repair credit score

Ian Hollander asked:




With all of the fancy jargon, the exotic strategies and long winded words aside, at the end of the day, people like yourself who are looking for credit repair are really only concerned with one thing? Raising your credit score. Right? All of the 12 dollar words in the world aren’t going to reduce your interest rate, get you better insurance or even help you qualify for some of today’s more stringent job application requirements. A better credit score will.

Let’s take a quick and easy look at how you are going to make it happen.

1)Get copies of all three of your reports. There are three major credit bureaus, TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. They are all important, and they ARE NOT partners or in some sort of collaborative effort with each other. They are INDEPENDENT, private companies who are competitors to each other in selling YOUR private data to potential lenders, landlords, employers, etc. Depending on where you live, each report may be weighed a bit heavier by person or entity reviewing your report. Generally speaking TransUnion reports are more heavily weighted in the North East, Equifax more so in the southern states and Experian South and West. This is not a hard and fast rule, and many lenders will get all three of your reports and weigh them equally, so obtain all three reports.

2)Highlight the derogatory items. Typically, Public record items are bad. They are usually first on the report and will reflect things like foreclosures, bankruptcies and judgments. Negative public records are bad, so we will be targeting these for dispute with the bureaus. Go through your report with a fine tooth comb. Highlight any installment account that was late, or written off as a bad debt. Find all your nasty, negative revolving trade lines as well. They are numerically coded – an R1 or I1 ( revolving or installment )is representative of being on time and paid as agreed, an R9 or I9 is not..:-) Think of it as best to worst – anything that reflects 30, 60, or 90 days later, EVER we want to dispute. The longer ago it was late, the less severe of a current impact it has on your score.

3)Prioritize the severity of the delinquencies. Follow the basic protocol I mentioned above. Anything older than 2 years, even if it meets the negative criteria above, is less damaging that a delinquency three months ago. Use your common sense and by hand, make a list of the worst items on each report in a descending order. When you are finished, you are going to have three ( hopefully short! ) lists of negative entries on your credit report that we are going to need to attack.

4) Compare and Contrast the items, one report to the next. Look at how item A is being reported on ALL three reports. Look for discrepancies, you will find them. Is the date the same on all three? How about the amount owed? Date of last activity? Guess what folks, chances are there will be SLIGHTLY different information being reported on each one. If you have kept records ( I know, most people don’t..:-) you will want to compare the bureaus records with your own. If your dates show you fell delinquent three months earlier than your report does, guess what? They are reporting inaccurate information. By law, any information that is inaccurate, erroneous, outdated or unverifiable must be deleted at the consumer’s request. We are in business!

5)Challenge the information you have found that is questionable, or outright wrong. Don’t worry about what you think is petty reasons for dispute – a few months difference in their reporting timeline is HUGE and not trivial at all. Almost all bad credit ( other than Bankruptcy and some public record information) MUST come off of your report within 7 years of its INITIAL delinquency. Not the last time the collection agency called – but the first month you were reported as late. This one simple distinction can save you a year of credit purgatory and tens of thousands of dollars in unnecessary interest. Do your homework and learn the fine points of the law. You will thank me for it later!

Don’t trivialize a bad credit score. If you are 25 now – and expect to live to 85, your most productive years are in the next three decades work wise and financially. 7 years of bad credit is 20% of that time being effectively treated as a second class citizen and enduring undue obstacles to getting the same stuff people around you are grabbing with ease. Don’t sell yourself, your family or your credit score short. You deserve an equal shot – regardless of your past mistakes. And I’ve just given you most of what you need to get it – now you need to apply it!

Lucy