Score Credit Reports

Archive for September, 2010

We all know in the adult world, your credit is everything. Someone once said, “You’re only as good as your fico score.” It’s sad but it’s true. Home, auto and other lenders swear by it so if you plan to purchase anything on credit then you’d better have your credit in check.

If you’re like me and the average American, you’ve had your fair share of late pays, collections, charge offs, etc. All these things negatively affect your credit and drastically reduces your score. My credit demise started in my younger years as a college student, like so many others. I was a broke and struggling college student who fell prey to the “Just send in a copy of your student i.d. and we’ll give you a credit card” line. That was the beginning of what I call “the set up”. This pretty much set me up for future credit ruin. I started receiving all these cards, was charging them up to the maximum and had no money to pay for them. Over the years I also made other financial decisions that impacted my credit negatively. It was just a matter of time before I looked up and realized I had bad credit!

In my quest to repair the damage I had done, I found out that you can dispute accounts on your credit with a letter and get them deleted. This is especially true for items that have run their seven year course and have not been removed yet. But it can also be done for any of your accounts. Instead of using the online dispute form at the credit bureaus websites, I devised my own quick and easy dispute letter. The results were tremendous!

After sending out my first round of letters to the three major bureaus, accounts started falling off like magic. After a few months of using the letter there was a drastic increase in my fico score. I was able to increase my score by almost 100 points in only three months. I also used the letter and did the same for my husband. This is amazing since the average time for you to see these type of results is usually anywhere from 8-24 months.

Increasing your credit score will put you in a better position credit wise and make you a more attractive borrower to lenders. You’ll have lower interest rates as well as lower payments which equates to thousands of dollars in savings. You don’t have to pay those so called credit repair experts hundreds or even thousands of dollars. A good simple dispute letter will do the trick. I found out that these credit repair companies do the same exact thing. Why not be your own expert and get your credit back fast and free! Do what I did and use a credit dispute letter to get the job done.

As consumers continue to extend themselves by using more and more credit, their ability to repay their debts and loans is becoming harder and harder. As a result, the median credit score is taking a plunge and lenders are faced with turning away more business. Those who are seeking to get approved for a loan are left facing the facts of their repayment history and money management skills.

Before applying for the loan you need, there are a few steps every consumer should take before allowing lenders to take a look at your financial resume. The first thing you want to do is order a copy of your free annual credit report to review it for errors. Studies show that 75% of credit reports contain erroneous information, and 1 in 4 actually impact consumers in a negative way. You deserve fair representation, and the credit bureaus are required by the Fair Credit Act to review and respond to any disputes on your credit report within 30 days.

Once you have accessed your free annual credit report, it is time to work on your raise credit score strategy. This is a two part process: dispute credit report errors and find inefficiencies in your credit behavior. Here’s what to do with your report:

1. Take out a pen and a highlighter

2. Circle any errors that are on your report including and make a notation as to why the item is incorrect: accounts that you have open but are marked closed, late payments that didn’t occur, the wrong Social Security number.

3. Now take a look at your credit report and highlight any “problem areas” that are legitimate claims and may be hurting your credit score.

Now that you know why your credit score is what it is, it’s time to take actionable raise credit score steps that will have the greatest impact in the shortest amount of time. Start with taking a look at your available credit to debt ratio and make sure it is below 30%. This is the fastest way to make an improvement in your credit rating, and can be done just by picking up the phone and requesting a credit limit increase (of course there are some tricks on how to make that happen every time). Continue to find other credit behavior issues that you can change to immediately increase your credit score.

From there you want to start the dispute process. Since this can take up to 30 days, you want to get started on this early. If you need to raise your credit score quickly, your best bet is to pick 2 or 3 items that are hurting your reputation as a borrower the most. This will get the reporting agency to work fast for you. Plus, if you submit everything at once, the reporting agency is less likely to take you seriously.

Now I want you to pay attention very closely because I know the credit card companies do not want you to hear this!

Skip asking the credit card companies for a lower rate. As greedy as they are, most probably wont go below 15% and that is if they choose to be nice. Go straight to your bank! Yes I did it, I went to my credit union, and basically told them my sad sob story, well over the phone. They knew I was making $200/month in payment from my bank account to my credit cards, and after I told them about my alarming Bank of America rate of 23%, I think they felt sorry for me ? Actually they verified employment—none, they asked for any income, I said yup whatever I get from financial aid. They placed me on hold, and I started praying (seriously ?), which is why what followed was truly a blessing! They agreed to give me the money to pay off my credit cards, $4000!!!! My loan was for a period of 36months, which made my monthly payments $135, so I still got to save over $75 compared to what I was paying monthly!!

The best thing was that now my credit report would report a $0 balance on both cards!!! This meant that my scores would go up and they did DRAMATICALLY by about 70 points. Yes lets do the 700 FICO credit score dance!!!

I can now say bye bye to the annoying 7am wake up calls from Bank of America, and Discover’s threatening tone when they were trying to force me to pay money which was a drop in the bucket due to their crazy interest rates.

I can walk into any bank in America today and get approved for a car or mortgage loan at a low interest rate. Some banks are willing to even give me up to $1million loan to start a business. All of a sudden I have been transformed from being a nobody to a successful individual with great financial capability.

Helen Samuel is a millionaire in the making, she went quickly from being a graduate student with very bad credit to being a business entrepreneur with a passion for creating wealth to help serve humanity with Christ like love and service. You can read more from her ebook on her website at http://wealthandsuccess4you.com She also does free consultations and has free information that can save you money when you travel through the airlines and car rentals.