brainsmile

Recently I was asked if I knew of anyone I could recommend to him regarding the repairing of one's credit. I don't know of anyone but if any of you can recommend someone who has a previous history of success, please let me know.

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Daedalus

You mean he wants tips on what actions he needs to take to improve his credit? As far as I know no one can do anything that you can't do yourself. E.g., you can pay someone to dispute derogatory items on your credit reports, or you can do it yourself. I'm pretty sure the "credit repair" promise-makers are a bunch of scam artists.

zippyjuan

Repairing your credit is achieved by getting caught up on late payments and not doing things which hurt your credit in the past. First thing would be to get a copy of your credit reports from all three services and make sure the information on them is accurate. Anybody you hire to "repair" your credit cannot get rid of any information on that which is accurate. You not need to pay somebody to help you remove any wrong information- but it may take you a lot of time and effort to contact the bureau and perhaps the lender who reported the false information and follow up to be sure it is corrected.

Legitimate financial mistakes you made will stay on your reports for a certain amount of time- sometimes up to seven years as in the case of bankruptsy. All you can do is wait on that and avoid those mistakes in the future.

If you have had problems with payments, you can try to get a loan to consolidate them and pay off the worst ones for a hopefully lower rate. Again, you do not need a specialist for that but should be able to contact your bank or other lender about that. If you pay off a loan or credit card, do not close the card or account but keep it open- one of the things they look at is how long you have had a certain credit and how much credit you have available vs how much you owe. A higher percent of credit available not borrowed helps increase your credit score.

This is off the top of my head- but you should be able to find more information on the internet about it. In most cases they should be things you can do yourself and not have to pay someone else to do for you.

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Chgoman

On the other hand if you are talking about getting things off your credit report that shouldn't be there, you contact each of the 3 credit bureau's, get your free report and then fill out a form you can get from each indicating which items are incorrect and why. They will ask the reporting party for proof that it is accurate and if no proof can be given it will come off usually in 30-60 days.

You can hire a company to do this as well, but it really is not hard and it will take longer as the credit bureaus generally give first priority to individuals over companies.

Daedalus

Saw this in an amusing commercial last night and I thought of this thread.

gwilks98

one thing I remember reading from susie orman is that some of your credit score is based on its age. If you cancel your oldest cards, it brings the age of your credit back some (or a lot, depending on the number of cards you own.)

Instead of cancelling old card, put them in a drawer cut up so you don't use them. Do this until your credit is in better shape, then cancel.

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Daedalus

True, though the impact may not be that big. Chase cancelled one of my cards because I never used it. I had it for 14 years and it was my oldest credit line. My next oldest was 7 years old. I was concerned, but my Experian score only dropped by 3 points. Actually, that may be another tip in this environment of credit tightening--use your oldest credit accounts periodically to keep them open. I now use my other cards once in a while so they don't get cancelled.

brainsmile

I'll pass on the info thanks... any more comments are welcome.

Prngr44

You can also have certain things removed (that ARE legit) that are negatives. Kind of what Chgoman was getting at, I had 2 instances where a "doesn't hurt if you don't ask" helped me out.

I royally f'd my credit during my college days. Skip a payment one month, make a double payment the next, stopped paying back student loans, etc.

My 2 success stories (which really were my own fault) occurred with a furniture store where I bought a living room set which used a 3rd party lender to obtain my financing. The furniture store went out of business and I was stuck with a loan... but no furniture. I'm thinking "to hell with paying that back, I never got my furniture!" Long story short, I got my furniture, but I also had a 60 day late and a 30 day late for my first 2 payments. The financing company went out of business years down the road (years after it was paid off) so I figured what the hell. I disputed the 2 late charges and nobody refuted my dispute so they dropped off.

The other instance was with an Ultimate Electronics charge account where the bank processed a check for $90 as $9 and I didn't bother to get it fixed for about 3 months so it remained on my account. I disputed that one years later and also got it removed. If I recall those items removed raised my score significantly.

The best way to improve your credit is time. The years I screwed around with my credit also took 7 years to come off and there was no bankruptcy or anything of the like. They just took that long.

If they're seriously in a bind and way behind they can attempt to negotiate their own credit down if they're able to pay it all off. Think... Someone owes 10k and they're habitually late on their minimum payments, maxxed out, etc. The lender may take a lump sum of 5k and call it even to get you off the books. I've heard more than a few stories lately from people in that situation.

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