as soon as you get your reports. To begin with, you want to read each report line by line.
Along with the report, you will get a “dispute” form - or an address where you can get it. This is where your initial credit repair efforts will focus.
Make a note of every outdated, inaccurate, or incorrect entry - you will be disputing these. Fill out a dispute form and provide corrected information, or why it is inaccurate, such as debts that have already been paid but are still listed.
By federal law, the credit reporting bureaus have up to 30 days to verify each dispute. If they don’t do so, or don’t do it within the 30 days, they must remove those entries from your credit report.
By taking this simple step, you will find some of those negative entries will come off your credit report, and as such no longer contribute to a low credit score. In some cases, this can boost your score by hundreds of points!
