Wednesday, November 14, 2007

credit report - Repair Your Credit and Prevent Future Credit Problems

When should you consider credit repair? A lot of people assume their credit is fine, when in fact there may be mistakes applied to your credit report that you don't even know about. What if you are unaware of this and try to apply for a loan?

There could be many reasons why your credit isn't as perfect as it should be. Maybe you were a couple of days late on a payment? How could this affect you?

Why You Should Repair Your Credit?

If you need a loan in the future, for whatever reason, a bad credit report can lead to problems and declines. While everyone has a different history, most people will need a medium to high credit score in order to purchase a new home, cars or other essentials.

You don't want to be left in the lurch when trying to apply for a loan. It's too easy to fix your credit score, so don't make yourself vulnerable. Act now and you could save yourself a lot of time and trouble down the road.

What Can You Do To Repair Your Credit?

The first thing to do is to check with the main credit reporting companies.

These credit-reporting companies are Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. By writing to each of these companies, you can get a report on your credit. This is the same credit report loan officers or credit card companies use to evaluate your application.

Read your credit report and determine if your credit score is as high as it could be. If you are not sure what your credit score should be, contact a credit repair company and ask them for assistance.

If you are familiar with credit scores, read back through your credit report for any errors. This could really be in any format. A company may have reported you were late for a payment, or that payment was not sent within such a length of time. Are all of the complaints correct? If they are not, you should request a change.

Why People Don't Repair Their Credit

There is one major reason why many people don't even bother with their credit report. It is because they don't know there are things they can do to fix it.

If you find yourself in this situation, consider contacting a credit repair company that understands and can assist you. A good credit repair professional can help you to understand what can be fixed. They can also handle a lot of the paper work for you, leaving you free from the hassle.

In addition, a good credit repair company can teach you things to help improve your credit score and get you on the right track to getting that loan or credit card you need.

However, having a professional taking care of your credit score is only the first step in your total financial planning success. Your credit repair professional can also assist you with your future financial planning. For example, if you want to pay your bills on time or pay off credit cards.

In all, if you're thinking about getting a loan or new credit card and are concerned about what your credit report says about you, contact your credit repair company and ask them for help. You don't have to be alone in your search to a better financial future.

Lee Harrison owns and runs a fully licensed, registered, and bonded credit service organization located in Naples, Texas. They have specialized in helping people repair and restore their credit history due to bankruptcy, bad credit, or identity theft for over 29 years. His website is http://www.lhcreditrepair.com.

Article Source:http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lee_Harrison

credit report - Top 5 Things You Thought You Knew About Credit

We all hear the stories of how to make our credit score go up but really are you sure of. In this article I hope to clear up some of the misconceptions that we hear every day. There are so many stories that you hear from your friends and families that are suppose to help you with your credit scores. So many of these are myths and I would like to dispel them. There are many dos and don'ts to improving your credit scores.

1. As Long As You Keep Checking Your Credit Your Score Will Drop
There are two types of credit inquiries. The first is a soft inquiry which is done by yourself when you check your credit. This will not harm your credit score. Then there is hard inquiries which is done by a creditor and will usually bring down your score a few points. Now if your shopping around for let's say a car and you do a number of credit inquiries in a short period of time then these will usually be grouped into a small category so that you don't lose a whole pile of points off of your score.

2. Will Closing Old Accounts Help Your Credit Score?
It is actually better to close newer accounts because they don't have that much credit history on them. If you cancel the old accounts it can actually drop your credit score because it gives the appearance that you have shorter credit. You can ask for your limits to be decreased but you should definitely think twice before closing old accounts.

3. Paying Off Bad Debts Will Remove Them From Your Credit Report
No matter what paying off old debts is always the best thing to do. Your bad debt will not be erased from your credit report for between 7 and 10 years but they will show paid which will help to bring your score up a bit. The best thing for all concerned however is to get the bad debt off of your record which will dramatically bring up your score.

4. If I'm A Co-signer Am I Responsible For The Account
Co-signing, joint accounts or becoming an authorized user on someone else's credit card can be very dangerous to your credit score. By doing this you take on legal responsibility for the accounts. Good or bad, all activity on these accounts show up on both people's credit scores. So if you co-sign an auto loan for a friend and they default on the payments it will hurt your credit report as it will theirs. A couple ways to make sure this doesn't happen is to refinance the loan, have your name taken off the account or just keep making the payments.

5. Will Paying Off A Debt Add Points To Your Score?
There is no real way to determine how your score will go up. Credit scores are determined on hundreds of different things. To a person with a great credit score just missing one payment could bring their score down several points while a person with bad credit may not be affected as bad. There is no magical way to improve your credit score. It is so easy to wreck your credit score and very difficult to get it back. The best things you could do are make sure you pay your bills on time, reduce your debts and report negative inaccuracies on your credit report. Good financial behaviour and time are the two most important factors on your credit score.

Dale Mazurek

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Great advice Bridget!

I have been advocating to my friends and readers the power of professional assistance for a very long time. However, for the do it yourself type, I would recommend reading some posts on my blog at http://ourcreditscore.blogspot.com

Best Regards,
Robert

Financeguide101 said...

Good advice Lawrence,

Credit repair is the process of building our credit history and reestablishing our life. Building credit is building a better future. Nowadays, we need to have good credit scores to purchase a home, buy a car, and get a credit card and so on. If we have bad credit score generally more bad follows us.