The Different Methods to Repair Your Credit

You’re here because you realized that your credit history is in control of the most important aspects of your life. Perhaps you just discovered bad credit is on your credit reports. Bad credit can be frightening. It can put a freeze on your financial health. Sometimes you can’t get a job with bad credit. You won’t be able to get a new car, mortgage, or take out a loan.

It should be priority number one to repair your credit. Fortunately, for almost anybody, this is possible – regardless of the mistakes you made in the past.

So, how do you go about repairing credit?

You will need copies of all three of your credit reports (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion). Each bureau stores different information about you. When you apply for a mortgage or new job, they check reports from all three bureaus. I found out about this when I applied for a mortgage. I (hoped) they would only check my Equifax report because they weren’t reporting some of my chargeoffs. The bank discovered the charge offs because they got my credit report from all three bureaus.

In other words, you’ll need to do a thorough job to repair your credit. It’s not enough to repair your credit report with only one bureau. Banks do this because they are looking for “dirt” on you. Their goal is to dig up any black marks or mistakes in your past.

Each bureau assigns you a score. If your score is 650 or lower, it’s probably because you have charge offs, collections, late pays, or other negative items.

The first step is to find out how badly your credit is damaged. Credit repair is generally faster if you have just a few older negative items. Newer defaults are more difficult to remove.

I had a mixed amount of old and new bad credit items. I thought that it would be impossible to repair my credit. Luckily the service that repaired my credit used advanced techniques to challenge these items.

Charged off debts that turned into collection accounts are one of the most common items destroying your credit. Other entries like bankruptcy, foreclosure or repossession are more severe. You should focus on removing any of these items from your credit.

If you think you’re ready to do your own credit repair, you can start with a dispute letter to the bureaus. There is a process to this. You’ll get further behind if you dispute too many items at once or dispute too frequently.

Is it Legal to Repair Your Credit

You might feel like you are breaking the law when challenge a debt you own. You might feel like you are doing something unethical. However, credit laws give you a way to put the burden of proof on the bureaus and creditors. The credit lawyers that repaired my credit put my mind at ease by explaining this to me. Many options exist that permit you to legally and ethically dispute almost any information.

Basically, each credit bureau is required to respond to your request within 30 days. If they don’t then technically they must remove the disputed information from your credit reports.

You may discover that older items are deleted more easily than new delinquencies. For instance, often a creditor has no interest in verifying old information. If they don’t benefit from the verification process, they may not bother validating the item.

On the other hand, some collection agencies are determined to verify information. Keeping collection items on your credit report – and thus preventing your home loan from being approved or preventing you from getting a job – is leverage to get you to pay.

I had several stubborn items on my credit report that required aggressive action. I was desperate to remove these negative items because the bank refused to approve my mortgage as long as these black marks remained on my credit.

Pay for Deletion

Sometimes you can contact the creditor directly and provide them a cash incentive to remove the credit listing from the bureaus. This can get messy. Some bill collectors are dishonest. They promise to remove the item but refuse once you make payment. In other words, there is a process to doing this and repairing your credit. It’s like hostage negotiation. The service I hired showed me exactly how to do this the right way and get results.

For example, let’s say you defaulted on a $260 credit card account. The creditor will charge off the account and sell it to a collection agency. Occasionally, the agency is willing to remove the item in exchange for partial or full satisfaction of the account.

Should You Repair Your Credit Yourself or Hire a Company?

If your credit situation is not as simple as having a single charge off or collection account then you probably should consider an affordable service – preferably a lawyer like Lexington Law Firm. You want quick results and Lexington’s processes are most certainly more effective than what you can do on your own. You’ll avoid the traps that bureaus set for people trying to repair their credit.

If you have a foreclosure, a bankruptcy, repossession or tax lien, a judgment, or public record, it’s downright dangerous to try to fix your own credit. Lexington Law has experience deleting these types of severe items. They were able to fix my credit – including the severe items on my reports. You can read my full story below – or give them a call now at:
1-800-232-2903

"I just want to share with you my story about how my credit situation. If you are someone struggling with bad credit, then I was walking in your exact same shoes...

And today - if you look behind me - this is the house that I bought.

So, obviously my credit situation has changed.

Basically, while I was in college I ran up my credit cards and acquired a lot of unmanageable debt which destroyed my credit rating.

About a-year-and-a-half ago when I went to try to buy a house, the banks laughed at me and made me feel bad about what happened in college. (They basically implied that I was a deadbeat SCUMBAG even though it really wasn't all my fault).

I knew that I had to fix my credit, but didn't know how to do it myself so I went to Lexington Law.

Now, literally within several months, I was able to purchase a $300,000 new home without any trouble at all obtaining a mortgage.

So instead of going into banks with bad credit and being looked at as a scumbag, the banks were more than willing to help.

In fact, when I applied for my mortgage and the banker ran my credit, he came back and was saying...

"Wow! Sure thing sir. We'd love to help you out."

Lexington Law literally changed my life.

I went from being the person who has bad credit to being the person who is living in what I consider my dream home at age 29.

Some examples of the things that were on my report that are now gone were: all sorts of charge offs, collections, and I even had credit report judgments listed against me (which I heard is one of the worst things you can have on your credit.)

I had basically every kind of negative listing shy of a bankruptcy.

Lexington Law has raised my credit score at least 237 points. I just checked my FICO score which is now a 737. When I started with Lexington Law, it was below 500!"

I encourage anyone struggling with bad credit to pick up the phone and give Lexington Law a call.

 

It was super-encouraging to see my credit score improve each month as the negative items were deleted from my credit reports. I thought some of the bad credit was permanent since creditors misled me into believing that delinquent information would stay on my credit report for the next seven years.

However, through their dispute process and "goodwill interventions," Lexington Law proved it is possible to remove any questionable negative item. (it is the same as pleading 'not guilty' in a court of law).

Additionally, the paralegal assigned to my case showed me other credit rebuilding techniques such as:

• How to add up to three years of positive payment history to your credit with your regular phone or utility bills (these are things I pay each month anyway so it was a real "no-brainer)
  
• How boost your credit score by optimizing your 'Utilization Ratio' - this involves transferring balances and there is a Right Way and Wrong Way to do this
  
• How Lexington Law can erase your damaging credit inquiries (applying for credit puts a small "ding" on your credit. Inquiry Investigation helps you remove these "dings")

Deleting the negative credit items like charge offs and the credit card judgment, combined with the credit rebuilding techniques, rapidly improved my credit score. In fact, in month two my score went up 74 points!

After living with bad credit for so long, it was really encouraging to see that I was making progress in the right direction.

Not only did the attorneys at Lexington Law show me results, they also provided excellent customer service along the way. If you are someone who enjoys that "personal touch", then you may like how Lexington Law assigns a paralegal to your case.

My paralegal (Stephanie) was always available to discuss the status of my case over the phone and email. Even though I didn't expect or ask for it, my attorney would also periodically give me a call to check in.

Here are some strategies Lexington Law used to delete the really stubborn bad credit - such as the credit card judgment:

• Unlimited dispute & delete
• Goodwill interventions
• Escalated information requests
• Debt validation
• Inquiry assist

You can also access you case online anytime you like. (I enjoyed logging in just to see all the deletions!)

If you are struggling with a bad credit score because of negative credit items, then I truly hope that you start repairing your credit today. I know how humiliating bad credit is and I know how easy it is just to 'sweep it under the rug' and pretend it will go away on its own.

I realize that your situation is probably a little different than mine, however, Lexington Law has already deleted questionable charge offs, a credit card judgment, late payments, collection items, and inquiries from my credit report and raised my credit score to a 737!

Here is a shot of my credit score online last month -:

To get started repairing your credit, call Lexington Law today direct at:
1-800-232-2903 (toll-free)

www.LexingtonLaw.com

Or, if you want a Lexington Law paralegal to call you, click here.