Your credit score is a long-term view of your credit usage. Most credit problems, such as late payments or non-payment of debt, should be deleted after seven years, but some types of bankruptcy remain on your credit report for 10 years. Student loans could be much longer; some may remain until paid or forgiven.
The time it takes to fix the problem will depend on what negatively affects your credit score. If the credit information held by another person jeopardizes your value, for example, the removal of such information may lead to an improvement almost immediately after you experience a correction error.
1. Get the Facts
Your first step in trying to improve your credit score requires that you get the facts. You can do this by ordering a free credit report from all three credit bureaus: Experian, Trans Union, and Equifax. You are limited to one free yearly report from each bureau, which you can order at AnnualCreditReport.com. But it is a good idea to order them throughout the year. Ordering one report immediately and then one in four months and the third in eight months will allow you to order a report every four months for free.
2. Error of Dispute
You may encounter errors in your reports, such as late payments when you're not late, or credit cards show up as yours that does not belong to you. Mistakes like this can lower your credit score. There are a few important things to look at that will help you identify problems:
- Personal information - Make sure the names and addresses reported match your personal history. Accidental credit reports of people of the same or similar name are incorrectly incorporated; Whether your report is related to someone with bad credit may lower your score. To fix the errors you need to document what went wrong and send a letter to the credit bureaus. This can be a quick fix if all the negative information is owned by someone other than you, but proving it may take a while.
- Account Information - Check all accounts carefully and make sure the account is actually open. If you find an account on a name you do not open, contact your credit bureau, explain the cheating and ask for fraud alerts in your account. Then contact the card-issuing company to find out more details about the account.
- Public Records - Negative information from public records may include bankruptcy, civil decisions, or confiscation. Bankruptcy can be on the report for seven to 10 years, but all other public records should be deleted after seven years. If the public records about your report are older than allowed, disagree the information with the credit bureaus and submit the documentation to prove that the debt is too old and should no longer be in the report.
3. Negotiate with the Creditor
If you have an account that has matured and has cash to pay it off, try negotiating with the lender by offering to pay the balance in full if it will remove the information from your credit report. If not, try to get the company to make the debt "paid according to an agreement." Getting the fullest negative information from your report is the best, but the lender may not be willing to do so. Make sure you get a written agreement before making a payment.
If your account shows non-payment payments for several months, but you can prove that the problem is caused by difficulties, you might be able to ask your creditor to make "good faith adjustments." If you are injured and in hospital or rehabilitation For several months. Write to your creditor, explain the difficulties and give evidence. Ask if the company will consider a good-faith adjustment to remove the late payment history on your credit report. Your payment must always be up-to-date in order to succeed in this adjustment.
4. Get Your Limit Under Control
Check your credit report to make sure it accurately reflects your credit line. Then add all the credit lines in one column and all outstanding debts in the other account. For example, you could have $ 10,000 in total credit limit and $ 4,000 in total debt, which means you use 40% of your available credit limit.
You can make your credit usage look better than by making a payment right before your statement is sent, rather than waiting out. Most credit card companies report your balance at the same time that they post a statement, and the balance reported to the credit bureau is the balance of the statement. If, for example, your statement comes out on the fifteenth of this month, as long as you have the money, receive your bill early so the money will arrive before the statement is sent - say the thirteenth of the month.
5. Eliminate your Low Balance
The factor that affects your credit score is the number of credit cards you have with an open balance. Having lots of small balances lowers your score. So if you have a VISA, MasterCard and American Express card that you use every month.
Underline
You can fix your own credit score for free. This requires hard work and may rethink how you use your credit card, but a higher credit score will help you earn better interest quotes and lower your credit costs.
Comments
Post a Comment