Repair My Credit - The Fastest Way to Get Started
Every day I receive hundreds of emails from people all over the United States asking such questions as "How do I repair my credit?" or "A local credit counseling agency wants to charge me $1,000 just to get started, is this fair?" or "Can I repair my credit without help - can I do it on my own?" With so much misleading advice given on the Internet and rogue credit repair agencies who are only out for the fast buck, it is easy to be confused as to what steps to take when you want to clean up your credit history and get out of debt.
To help guide you, the following questions and answers are factual advice that can help you understand more clearly on what you need to do: Question: I would like to repair my credit but do not know where to start.
Should I call a credit repair service or counselor? Do not pick up the telephone until you have made the first step, and that is to pull a full credit report from all of the major credit bureaus.
There are plenty of online services that offer this task and you can usually get all of the bureaus in one report.
The reason why this is so important when deciding on credit repair is so that you can first take a look for yourself if there are any inaccurate reports or forms of identity theft.
If so, then there are steps to take on your own without hiring a credit repair service, at least not yet.
Question: I believe that I am the victim of identity theft.
I would like to repair my credit but there are thousands of dollars in creditor debts that were not done by me or anyone in my family.
What should I do? Victims of identity theft are usually caught by complete surprise through an account on their report that they did not open, or some unusual action going on with a credit card, or several of them.
Here are some tips if you fall into this unfortunate position: 1) Write all of the information down you find on these illegitimate filings.
2) Call and close down any accounts with creditors that are affected.
3) If you are able to have your credit report frozen, do so immediately (only certain States allow this).
4) Place a fraud alert by calling one of the major credit bureaus.
5) And of course, call the authorities and fill out a report.
Question: When I want to repair my credit, what information is listed on my credit report? When you first receive your credit report you may be wondering what what all of the information means.
The best thing to do is break it down.
Each report contains the following brackets of information: 1) Your personal profile.
2) Public records which include late payments, collections, negative remarks, etc.
3) History of your account.
4) Credit inquiries.
5) Credit score.
6) Any statements that you have submitted, in 100 words or less.
To help guide you, the following questions and answers are factual advice that can help you understand more clearly on what you need to do: Question: I would like to repair my credit but do not know where to start.
Should I call a credit repair service or counselor? Do not pick up the telephone until you have made the first step, and that is to pull a full credit report from all of the major credit bureaus.
There are plenty of online services that offer this task and you can usually get all of the bureaus in one report.
The reason why this is so important when deciding on credit repair is so that you can first take a look for yourself if there are any inaccurate reports or forms of identity theft.
If so, then there are steps to take on your own without hiring a credit repair service, at least not yet.
Question: I believe that I am the victim of identity theft.
I would like to repair my credit but there are thousands of dollars in creditor debts that were not done by me or anyone in my family.
What should I do? Victims of identity theft are usually caught by complete surprise through an account on their report that they did not open, or some unusual action going on with a credit card, or several of them.
Here are some tips if you fall into this unfortunate position: 1) Write all of the information down you find on these illegitimate filings.
2) Call and close down any accounts with creditors that are affected.
3) If you are able to have your credit report frozen, do so immediately (only certain States allow this).
4) Place a fraud alert by calling one of the major credit bureaus.
5) And of course, call the authorities and fill out a report.
Question: When I want to repair my credit, what information is listed on my credit report? When you first receive your credit report you may be wondering what what all of the information means.
The best thing to do is break it down.
Each report contains the following brackets of information: 1) Your personal profile.
2) Public records which include late payments, collections, negative remarks, etc.
3) History of your account.
4) Credit inquiries.
5) Credit score.
6) Any statements that you have submitted, in 100 words or less.
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