Follow the simple steps I will outline in this article and
you can massively improve your credit score in 30 days.
Remember this is a brief 8 minute read and I can't cover
everything in detail. I have full explanations in my guide
to credit recovery. Also if you read this and that's all
you do, it will not help! You must take action to see
improvement.
1. Order your credit report from
www.annualcreditreport.com. This is a free report you are
allowed to get every 12 months. It won't have your credit
score but will have all of the information on your
creditors and your payment information. Scour this report
and look at what is on it. Correct any inaccurate
information like birthdays, addresses, employment
information, aliases, and social security numbers.
2. Review the negative credit information that is listed on
the report. You must correct any errors as soon as possible
by disputing them through the credit reporting agencies.
These credit reporting agencies have 30 days to investigate
and respond to your inquiry. If they cannot verify the
negative item your disputing in that time frame they must
remove it from your credit report. By removing these
negative items you will see a dramatic increase.
3. If you have a lot of open balances, look at your total
credit limit versus how much you owe. You want to make sure
that your balance is less than 35% of the total credit
limit available. For every 10,000 in credit available you
want to be using 3,500 as the maximum. Obviously being less
than that is great also. There are many ways to do this by
increasing credit limits, balance transfer portions of
balances, and paying down accounts.
4. Avoid any inquiries into your credit report. If you have
multiple credit pulls this can lower your score by up to 5
points per pull (general rule not applicable for every
pull). Don't open up several credit cards at once because
the newness of the accounts can lower your score as well as
the inquiries.
5. Call your creditors and ask them to lower your interest
rate. If you have been a customer a long time and have paid
well they will do this. Threaten to move over to another
card that has a 0% transfer rate. They want you to stay and
will help you by lowering your current interest. How does
this help to increase your score? Now with the lower
payment you can overpay on the account and get rid of the
balance. By reducing debt load and paying this off quicker
you will bump up your score.
6. If you are in collections or have fallen behind call and
talk to the creditor. If you can pay off the collection or
late card, offer to pay it off if they delete your
collection. They will also lower the payoff if you bargain
with them enough. Many times you can also ask them to
re-age your account to a good standing with a large
payment. Not having the collection or late payment will
help your score a lot.
7. Pay on time. I know it's basic but many people just
don't do it. After a certain period of time the negatives
start to diminish and not affect your score as much. If you
pay on time for a while you can call and ask the creditor
to delete old negative information. Some will do it because
they want to keep you as their customer.
8. Don't close old non used zero balance accounts. One of
the best things for a high credit score is older good payed
accounts. Shows you have a long credit history and have
paid on time. Where this can affect you is when you balance
transfer your balance to get a zero APR and you close the
other account because you transferred from it. Not only do
you have an inquiry but you have taken a seasoned account
and replaced with a new one. Make sure to keep those old
accounts open for credit report purposes.
9. Set up automated payments if at all possible. Look, we
all have good intentions but once and a while are busy
lives get in the way. If you have an automatic payment set
up then the hiccup will be covered. Sometimes you can
bargain with the creditor and get a lower rate for setting
up auto withdrawal.
Keep in mind this was supposed to be a thirteen minute
guide. I can't go into the full explanations of everything
nor give you all of the tips. These simple steps I have
outlined are quick and easy and can easily be implemented
to raise your score. If you follow these I think you will
see a dramatic increase in 30 to 60 days and something can
happen sooner. Remember a little effort can reap a large
reward. On the other side of the coin, no action and this
quick guide becomes useless and you just wasted 8 minutes
learning about something that will have no affect on your
life.
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David Forer is a financial veteran of 15 years. To tap into
his knowledge about credit repair, debt management, and
budgeting go to his blog at
http://www.creditrepairdoneeasy.com and receive a free ten
page report.
