Credit Repair - Warnings! There are companies that prey on people with damaged credit ratings, so you need to be careful as you repair and rebuild your credit on which methods you use. If you are looking into other resources, be careful to avoid the following scams: Guaranteed Credit Cards: If you see offers for “guaranteed credit cards regardless of your credit,” beware. There are two variations on this scam: 1. In one, the issuer makes it sound like you’ll get a major (unse

Credit Repair - Step #4: Handle Negative Information You may find that your credit report contains information that is negative, but is basically correct. If this is the case, here’s what you can do: #1: Wait It Out As the negative information becomes older; it becomes less important to potential creditors and lenders. This is especially true if the information is more than two years old. Note: If you have unpaid tax liens or court judgments, they must be paid before the cloc

Credit Repair - What Other Recourse Do I Have? First, if you disputed the error with the furnisher, you still have the right to dispute the error with the credit bureaus. If you already disputed the error with a credit bureau and they rejected your claim, you may still have options. If you think the credit bureau didn’t properly investigate, you may wish to contact them again (this time by phone, if possible) and try to clarify the problem. If they still won’t correct it, you

​Credit Repair - What to Do If an Error Isn’t Resolved in Your Favor If you believe there is an error in your credit report and the dispute isn’t resolved in your favor, you have the right to add a 100-word statement to your credit file with each of the credit bureaus explaining your side of the story. This may not be very helpful, however, since new creditors and lenders reviewing your reports may not see or read the statement. It’s much better to try to get errors corrected

Credit Repair - Tips for Writing Effective Dispute Letters Whether you are writing to the furnisher or the credit bureau to dispute information on your credit report, here are some guidelines that can help make your dispute more effective: 1. Include your name, address, social security number, and account number(s) (if they are relevant to your claim) at the top of your letter so your credit file and the disputed information can quickly be found. 2. Write your letter by hand

Credit Repair - Deciding Who to Contact to First For a couple reasons, it may be best to start disputing discrepancies with the furnishers first. If you are successful in the dispute, this saves you time because the furnisher is required by law to report the correction to all three bureaus. If you aren’t successful, then you still have the option to make your dispute with the credit bureaus. This is not true the other way around – if your dispute is rejected by a credit burea

Credit Repair - Step #3: Dispute Errors Now that you have a precise picture of what type of errors you have in your credit reports, you are ready to decide the best way to dispute the discrepancies. There are two ways to dispute errors that you find: 1. You can contact the furnisher (lender, creditor, court or collection agency) reporting the incorrect information and ask them to investigate. 2. You may contact each of the credit bureaus that have the error in that report and

Credit Repair - Warning: ​ Beware of collection agencies that tell you they have ways of reporting a delinquent account “forever” if you don’t pay.Not only is this completely untrue, it’s a violation of your rights under Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA) and the collections agency can be reported to the FTC. CALL US AT OUR 24 HOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE HOTLINE: 1-800-562-0004 Our Business Hours are: Mon – Friday from 10:00am to 6:00pm Saturday from 10:00am – 2:00pm Whe

Credit Repair - Determining When Account Penalty Periods Start If you have collection or charge-off accounts, read this section thoroughly! It may be confusing at first, but this is usually where most credit repair issues are made. For collection or charge-off accounts, the 7-year clock on the penalty starts six (6) months from the date you first fell behind leading up to the collection or charge-off. It does not start when the account was placed in collections or on the date

Credit Repair - Understanding Credit Report Penalties. The first thing most people with bad credit want to know is, “How long will negative information on my credit report stay with me?”Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, credit reporting agencies are not allowed to report any information that is too old, incomplete or wrong. While positive or neutral information can be reported indefinitely, negative information that causes credit penalties can only be reported for