Erasing Credit Damage: What can you do?

Basically, you cant erase the past. Negative records that you can mount up, such as bankruptcy and collection accounts will remain on your credit report for 7-10 years. And there is nothing that you can do about it, however; with some time and little bit of effort, you can improve your credit even before these bad records legally expire. Here are five easy steps you can take to rebuild your credit while it is still in default.



Step 1: Check out the damages
The first step that you have to take in rebuilding your credit is to look at exactly where you stand. This is an important step to take, which is why I have written it more than once. Your report can change every week, so checking it often is necessary. Here is where you have to just take it and order all three of your credit reports and all three of your credit scores. You can easily get your credit report online, and it is secure. By the way, no matter what you think checking your own credit data never damages your credit scores.

You will want to print each report and review it very closely. Highlight any negative records or errors that are damaging your credit score. You will also want to make sure that you fully understand what your credit report says. If you dont understand it, how can you expect to correct it?

Step 2: Check the expiration dates
By law, any of the negative records that you garner must remain on your credit report for 7-10 years. The exact expiration date is going to vary; depending upon the type of record that it is. Paying off an old collection debt or discharging your bankruptcy does not get rid of these records; contrary to what most people believe.

For each of the negative records that you will see on your credit report (including judgments, liens, charge-offs, late payments, bankruptcy filings, and collection records), you will have to look up and know the exact date that they are set to expire from your credit report. The reason for this is because you will then know when you can expect to see a major improvement in your credit score.

Step 3: Dispute the errors
I cant stress this enough! (Can you tell?) If you find anything at all that seems wrong to you; if you find any fraudulent accounts, or records that should have expired on you credit reports, you have the right to dispute these errors. To do this, you will need to send a separate dispute letter to each of the credit bureaus that are holding your account to correct your Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion records.

Once your dispute is received by the collection agency, the credit bureaus have 30 days to investigate and determine whether or not to make the change you have requested.

Do not try to dispute anything that is accurate. Accurate information cannot be removed from your credit reports and it is a waste of time to attempt to dispute these records because it will not help you. Disputing positive information may actually harm your credit scores and cause you to garner fraud charges.

Step 4: Keep track of the positive
Just like how you need to discharge inaccuracies, you should also report anything positive. Since there is no way to remove negative information from your credit report, the best way to improve your score is to add as much new information as you can that is good.

How to do this is to open up a new credit card account like I stated in the round robin approach in an above section. However, it doesnt stop there. You should also sign up for an online banking service that will let you keep a close eye on your accounts that you can print and dispute should you have to. Online banking is a sure fire way to keep a really good hold on information. You can also use online banking as a way to make instant payments to your creditors by adding them to your automatic payment plans. This will ensure that all of your payments are on time.

Step 5: Monitor your progress
It's easy to keep track of your credit score improvement because we now have a great deal of software that can do it for you. Instead of just giving you occasional access to your credit report and general email alerts, these new credit monitoring programs will give you things like access to your credit reports and credit scores, identity theft and fraud, credit score monitoring, daily alerts, and more. You can also choose to go through an online credit monitoring service which will send you your information in your email inbox every day.

Once you have signed up for a credit monitoring service, you will be able to track your credit score progress closely. Your credit score should improve regularly as you continue to use your credit responsibly and add new positive information to your credit reports on your own.