It’s been a long time coming that I post on how to improve your credit and credit score. There is a difference between credit and credit score. It is possible to have a good credit score and not have credit. Anyone reading this probably would like both, and luckily they are related. For now, we’ll focus on credit score because in general if you increase your credit score you will increase your credit. There are several if not dozens of books on how to increase your credit score and I’ve read many of them. They all contain valuable information, however there is no substitute for experience. As an attorney I’ve helped many of my clients correct their credit reports and I’ve always pointed out to them that they can do it themselves without too much hassle. I decided to post this article so that in the future I can forward it to anyone that asks how to ‘do it yourself’. Of course, there are no guarantees and every case is different. In some cases you may need to seek the help of an attorney or other professional. However, in most cases you can ‘do it yourself’!
Since this is ‘Part I’ we must first get ready to do the job. To get started you will need a copy of your credit report as reported by all three credit bureaus. It is important that you have a copy from all three bureaus: Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. I also strongly suggest that you subscribe to a credit monitoring service. There are many services available, just be sure that the service you subscribe to allows you to pull your credit score. Most services also allow you to pull your credit report and this will allow you to kill two birds with one stone. The reason you will want a credit monitoring service is so that you can quantify your credit score improvements. Lastly you’ll need access to a computer with a printer so that you can write some letters!
In ‘Part II’ we’ll take a look at your credit report and I will show you how to identify what may be holding your credit score down. We’ll also look carefully at what information is being reported incorrectly. With this information we’ll write our first letter to the credit reporting agencies asking to correct or ‘reinvestigate’ the incorrect information which should result in our first increase in credit score – I’ll post an example letter for you to follow. I bet you can hardly wait to get started, so check my blog soon for ‘Part II’…..