Thursday, November 20, 2008

Improve Credit Score

By Matt Douglas

If you are cleaning up your credit report you realize how important your score is. This three digit number will directly impact your quality of life.

You will be judged by employers and lenders on this number. It can prevent you from being approved for credit and worse yet being hired for a job.

When you apply for credit most lenders will look at nothing more than this three digit number. They will not take into account any reason as to why a derogatory listing is there.

There are two aspects you should focus your efforts on when repairing your credit score.

1. Removing negative items from your credit report.

Negative marks will cause the most damage to your credit score. However these marks can be removed before waiting 7 years.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act allows you to dispute any negative listing on your credit report. When you file a dispute you are telling the bureaus that this mark is inaccurate or invalid.

To file a dispute you must write a dispute letter and send it to the credit bureaus. In this letter you need to include the reason the listing is inaccurate such as; not my account, never paid late, item out of date. Then the bureaus will conduct an investigation into the negative listing.

If the mark can not be verified then the credit bureau must remove it from your report. It has been found that once a listing is investigated it is often removed, regardless of its accuracy.

2. Build positive credit

This is a more difficult aspect. This is because when you have a low credit score it is hard to be approved for new credit lines.

It will help tremendously if you can open an unsecured credit card. I realize the interest rate is going to make you sick but it needs to be done.

With your credit card you want to keep the balance at approximately 10% of your credit limit. This is because it will show the credit bureau that you are using your credit and it will improve you ratio of credit to debt.

Also by making your on time monthly payments it will create a positive payment history. If you can not build a positive payment history it will be next to impossible to improve your credit rating.

In sum, you can repair your credit without waiting the full seven years. However it may be in your interest to remove some derogatory items before you apply for a new line of credit. Understand that both these parts are vital to getting you to a 700 credit score.

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