Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Fix Bad Credit

By John Cooper

If you have bad credit there is hope. You do not have to wait seven years for bad credit items to naturally fall off your credit report.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act says that you can dispute any item that you do not believe to be accurate on your credit report. It also says that any item that can not be verified must be removed from your credit.

To dispute an item you must create a dispute letter and send it to each credit bureau. You can hire a service to create this letter or do it yourself.

The bureau will receive your dispute and investigate. They will contact the lender and ask them to verify the dates on the account and the balance.

If the account is not verified then it must be removed from your credit report. It has been found that items older than 2 years, charge offs, repossessions, late payments and discharged bankruptcies are easier to remove from your credit.

This is a result of these lenders having received some form of payment. For example a charged off account has likely been sold to a collection agency. Thus the credit card issuer has no reason to save your account or records of it.

Recent delinquent accounts, tax liens, judgments, and bankruptcies are more difficult to remove. If you have one of these marks then hiring a service is a good idea, because they have advanced dispute tactics.

A service can use more advanced methods to remove an item if it is verified by the lender. A service can use; creditor direct intervention, escalated dispute information requests, and debt validation.

You can help your score by building positive credit too. This can be done by opening a new revolving line of credit such as an unsecured credit card. This will help you create a positive payment history and improve your available credit to debt ratio.

In sum do not wait to repair your credit score. You can remove bad credit items and improve your score today. - 15465

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