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They come everyday, one after another, filling your email box with claims of quick and easy credit repair. These emails are simply preying on people's desire for a quick fix to a major problem. With some 30 million Americans having less than stellar credit report ratings, there are plenty of people looking for a quick fix. There is, however, no quick and easy legal way to change a credit report if it is accurate. Although no quick fix exists to repair your credit rating, there are a number of ways that you can move it along in the right direction. Simply understanding a little more about how the credit rating system works will put you in a better position to improve your score.
First, you need to know what a credit rating is. You are given a score between 300 and 850 depending on a number of factors taken into account by the credit rating agencies. These numbers are used more and more by lenders (mortgage, car loan, credit card) when evaluating your credit worthiness, as well as employers, landlords, insurers and others who use it in evaluating applications. Knowing how the scores are determined will be useful to those with credit ratings that are considered sub-prime (560 points or lower which include consumers with little or no credit history, consumers who have filed bankruptcy within the past 10 years, those who have a terrible track record over the past seven years of paying their bills on-time, or consumers currently carrying far too much debt for their income level), but also for those who have good ratings that want to make them even better.
The first step is to get hold of your current credit reports. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has set up a new website <A HREF="http://www.annualcreditreport.com">annualcreditreport.com </A> where you can now get a copy of your credit report free of charge from all three of the credit report agencies (Equifax, TransUnion and Experian) each year. It should be noted that the credit reports must be ordered from the FTC site to get them for free. If you order your credit report directly from the credit report agencies' sites, you'll be charged a fee for the report.
This free credit report is being phased in over time and is currently only available to those who live in states on the west coast of the US. For a time table on when these free credit reports will be available in other areas of the US, you can <A HREF="http://www.savingadvice.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3177">click here</A>. The one point to note is this will give you your credit report to check for inaccuracies, but it will not give you your credit score.
If you live in a state where the credit reports are not yet available for free, here, you can get a free credit report directly from the credit reporting agencies if you've been denied credit in the past 60 days, are unemployed, on welfare assistance or believe your credit record contains inaccurate information due to fraud.
If you neither of these free credit reports are available to you at the moment, you can also receive your credit report for a small fee at any time from the credit reporting agencies. Their contact information is:
Trans Union (800-916-8800)
Equifax (800-685-1111)
Experian (888-397-3742)
Don't assume that each agencies report contains the same information. These agencies get their information from lenders and different lenders report to different agencies. Mistakes are also made, so getting a credit report from each one is the best way to make sure that everything is accurate.
Once you have made sure that your credit reports are accurate, you can start taking steps to improve your credit rating. By far the most important thing you can do to improve your score is to pay your bills on time. Paying bills on time accounts for up to 35% of your credit report score with your recent bill paying history carrying more weight than your past history. That means by making all your payments on time, you can immediately move your score in the right direction. This is the single easiest way to improve your credit score.
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In the same vein, missing even a couple of bill payments can have a terrible effect on your score. Again, recent history is given more weight than past history, so even those who have had clean records up to that point can see their credit scores fall dramatically with a few missed payments. In addition, some credit card companies have started to use the credit report missed payment as an excuse to immediately raise your credit card interest rate. This is an important reason to make sure those payments get in on time.
In addition to making sure that you pay your bills each month, reducing your debt load will also improve your score. The less debt you have, the better your credit score will be. For those who use credit cards frequently for the rewards they offer, but pay off their card each month, you still may be hurting your credit score. Credit scores fail to take into account who carries a balance on their accounts and who pays them off each month, but simply report the outstanding balance on the cards at a specific point. That means that even those who religiously pay off their credit cards each month may appear to have a lot of debt just before they pay off their credit card bill, lowering their score if their report happens to be accessed at that point. For this reason, those who will be applying for a loan should reduce or stop using their credit card a few months before applying for the loan.
While closing old credit card accounts that are no longer used has been the general advice of financial experts in the past, this may actually hurt your credit score. This is not to be used as an excuse to keep accounts open so you can charge on the account more (which will also lower your credit rating), but the facts are that closing an account lowers the amount of credit you have available which makes any outstanding balances you have with other credit cards factor more in your credit score calculations. This will usually result in a lower score. In addition, if you close your older credit card accounts, this can shorten the appearance of your credit history which can also lower your credit report score.
Another piece of advice that many financial experts in the past have given is to avoid credit counseling since this will adversely effect your credit score. While this was true in the past (and still is true with some institutions that use the old method of calculating scores), this began changing a few years ago and today credit counseling references are usually not factored into your credit report score. Any references to credit counseling that do appear in the report are usually removed after the repayment plan set up by the credit counseling service has been completed.
Be careful not to confuse legitimate credit counseling services with debt settlement firms. Credit counseling firms can help to consolidate payments and lower the interest rates you pay, but you will still typically pay the full amount you owe to your creditors. Debt settlement firms typically have you pay less than you owe and this will certainly reflect negatively on your credit report score. Since not all debt settlement firms are the most legitimate operations, some have been known to simply take your payments and never forward them to your credit card companies thus making your credit report even worse.
Finally, avoid bankruptcy at all costs. A bankruptcy will certainly move your credit report score into the sub-prime level meaning that getting credit in the future at reasonable rates will be extremely difficult if not impossible. Contrary to popular assumption, this doesn't mean that you won't be offered credit. High interest credit card lenders love to offer credit after a bankruptcy because they know that once you file bankruptcy, you are not allowed to do it again for six years. You will, however, pay dearly for this with the outrageous interest rates they charge. Furthermore, most general lenders will refuse to make loans to anyone with a bankruptcy on their credit record and it can also have an effect on areas outside of your finances since employers, landlords, insurers and others also often access this information.
You can see that quick repairs to negative credit reports don't exist, but there are legitimate steps you can take immediately to improve your score. Start today and keep up with it over time, and you will see your credit report score continue to rise.
First, you need to know what a credit rating is. You are given a score between 300 and 850 depending on a number of factors taken into account by the credit rating agencies. These numbers are used more and more by lenders (mortgage, car loan, credit card) when evaluating your credit worthiness, as well as employers, landlords, insurers and others who use it in evaluating applications. Knowing how the scores are determined will be useful to those with credit ratings that are considered sub-prime (560 points or lower which include consumers with little or no credit history, consumers who have filed bankruptcy within the past 10 years, those who have a terrible track record over the past seven years of paying their bills on-time, or consumers currently carrying far too much debt for their income level), but also for those who have good ratings that want to make them even better.
The first step is to get hold of your current credit reports. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has set up a new website <A HREF="http://www.annualcreditreport.com">annualcreditreport.com </A> where you can now get a copy of your credit report free of charge from all three of the credit report agencies (Equifax, TransUnion and Experian) each year. It should be noted that the credit reports must be ordered from the FTC site to get them for free. If you order your credit report directly from the credit report agencies' sites, you'll be charged a fee for the report.
This free credit report is being phased in over time and is currently only available to those who live in states on the west coast of the US. For a time table on when these free credit reports will be available in other areas of the US, you can <A HREF="http://www.savingadvice.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3177">click here</A>. The one point to note is this will give you your credit report to check for inaccuracies, but it will not give you your credit score.
If you live in a state where the credit reports are not yet available for free, here, you can get a free credit report directly from the credit reporting agencies if you've been denied credit in the past 60 days, are unemployed, on welfare assistance or believe your credit record contains inaccurate information due to fraud.
If you neither of these free credit reports are available to you at the moment, you can also receive your credit report for a small fee at any time from the credit reporting agencies. Their contact information is:
Trans Union (800-916-8800)
Equifax (800-685-1111)
Experian (888-397-3742)
Don't assume that each agencies report contains the same information. These agencies get their information from lenders and different lenders report to different agencies. Mistakes are also made, so getting a credit report from each one is the best way to make sure that everything is accurate.
Once you have made sure that your credit reports are accurate, you can start taking steps to improve your credit rating. By far the most important thing you can do to improve your score is to pay your bills on time. Paying bills on time accounts for up to 35% of your credit report score with your recent bill paying history carrying more weight than your past history. That means by making all your payments on time, you can immediately move your score in the right direction. This is the single easiest way to improve your credit score.
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In the same vein, missing even a couple of bill payments can have a terrible effect on your score. Again, recent history is given more weight than past history, so even those who have had clean records up to that point can see their credit scores fall dramatically with a few missed payments. In addition, some credit card companies have started to use the credit report missed payment as an excuse to immediately raise your credit card interest rate. This is an important reason to make sure those payments get in on time.
In addition to making sure that you pay your bills each month, reducing your debt load will also improve your score. The less debt you have, the better your credit score will be. For those who use credit cards frequently for the rewards they offer, but pay off their card each month, you still may be hurting your credit score. Credit scores fail to take into account who carries a balance on their accounts and who pays them off each month, but simply report the outstanding balance on the cards at a specific point. That means that even those who religiously pay off their credit cards each month may appear to have a lot of debt just before they pay off their credit card bill, lowering their score if their report happens to be accessed at that point. For this reason, those who will be applying for a loan should reduce or stop using their credit card a few months before applying for the loan.
While closing old credit card accounts that are no longer used has been the general advice of financial experts in the past, this may actually hurt your credit score. This is not to be used as an excuse to keep accounts open so you can charge on the account more (which will also lower your credit rating), but the facts are that closing an account lowers the amount of credit you have available which makes any outstanding balances you have with other credit cards factor more in your credit score calculations. This will usually result in a lower score. In addition, if you close your older credit card accounts, this can shorten the appearance of your credit history which can also lower your credit report score.
Another piece of advice that many financial experts in the past have given is to avoid credit counseling since this will adversely effect your credit score. While this was true in the past (and still is true with some institutions that use the old method of calculating scores), this began changing a few years ago and today credit counseling references are usually not factored into your credit report score. Any references to credit counseling that do appear in the report are usually removed after the repayment plan set up by the credit counseling service has been completed.
Be careful not to confuse legitimate credit counseling services with debt settlement firms. Credit counseling firms can help to consolidate payments and lower the interest rates you pay, but you will still typically pay the full amount you owe to your creditors. Debt settlement firms typically have you pay less than you owe and this will certainly reflect negatively on your credit report score. Since not all debt settlement firms are the most legitimate operations, some have been known to simply take your payments and never forward them to your credit card companies thus making your credit report even worse.
Finally, avoid bankruptcy at all costs. A bankruptcy will certainly move your credit report score into the sub-prime level meaning that getting credit in the future at reasonable rates will be extremely difficult if not impossible. Contrary to popular assumption, this doesn't mean that you won't be offered credit. High interest credit card lenders love to offer credit after a bankruptcy because they know that once you file bankruptcy, you are not allowed to do it again for six years. You will, however, pay dearly for this with the outrageous interest rates they charge. Furthermore, most general lenders will refuse to make loans to anyone with a bankruptcy on their credit record and it can also have an effect on areas outside of your finances since employers, landlords, insurers and others also often access this information.
You can see that quick repairs to negative credit reports don't exist, but there are legitimate steps you can take immediately to improve your score. Start today and keep up with it over time, and you will see your credit report score continue to rise.
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