Posts Tagged ‘credit reports’

You need good credit now more than ever

December 18th, 2008

We all know good credit is very important but how do you manage to keep your credit score great while the economy is in a deep recession?

Past mistakes on your credit reports could be hurting you more than you think says credit expert, Kristi Feathers. “People tend to ignore their credit until they need it. Unfortunately thats not the time to start managing it.”

By keeping up on your credit, ahead of the game, you’ll be ready to apply for a home loan or auto loan. It’s a fact that millions of consumers pay little attention to their credit but with the credit card companies cracking down on lending to risky customers, you’re going to need to tidy up that credit report now.

70% of credit reports contain mistakes according to the Public Interest Research Group, so that means chances are your credit isn’t accurate either. That could cost a lot in terms of interest rates or it could completely deny you access to loans.

By checking your credit, you’ll be able to assess if everything is indeed accurate and if its not, you can start the process of investigation to wipe out any negative problems that are inaccurate, obsolete or just plain wrong.

2009 is right around the corner and with this economy you need to make a new year resolution to work on getting your credit up to par.

Here’s some resources to get you started

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Free credit repair tips | How to fix your credit for nothing

September 24th, 2008

Can I really fix my credit for free?

People always ask if it’s truly possible to fix their credit for free or for a few bucks in postage and credit report fees. The answer is absolutely yes. I think people often misunderstand credit repair and the word alone sends shivers up your spine. It has a negative connotation to it by nature. But the real truth is credit repair is slang for managing your credit. We should all be managing our credit because leaving it to the credit bureaus is surely credit suicide.

Order all three credit reports

Before you can do anything you need to admit there’s a problem. Sounds like rehab doesn’t it? Well your credit probably needs a little rehabbing. When was the last time you sat down and poured over all three credit reports? A year, five, ten! I wouldn’t be surprised if it were 10. People just don’t like to deal with their credit. It’s overwhelming and often you know that the inside is going to be ugly, even though you like to pretend on the outside that it’s pretty. No way around it, if you want to fix your credit, you have to look at it.

You can et your credit reports online. It’s quick, secure and you can print them out for future needs or save them to your hard drive.

Review all three credit reports

Sit down. Don’t do this standing up. You’re going to be here a while. Now that you have all three credit reports you need to organize the three bureaus separately. Remember, a credit bureau that may report an item may not necessarily be on the other and vice versa. Credit bureaus are all independent of each other so don’t lump them together. That can be very bad. It’s like yelling at the top of your lungs “Hey, Equifax, I gotta a charge off over here on Experian. Come get it”. You don’t want to tell one bureau that you have something negative from another. It just complicates things.

Jot down all the issues you uncover

Once you make a stack of the three separate credit reports, begin with one. Go over it and look for anything you think is questionable. ANYTHING. The good lil ole FCRA gives you the right to question anything that you believe is outdated, unverifiable or inaccurate. A credit bureau cannot assume what is or is not accurate. You have to tell them. Pay attention to anything negative. If you see collection accounts or charge offs then pay attention to the details. The LIES are always in the details. Collection agencies especially are notorious for changing dates of last activity to extend how long they have to report the item. It’s done to hold your credit hostage until you pay them. Typical negative items are collection accounts, charge offs, tax liens, bankruptcy’s, late payments etc.

Send dispute letters

Once you have identified what you’re going to dispute then make out your letters and send them out certified mail. You’ll need that receipt in case the bureau claims it never received your dispute. It’s not a big deal. Just swing by the post office and send them out with a cert mailing. You’ll be glad you did. Once you send the letters, the bureaus will have 30 days give or take 10 to reply. In that time they have to complete the investigation too. See where this is going… it’s not so easy and often this is how credit repair companies remove items. The bureaus have to ask the source to look up the info, get it back to them and then send it to you… Yep. It’s required.

Keep records

Make sure you keep a log of all your efforts. It makes thing so much easier when you begin follow up. Write down everything. We have a collection and credit log in our member area for this but you get the idea.

Wait for replies

Kick back and wait. You’ll start receiving updated credit reports by mail soon and it will have the results of the investigation for your review.

Follow up

Here’s where you need to pay attention. Once you get the results back, if the items were not deleted then look at the explanation. If the bureau tells you “the item remains “verified as accurate” then you have a right to send another letter along with a copy of the result and ask that they provide you with what information they received to allow them to claim its accurate. The credit bureau has to tell you how it was verfied, by who etc. This is another step to REAL credit repair because in follow up disputes, you’ll often remove more items.

Avoid the lure of scams

There are so many scams out there claiming to boost your credit score or wipe away your debts with the stroke of a key. Don’t buy into it. You’ll lose money and end up with nothing. Many so called credit repair companies are claiming they have all sorts of techniques. The most popular right now is the option to pay a monthly fee to ride on the coat tails of someone else’s good credit. The FTC and Fair Isaac have caught onto this and are finding ways to spot those. In addition, this method doesn’t do any good if you have bad credit because the bad credit is still there along with the newer good credit and you will still be denied loans. These tactics are scams period.

Rinse, Repeat

Keep this disputing and waiting method going until you have brought your credit up to its best possible status. Don’t expect miracles but DO be very happy with every little milestone. They all lead to a better credit report down the road. You may even get an investigation result back with four or five deletions on your first round. That’s exciting! By all means, don’t add more bad credit! Once you decide to take the steps to fix your credit then don’t let anything else land on there. If you have bills you haven’t paid, don’t wait for them to go to collections before you decide to act. Unless… Your plan is to wait for the assignment to the agency so you can get them to remove it for payment. This is what a lot of people think. It still DOESN’T remove the original creditors bad mark!

If you get stuck in the process or want to learn more, take a look at our DIY credit Repair Tools. It comes with two bonus credit repair books and over 40 sample letters, a chat forum, legal research tools and more! One time fee, lifetime access.

This free credit repair article is brought to you by CarreonandAssociates.com. You may use this article as long as the author tag stays in tact. Copyright. Do not remove tag

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Do it yourself credit repair including debt settlements

August 28th, 2008

Credit repair can be a very dirty word. Especially on the credit industry front. Credit repair companies are under siege for marketing and targeting people in serious trouble and for good reason. There are so many credit repair companies on line that claim to be able to increase your credit score or guarantee you perfect results.

It’s simply not true. You cannot guarantee what you cant control and thats the credit bureaus and collection agencies. You cannot promise a consumer that you can work magic on their credit, collect the money up front and then not deliver. That’s fraud.

What you can do is do the work yourself to bring your credit up to the best possible status. No one has better interest in your credit reports than you do.

There are good credit repair companies but I honestly only trust Lexington if you prefer to hire someone. I’ve already told you before, its the only credit repair company we promote and for good reason. They are lawyers who really do focus on nothing but credit repair and debt settlement. Their entire firm focus is credit repair so they do nothing but credit repair all the time. When you do something that much, you get really good at it.

If the do it yourself method is for you then I urge you to educate yourself with the process before you delve in. You can avoid costly mistakes by learning how the system works and how to use it to your benefit. By just taking  little time to educate yourself about the topic, you can make great headway.

First, order your credit reports and review each one. Once you identify the negative items then start a strategy to target the items. Determine if you plan on disputing an old paid off debt thats negative or plan to attack one that still has a balance due. Both have very different strategies.

If the debt is negative but paid then you can start by sending your investigation to the credit bureaus and wait for their reply. The bureaus have 30 days to complete your investigation and send you the results. If the bureau is unable to confirm the items accuracy, the item will be removed. If they confirm it as accurate then you move on to the furnisher of information and ask that they provide you with the proof they provided the credit bureaus. They must be able to show you proof or the item will be removed.

If the debt still has a balance then understand that disputing it to the credit bureaus may wake sleeping dogs. The bureau will send the dispute onto the furnisher of information who will realize you are out there. that may cause them to start pursuing you very aggressively. But if you know the debt is not accurate or has been sold several times to collection agencies then you may stand a very good chance of having the item removed. Finding those records will not be so easy.

This is a solid strategy against debts that have gone to third party debt collectors and you should always try to remove anything thats being reporting from  a collection agency because the rating is always negative. A paid collection account still looks bad so your purpose should be to question negative paid off collection accounts and collection accounts that still have a balance. The difference is you will move onto the collection agency reporting the item if the bureau verifies it as accurate. 

More often than not the item will have some inconsistencies in it that will result in a deletion. If by chance the item is 100% verifiable then consider debt settlements to pay the agency in exchange for total removal. They do it all the time and its actually quite simple.  Be sure they provide the agreement to delete IN WRITING!! If you don’t, kiss your money goodbye and your credit rating.

for more tips on deleting items from your credit reports visit our credit library.

Hot tip

debt snowball method, you put as much cash as you can toward eliminating your smallest debt, while paying the minimum on all other debts. When the first debt is paid off, you roll the amount of that payment to the next smallest debt, creating a “snowball” of increasingly larger payments on a decreasing number of bills. The reward? A feeling of accomplishment that many practitioners say helps them stay on track to pay off all their debt.

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Our new site is live!

July 21st, 2008

Over the past several months we have been working to migrate everything from CarreonandAssociates.com to N2Credit.com and today, we have completed most of the transfers and edits. We are still working out the bugs like a few bad links but it went pretty smooth, especially considering how large that website was/is.

Now, some of you may not be familiar with CarreonandAssociates.com, but we’ve been around since 1995 offering self help education for credit repair which includes dealing with the credit bureaus and collection agencies to get a better credit rating, or settle debts to improve the rating.

CarreonandAssociates has gone through many changes and we finally decided that a more advanced technology based site would be best for our members. Moving the domain to a site offering more technology was the main reason but also, we wanted a shorter easier name to remember.

CarreonandAssociates.com can  be a mouthful on ads, flyer’s and for someone to remember off hand, but N2Credit is quite simple. We will miss the name though. It’s been with us as a domain name forever. But, times change, things need to change otherwise, you don’t grow.

We hope you enjoy our new site and blog and if you need credit help, consider joining N2Credit. You can go to our home page N2Credit.com and see what all you receive. it’s a lot and only for a one time fee of $39.95 for lifetime access and we have all the tools you need like credit dispute letters, legal research, ebooks, articles, tips, forum and more!

 

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Un-fair Isaac? | Credit scores not accurate

March 27th, 2008

pie.pngThis pie chart from Fair Isaac’s consumer site, MyFico is really pretty. It has great colors and and it’s really motivating to have great credit.

Trouble is, I do all of those things in the pie-chart, yet my score still doesn’t stand up to where it should be.

Lets see. I have a great payment history, I owe very little, I have a long credit history, I have hardly no new credit (not too much anyway) and I have a great mix of credit types, so why is my score lower than I believe it should be?

Because credit scoring is flawed!

Credit scores have become big business since they are so readily available to consumers now. But how many consumers out there are paying higher interest rates because their credit score is wrong?  Millions of consumers have errors in their credit reports that directly affect their credit score but most of them don’t even know.

Fair Isaac, the company who generates the credit score has monopolized scoring for years, but now its in a tug of war with the credit bureaus who have released their own version of the credit score. Fair Isaac says this is causing more confusion because now the consumer doesn’t know whose score is accurate.

Truth is, none of them are accurate. Let’s take my credit for example. I have a mortgage, a car loan and about 7 credit cards. I’ve had credit for over 20 years and I’m never late on anything. My credit card balances are about 400.00 (total) and my accounts have been opened for 15+ years or so. Yet my Fair Isaac credit score, just last week was 769. I don’t think that’s fair considering 850 is best, and based on my years of open accounts, low balances in relation to limits, limited inquiries, and good secure loans like my mortgage and car, why am I only in the 700′s?

To top it off, just 60 days ago it was 786. How does it change so rapidly? And say I had one or two inquires because I am refinancing my mortgage, is it fair to drop my score 20 points because I used my credit? Credit scores are ruining peoples lives because they are paying higher interest rates and being penalized for simply using their credit- responsibly.

If I have a bunch of inquiries and or I’ve been late on any of my accounts, then drop my score 20 points, but simply because I had one inquiry, my score has suffered pretty harshly. Lenders don’t care if I tell them why. They simply look at the number. So what needs to happen? We need to go back to human beings processing our loans and giving us credit based on our credit reports not a score that is always wrong!

I know credit. I really know credit. I’ve been a credit expert for over 20 years and I know what it takes to make a credit report shine. If I have very few inquiries, a couple of secured loans like a car and a mortgage, pay my bills on time and keep next to no credit card debt, then I should be rewarded. If the highest score is 850 then why do we rarely, if ever, see it?

Years ago lenders regularly relied on the content of your credit to give you fair rates. With scoring becoming such a big deal in the last 10 years, lenders rarely look at your credit reports anymore. They simply glance at the number that Fair Isaac spits out and your rates are based on that. The credit industry is a mess and it’s going to take more than a few changes to fix it.

Another beef I have is credit repair. All the credit bureaus and Fair Isaac attack credit repair and spin it to scare consumers into not doing it. We wouldn’t need credit repair if our credit reports were accurate.

A few years ago I pulled my credit because I was refinancing my car. What I found was shocking to say the least. I had 7 address variations, three different social security numbers and incorrect employment information. When I contacted the credit bureaus I was told that the information was added because applications submitted by me through lenders had the varied information and it was transplanted to my credit reports.

I think I know my own social security number and address, so shouldn’t these errors have been quickly removed with just a phone call? I had to spend weeks sending dispute letters  to remove all the inaccurate data. It wasn’t quick or easy and my errors were pretty harmless. I’ve seen clients with multiple collection accounts all from the same creditor. How is it fair to report one charged off debt four times?

Lobbyist’ spend millions warning consumers against credit repair, when in fact, it’s necessary because of the flawed credit industry. Sure there’s people who try and remove accurate negative information but that’s the bureaus job to investigate the claims and act accordingly.

If the credit bureaus are doing their job then why is the Federal Trade Commission flooded with complaints? Now, more than ever we need to fix the credit system and stop relying on credit scoring. With the housing crash and economy in the toilet, consumers are going to see lower credit scores more than ever before. Credit repair is going to skyrocket because people are desperate. The credit bureaus and the credit scoring system has created a mess and we’re left to clean it up — yet were told not to.

I’m not alone in my beliefs. Do a Google search on credit scores and you will come across hundreds of credit forums where consumers rant about their credit and rattle their brains trying to figure out how to improve it. Credit issues are among the most popular Internet searches besides porn! People are confused and overwhelmed and a lot of them are angry. They are frustrated at the system and simply don’t know what to do to leverage their credit, so they too can get good rates on loans.

I for one, am an advocate of credit repair, whether you pay someone or do it yourself. It’s necessary and it’s not going to go away. As long as there is a demand, there will be a supply. If the credit bureaus really wanted to reduce the number of investigation requests they receive, they’d clean up their act. Simply report more accurate information and use the credit score as a tool, not a deciding factor. Human beings are underrated. I think we can all look at a credit report and surmise if its good or bad. Give us some credit – literally!

If you’re up for some reading, MSNBC also has some great information on this topic.

About the author: Kristi Feathers is a credit expert and author of Credit and Collection Success Strategies. Article copyright N2Credit.com 2008.

Image credit. Fair Isaac is a registered trademark of Fair Isaac Co. All opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

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