Are you looking to fix your credit report? Is your
credit history considered poor or even bad or nonexistent? There are ways to
fix it or repair it. In this section, we will discuss those
options.
When making a major
purchase such as a home or car or furniture or appliances -
anything that you cannot pay for in cash, you are probably going
to need a credit history in order for the person or company
selling you the item to verify that you are likely to pay back
the purchase amount in payments over time. There are three major
credit reporting agencies in the United States: Equifax,
Experian and Trans Union. Pretty much every credit report
requested in the U.S. is handled by one or more of these three
companies. They need to be your best friend if you want good
credit. How do you make them your best friend? That is a very
good question. Let's look at what these three companies admire
most.
To be best friends with
the major credit reporting agencies, you need to 1.) Have a
credit history; 2.) Have paid your bills on time; and 3.) Have
low outstanding balances on any available credit accounts. Now,
those might seem easy or daunting, depending on your current
situation. Either way, these things are attainable.
A good place to start is
by getting a copy of your current credit report. There are a
couple of ways for doing this. Probably the best way is to
request a free copy. Yes, you can get a free copy of your credit
report.
AnnualCreditReport.com offers you your free credit report
from the three major credit reporting agencies; and they do this
once every twelve months. There is another free way to receive a
copy of your credit report as well. If you apply for credit and
are denied for any credit report related reason, you may request
a copy of that credit report. Credit report copies may also be
purchased from the three major credit reporting agencies for
nominal fees. Getting a copy of your credit report is very
important as you need to know what is on your credit report in
order to know what you need to fix.
Many of us will be focusing on cleaning up bad credit
reports. That can be a daunting task especially given that
credit scores are adjusted down far more quickly than they are
adjusted up. Plus, there are a virtually infinite number of
things which could adversely effect your credit report. Late
payments reflect poorly; high balances on credit accounts look
bad; bankruptcy and foreclosures might top the list of things
not to have on your credit reports (although this may be
unavoidable in some situations). Also, your credit report will
have anything on which your name and social security number are
attached including any accounts on which you are co-signor or
where you have joint accounts. Sadly enough, you also have to
watch for people using your name and social security number to
fraudulently open credit accounts.
Another possibility to
consider is that there might be incorrect information reported
on your credit report. It might be information that belongs to
someone else that was mistakenly included on your report; it
might be accounts that have been paid but still show incorrectly
as outstanding; it might be fraudulent activity by someone else
against your account; or it might be a variety of other
problems.
Now, consider on which
area you need to focus and follow these links for more details:
•
I need to start a credit
history.
•
I need to repair my
credit history.
•
I need to
dispute incorrect credit data.
•
What other
resources are out there for managing credit reports?
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