Saturday, December 27, 2008

Erase Bad Credit

By John Cooper

You do not have to just wait for negative marks on your credit report to fall off. You can remove them and improve your credit score.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act says that you can dispute any item that you do not believe to be accurate on your credit report. It also says that any item that can not be verified must be removed from your credit.

For you to dispute an item you must create a dispute letter. You can do this yourself or you can hire a service to do it on your behalf.

Once the bureaus get your letter they will investigate the dispute. They will contact the creator of the item and get them to verify the account, the account balance, and the dates on the account.

If the creator is unable to verify the account then it must be deleted from your report. The easiest items to remove have been learned to be a charge off, repossession and a late payment after they have aged for two years.

This is a result of these lenders having received some form of payment. For example a charged off account has likely been sold to a collection agency. Thus the credit card issuer has no reason to save your account or records of it.

This account will be deleted when disputed. It is more difficult to remove; judgments, tax liens, recent bankruptcies and recent delinquent accounts. This is when having a service to dispute your credit can be very helpful.

When an item is verified a service can use advanced dispute techniques to dispute the item. These include; escalated dispute information requests, debt validation, and creditor direct intervention.

In addition it will help your credit score if you open a revolving line of unsecured credit. I suggest a bad credit credit card. This will help you build a positive payment history which is very important when your score is being calculated.

In sum you do not have to wait seven years to repair your credit. You can have a good credit score by removing derogatory items and building a positive payment history.

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