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How To Clean Up Your Credit Report

By Jacobey Larstons

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 18Mar2012 Word count: 583 Viewed: 30 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

If you have a few dings on your credit report is important to clean it up. In today's new lending environment your credit score typically needs to be 700 or higher to be approved. Lenders have drastically changed their approval requirements and your credit file deserves your full attention.

Did You Know That Experts Claim 1 In Every 4 Credit Reports Contains An Error?

This means that millions of Americans have errors on their credit reports that could potentially be costing them money in higher interest rates, or even rejection for credit. Congress created a law that gives you the right to dispute any item on your credit report that you feel is inaccurate.

What Does That Mean Inaccurate?

You can dispute any and every negative item on your credit report, however you need to have a reason for each dispute. There are a number of valid reasons such as:, not my account, account is paid, the balance is wrong, the dates are wrong, the debt is older than 7 years, the listing is incorrect…

According to this law passed by Congress the bureaus then have to investigate your disputed item. They are required to contact the lender or debt collector that is reporting the negative information and have them verify the account, the dates, and the balance due.

If the lender does not verify this information then the negative mark on your credit report must be removed. Often lenders will not spend additional time or money to verify old debts and it is estimated that 70% of all investigations by the bureaus result in the deletion of the item.

Why Do I Hear That This Is So Hard To Do?

The short answer is because it is hard to do. While Congress gives you this legal right to protect your credit for some irrational reason they also gave the bureaus the power to decide if your dispute is valid or invalid. If your dispute is found invalid than the bureaus will ignore it and you could potentially be placed on a blacklist.

If your dispute is valid then they investigate, however it is rare for an initial dispute letter to be deemed valid. The reason for this is because the credit bureaus are private businesses and therefore earn profits. When the bureaus investigate your dispute they are only spending money and this money is otherwise profit.

As you can see the bureaus have a clear profit motive to avoid investigating your or any other consumers dispute. In fact the bureaus have been fined by the FTC our federal government for not investigating consumer disputes time and time again. This is why many individuals have turned to credit repair professionals to help with this process.

Your Credit Rating

This 3 digit number also commonly referred to as your FICO score is one of the most important numbers describing yourself. Lenders are requiring a higher number for credit and we have employers checking potential job candidates credit before offering them employment. This means that if your credit has a lot of negative information then you could potentially miss out on a job offer.

You don't just have to live with bad credit for 7 years. There are steps you can take to fix this record and improve your score. This will enable you to live or higher quality of life because you'll be get financed on purchases and at low competitive interest rates.

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