If you’ve been denied credit, housing or a job because of your bad credit then you are all too aware of how much its costing you in almost every aspect of your life. You may be thinking you’re safe right now because you have no plans to move or change jobs, but with bad credit lasting 7 years (and longer in some cases), can you really afford to ignore it? Probably not. It’s entirely possible to have an action plan to get your credit reports cleaned up and today we’ll share with you how. If you want even more in depth information about DIY credit repair be sure to visit our main site at www.carreonandassociates.com
Your Credit Repair Action Plan
Disputing
Obviously one of the first tasks to fixing your credit is disputing the item with the credit bureaus. Since the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) provides protection to consumers and their credit, its essential to start with asking if the item is even accurate. You’d be surprised just how many mistakes the credit bureaus make when receiving financial data from creditors and collection agencies. Besides the right to dispute your credit reports with the credit burueas (Experian, TransUnion and Equifax), you also have the right to ask for account information from the OS (original source).
Because the FCRA allows you to dispute your credit reports, you can create an action plan that begins with the credit bureaus and if needed, travels down to credit disputes with the OS. If information cannot be proven, it must be removed. Lots of items are deleted using this method and often can require little more work from you if the items are unverifiable. Certainly a worthwhile investment to better your credit scores.
When you begin disputing with the credit bureaus, be sure to send out everything certified mail and keep a receipt. The credit bureaus have about 30 -35 days to complete the investigation so record keeping and proof is paramount unless you want to start all over.
Validating
Lets say you’ve disputed items with the credit bureaus but they’ve been verified as accurate and therefore will remain. Sure, you can try disputing them again and again but that wont do much if the creditor or collection agency is determined to make sure the negative mark remains. If you’ve gone through the dispute process and the item WILL stay then you have to decide if its worth paying, but before you do, lets make sure it really is accurate. VOD (validation of debt) is something you aim at the creditor or collection agency, not the credit bureaus. Once your work with the credit bureaus is done (the disputing), then you should consider going straight to the source and requesting that they show you proof. If they’ve told the credit bureaus that the items are indeed accurate then they should have no problem showing you proof, right? You’d be surprised, once pressed, just how many really dont have the proof. This can also lead to legal actions against the credit bureaus and the creditors if they’ve continued to report an item that cannot be verified. This is often referred to as credit repair by civil suit. Money talks.
Negotiating
Once you’ve completed the steps above then its time to determine if its worth paying. Before you pay anything, you need to consider two factors. Is the SOL to collect expired and is the reporting time expired. Both are important. The SOL (statute of limitations for collecting) is a major factor because if the debt is expired then legally it cannot be enforced. You wouldn’t want to pay something that is legally noncollectable. Each state has its own SOL so its important to check yours.
The reporting time is how long an item can stay on your credit reports so if you’ve only got a year to go or less, you may want to wait. Usually, negative credit (besides judgments and tax liens) remains for 7 years but again, check your state law to see if its less. Some are five. If you’ve decided to pay then you will want to negotiate it in writing only. Most creditors and collection agencies will accept reduced settlements, especially if the debt is old.
Doing Nothing
