Your Life Depends on It
Credit repair has become a necessity. Your financial life may depend on it. There are those for whom credit repair is more important that others, but regardless of the current condition of your credit a defensive posture is definitely called for. At a minimum an annual checkup is essential. At the other end of the spectrum, if you have had credit issues in the past it is almost inevitable that errors have materialized and even multiplied on your credit report, and you may need a comprehensive credit repair tune up.
Get Started
Start by getting copies of all three of your credit reports. If you have had any banking problems in the past you may also want to contact ChexSystems for a copy of your report as they are a national credit bureau and covered by the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and must process your disputes in the same manner as Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. As you start reviewing the content of all of these reports it is important to make an attitude adjustment as the right approach can change your life.
Get Skeptical
For credit repair success an attitude adjustment is absolutely essential. It is not enough that you are reading your reports, you must be completely skeptical of everything you see. You cannot afford to glaze over an account because you do not understand what you are reading, or because you imagine that the credit bureaus have a degree of infallibility. Now is the time to exercise a little healthy doubt. You must examine every single line on your reports. As your credit repair review gets underway there are certain things that you should keep a special eye out for.
Finding the Good Stuff
Your
credit repair examination should give special attention to common issues that are often ignored, but which can put a big dent in your credit scores. These include underreported limits on revolving accounts including credit cards, closed accounts that report as open, paid accounts that report with a balance, and duplicate accounts. These innocuous little errors often remain off the radar screen but must be caught. In addition, there is a major category of reporting error that deserves a little extra special credit repair attention.
A Special Category
Collection accounts make up the single most active category of credit reporting errors and deserve special credit repair attention. Collectors purchase and sell accounts on a regular basis. Some collectors will attempt to collect for as little as six months before giving up if they do not have success. When they give up the account as hopeless they bundle it up with other accounts that have reached a similar termination date and sell them to another collector. And the process can continue for years on end.
Collection Correction
Each time a new collector takes over an account they will notify the debtor and then, shortly after, report the account to the credit bureaus. In and of itself this is not an issue. The real credit repair problem arises with the list of previous collectors who were each required to remove their account from the debtor credit report, but in all likelihood did not. It is very common for several collection accounts to be lingering where there should only be one. And each of these redundant collection accounts is a dead weight on your credit score.
Assistance is Available and Easy
If you are daunted by the prospects of undertaking a defensive credit repair effort, you should consider employing a professional credit repair service. Professional services will assure that all of the steps are taken to make your credit report as clean as it can be. Never before has your credit been so important. Get defensive. And take charge of your credit life today.
Copyright © 2009 Ian Webber. All Content. All Rights Reserved.
Ian Webber is an expert in consumer law and credit repair. Ian is a graduate of the London School of Economics and The University of Chicago where he earned his LLM. Ian consults with one of the leading online
credit repair services and is currently based in Florida.
