Take care of your credit and it will take care of you. There are a variety of super effective credit repair techniques that will protect your credit, eliminate errors, and insure that your scores are not victimized by the system.
What is Up with Your Credit?
What is going on with your credit? If you are like most people you have no idea. Zip. Or maybe you are pretty careful and check your reports one time per year, like a regular physical examination. In some cases this may be sufficient, but if you have had credit issues in the past requiring credit repair attention you may be more prone to reporting errors than others.
Monitoring Services Will Alert You of Changes
A credit monitoring service is a great credit repair tool and a terrific way to keep an eye on all credit reporting activity. Monitoring services are cheap (you should pay around fifteen dollars per month) and will notify you of changes in your file. This includes inquiries and the appearance of new derogatory information.
Quick Response to Errors Pays Off
If a credit event occurs which you do not agree with it is infinitely better to respond immediately than to let it linger. Errors have a way of getting entrenched and even leading to more errors, compounding the difficulty of the credit repair job needed to rectify the situation. A monitoring service will typically send you an email within 24 hours of any material change to your report.
Challenge Dubious Collections
Collection accounts are in a unique category of reporting data, and are exceptionally subject to spawning other errors. If you find multiple collections on your credit report for the same debt, all but one of them is erroneous. Credit repair will get rid of these damaging mistakes. Just identify all but the most recent and send dispute letters to the credit bureaus. These should be removed without a fuss.
Consider Negotiating Debt
The recession has added a degree of eagerness to many industries, including the collection business. If you have enough money to make a decent offer to settle a debt you may find that your offer is quickly embraced. Here are a few credit repair pointers. Check your facts before making an offer. If the debt is beyond the statute of limitation your offer should be on the low side. Make your offer at the end of a month. The last Friday of a month is usually good. You might even ask the collector to delete the account upon payment instead of just reporting a zero balance.
Use a Good Credit Repair Service
Most legitimate credit repair services provide excellent value. For a small monthly membership fee they will dispute all of the errors on your report, monitor the progress, and follow up as appropriate. They should also be able to spot all of the valuable score optimization opportunities that your situation presents. Sometimes a little help goes a long way.