Cleaning up your credit report is not as complicated as you think or as difficult as the credit repair agencies make it sound…
FYI, stay away from credit repair agencies-they won’t do anything you can’t do on your own.
Ok, back to cleaning up your credit report…
First step: obtain your credit report-all three because not all three may have the same exact information. Remember, annualcredit report.com is the place to go, not the other one with the catchy jingle.
Second step: know what can and cannot be removed. Wrong, duplicate, or negative but old info can be disputed. Really old items such as chapter 13 bankruptcy will drop off after 7 yrs. Just because you don’t like an item does not mean it can be removed — it has to be wrong/false info in order to request that it be taken off your credit report.
Third step: dispute errors that are truly errors by contacting the credit bureau-you only need to contact one-they will notify the other 2 bureaus. The bureau has 30 days to investigate your dispute. After that, if the creditor can’t verify the info, the bureau will remove it from your credit report.
Chao for now, Leslita
Credit repair can be tough. I have gone through it in the past and it was a long, drawn out challenge. I have to say though, the folks at Credit Boards (http://www.creditboards.com/forums/) were one of the greatest resources ever.
I have heard there is a correct way to close a credit card account that will not result in a bad mark on your credit score. I have several old accounts that I have not used in years and would like to close them. Any information would be appreciated.
LD: Thanks for your comment! I am not sure how many credit cards you have that you are wanting to close, but I would suggest that you not close all of them, especially not the one that you have had the longest. Reason being, length of credit is one of the factors used in calculating your FICO score (about 15% of the five factors).
Long-standing accounts show long and stable credit history. So if you want to close those cards, keep the oldest one open. I would suggest keeping at least 2 of the oldest cards open. Make a gas purchase here and there and pay it in full to avoid interest and to keep some positive activity on it. For the ones you do end up closing, make sure your balance is completely at zero before you request cancelation (no residual intererst or annual fee owed).
Make sure you tell the rep on the phone that you want this cancelation to appear as “closed at the consumer’s request” on your credit report because if it gets reported as closed by the issuer, it looks bad on your credit bc it looks as though you did something wrong and they had to close it.Make sure to check your credit in the coming months to make sure it got closed properly.
Ask the rep to send you a cancelation confirmation letter in the mail so that you can keep it in your records. If you do not receive the cancelation letter within about 4 weeks, call them back and follow up.
Always take notes while you talk to the rep on the phone (time, date, rep’s name, etc…). I would also suggest keeping copies of all/any payment methods used to pay the balance off in full if you have to pay the balance before you close the account.
Hope this info is helpful. Feel free to post or comment again if you have any more questions!
Chao!