What is credit repair?

When you’re standing credit is being deteriorated due to different reasons you need to fix it.  The process of fixing bad standing credit is called Credit repair.  Each credit bureau owns its own propriety version of your credit report.

Repairing Bad standing credit could be as easy as reporting (disputing) errors and mistakes in your report from credit bureaus or addressing issues like budgeting and dealing with legit concerns from the lender side.

Consumers having bad standing credit often seek professional help to avoid financial hard times, because many companies look at your credit report before doing business with you and to set the product pricing.

You got your own back:

Although there are many professional companies that you can hire to repair your credit, but it’s nothing you can’t do on your own. There are plenty of different tactics that you can learn from books or the internet in order to do it yourself, and it will save you the money. Plus, you will better understand your credit history and have knowledge over it. For example, removing negative information can be done by different methods (Credit repair companies also use these tactics) like

• Goodwill letters
• Debt validation
• Credit report disputes
• Pay for delete

Check your credit report:

When you are working on your credit repair you want to bring up your credit score up but credit repair is about fixing your credit report not your credit score. Improving your credit affects your credit score, which will eventually improve your credit history. Some banks offer free credit scores and info as a member perk. Chase Bank is one of them.

Visit http://www.annualcreditreport.com to get a free copy of your credit reports every 12 months from each of the three nationwide credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) Create a myEquifax account to get two free Equifax credit reports each year.

Credit history can be estimated by credit score:

A credit score tells how responsibly you pay back your credit. A credit score can tell whether you have good credit history or bad credit history. Improving credit score indicates that your credit history is improving.

Boost your credit score:

Improving your credit history means improving your credit score which is based on the following categories (credit improvement will be needed in all these in order to improve credit score)

• Types of credit accounts
• Recent applications of  credit
• Age of credit history
• Amount of debt
• Payment history

Repairing bad credit takes time:

Good credit history has recent positive credit information and minimal negative events. You can take the first step in the right direction by paying your payments on time. The credit repair will not be immediate  so be patient with the process

Change your habit:

Even if you hire professionals or do credit repair yourself, it would not last long if you don’t change your bad habits. If you don’t borrow responsibly you can fall back into more debt and will find yourself in the same situation over and over again. Only borrow which you can responsibly pay off later.

The best you can do:

Paying off your bills regularly is one of the best things you can do to avoid bad credit history.

Vice president of consumer education and advocacy at Equifax, Nancy Bistritz says,

 “When it comes to creditworthiness, a great rule of thumb to remember is to pay your bills on time every time. Lenders and creditors want to know that you’ve been able to satisfy your financial commitments on time every time. Therefore, paying bills on time is an important, fundamental behavior to establish early on.”