Why pay for fixing credit

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Is debt elimination on your mind
Debt elimination should be everyone's goal. But, it is not. Unfortunately, many people live day to day with large debts floating above their heads. Is there any way to get out? The answer is yes. What those who are in debt need to do, though, is to commit to a solution to in effect get them the debt elimination that all should be after. The priorities of debt elimination should begin wi... Read debt consolidation article



Credit repair - Barter and win
Restoring Credit is Essential for surviving in today's time. Today barter is moving back to the system as many people including business owners find it to be a solution for getting out debt or expanding their company. This might sound crazy, but if you think about it you can find a way to make money. Barter means to exchange goods or services for equal value. However in some cases you ... Read debt consolidation article



Why pay for fixing credit
Credit repair advertisements claim to guarantee a quick fix on your credit report. They promise for a fee (not always disclosed at first) to clean up your credit history so that you can qualify for a new home, car, insurance, a job, or premium credit cards. Before you sign up with one of these companies, you need to know some facts.

The real facts on fixing your credit score

The real truth is that no one can legally remove information on a credit report. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) allows you, the consumer, to request an investigation of information in your file that you dispute as inaccurate or incomplete. There is no charge to you. There are other steps that you can do yourself, without paying a credit repair company, such as:

* You are allowed a free credit report if a company denies you credit, insurance, or employment (if this is a part of your employment application) provided you request a report within 60 days of this denial. The notice will give you the name of the consumer reporting agency that provided this report. You can dispute information that this denial is based upon. Under FCRA, both the consumer reporting agency and the information provider are responsible for correcting inaccurate or any incomplete information in that report. * Put in writing what information you believe to be inaccurate. Include copies of any documentation that supports your claim. Be sure to send this letter to the credit reporting agency, and send it certified mail so that you can prove it was mailed and signed for at their end. * You will get a response within 30 days. During their investigation, they must forward all your documents to the merchant or vendor that provided the negative credit information and report back to the credit agency. If they find that the information is inaccurate, they must notify all three reporting agencies of their findings: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

* When the investigation is concluded, you must receive a copy of the results in writing and a copy of the dispute if it is changed. It the disputed item is changed, the credit reporting agency cannot put the disputed information back into your file unless it is verified as accurate by the merchant or vendor.

* The credit reporting agency must send notices of a correction to anyone who received your credit report in the past six months. You can also have a corrected copy sent to employers that did not hire you based on your credit report.

Removing a bad credit rating

When you have a bad credit rating based on negative information that is accurate, you can only wait for it to be removed over time. By law, a credit reporting agency can only report negative information for seven years and bankruptcy for ten years. For unpaid judgments, the reporting period goes back seven years or until the statute of limitations runs out. Criminal convictions and applications for over $150,000 of life insurance have no time limits. By starting to pay your bills on time and contacting the creditors that you cannot pay, you can start to change your credit profile to the positive side, but that will take time also.

If you do decide to use a credit repair company

Start by getting a free copy of your credit report. Then assemble all your credit card bills and write them down. This will give both you and your credit repair company a starting point. By law, credit repair companies must give you a brochure, "Consumer Credit File Rights Under State and Federal Law" when you sign a contract for their services. This contract must clearly specify your rights, obligations and fees. The contract must also clearly detail the descriptions of the services they will perform for you, how long it will take to see the results, and any guarantees they offer you. Members of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling are non-profit organizations providing free and low cost services to consumers with a wide range of plans, covering most types of credit used, including home mortgages.

Credit repair companies can help if you're drowning in debt. Before you sign a contract, check out these low cost and free options you can do yourself.

Copyright 2005 Ed Vegliante.

Ed Vegliante is the owner of http://www.credit-card-surplus.com , a well organized credit card directory enabling the user to compare and apply for a variety of credit credit card offers. Find links to secure online credit card applications.

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How to check your credit rating

Every time you take out any kind of loan or credit or pay something back, it gets counted on your credit rating score. This article will inform you about how your credit score is determined and what its impact is on your personal financial situation may be.

You may not know it, but every time you take out any kind of loan or credit or pay something back, it gets counted on your credit rating. Who keeps a record on you will vary according to where you live, but the big three credit reference agencies are Experian, Equifax and Trans Union. They will provide your credit rating to any company that is thinking of lending you money.

All the debts you currently have are included in your credit rating. There is a history of all the debts you've had in the past ten years or so, and special emphasis is put on anything that has gone wrong. Defaulting (never paying) on any debt will ruin your credit rating completely. Borrowing a lot before you start paying anything back will make you look like a very bad risk, and so will going all the way up to (or even over) your limit on a credit card.

It is also worth considering that the credit reports of anyone you live with may be linked to your report, and could reflect badly on you - your wife or husband's credit rating is tied to yours quite closely.

The most common method of coming up with your rating is called a FICO score, named after the Fair Isaac Corporation who invented it. Your current credit rating status is prioritized, in this order:

* Payment history, which comprises a whopping 35% of your FICO score. This includes everything, from the timeliness of your payments, to the number of bills you have failed to pay, to the bills that have been forwarded to collection companies.

* Outstanding debt, which comprises 30% of your FICO score. This would tell the lending company how much of your existing credit is being eaten up by existing loans.

* Length of credit history, which comprises 15% of your FICO score. If you have been paying a loan of significant amount over a long period of time, then this would fare well with the lending companies as it establishes a level of commitment they would want to see.

* Credit balance, which comprise 10% of your FICO score. Credit balance is the difference between the current amount of your existing loans and the original amount of the same. The bigger the balance, the lower your FICO score.

* Recent inquiries, which comprise 10% of your FICO score. An inquiry is equivalent to a loan application. The more inquiries you have, the lower your FICO score would be.

Why is your Credit Rating is important? Because any time you get turned down for a credit card or any other loan, the chances are that it was because of your credit rating. Companies giving out small loans are far more likely to rely completely on this rating than to bother checking your income, and a worse rating will mean that you are offered a higher interest rate.

Your credit rating is important when you get car loans and mortgages too. You don't want to find a house you love only to get turned down for the mortgage thanks to your habit of paying your credit card bills late.

There will always be those times when we would find ourselves in a financial rut. These are the times when bills become due almost simultaneously, when satisfying them is rendered impossible by the other financial demands of our life.

Acquiring loans would help bail us out of these difficulties. In certain cases, loans are quite necessary for our survival. It would be to our best interests that securing a loan be easy and almost guaranteed. A good FICO score would help achieve this, and give us a better position to resort to loans whenever the needs arises.

So how do you to check your credit rating? Credit reference agencies can't hold your information on file without telling you about the information they have on you. Write all three credit reporting agencies a letter and, if you have to, pay a very small fee to have them send you the full credit report they have on you. Actually, new laws allow you to get a free copy of your credit report once per year. Contact each credit reporting agency for details.

You can then check over your credit rating, and send a letter back to the agency telling them about anything that you think isn't right. You might find that an error has made you look bad when it wasn't your fault. They will include anything you send in your file. If the error turns out to be resolvable since it was not your fault, your credit report will be corrected.

Greg Lietz is a freelance writer and internet businessman. He owns the website http://www.credit-card-debt-info.com where he provides free information about eliminating credit card debt, credit scoring, rebuilding your credit score, repairing your credit and general information and truths about having and using credit cards.


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Why pay for fixing credit
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