Information About Cleaning A Bad Credit Score
- By Lexington Law
- Published 09/4/2009
- Finance
- Unrated
Lexington Law
Providing credit repair services since 1991, Lexington Law has helped over 500,000 clients legally take on their credit. Last year alone, Lexington Law helped clients remove over 600,000 negative items from their credit reports.
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The current economy highlights the importance of cleaning up your credit report, especially when lower rates for new home loans are mainly offered to those with a credit rating of 750 or higher.
In the past a credit rating of 620 was considered good and anything above 700 excellent; today's threshold for a good credit score is above 700 and an excellent score is even higher. Keeping up with the increasing standards of lenders leaves many Americans looking for a way to increase their scores.
The first step to cleaning up your credit reports is to obtain a copy of your credit report from all three major credit bureaus: TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. You are entitled to a free copy of your credit report from each credit bureau once a year. It is important to carefully scan each report and not rely solely on the report from just one credit bureau, as a mistake or other incorrect information could appear on just one report, and each report does not always contain the same information.
After looking through each credit report and noting the damaging items you feel are inaccurate, you can send a credit dispute letter to each credit bureau disputing the item, enclosing
any evidence you have that the item needs to be updated or removed.
The credit bureau is then required to verify the disputed items within 30 days by contacting the credit company in question. The credit company is tasked with proving the validity of the listing. If they fail to respond (something that happens with regularity) or are unable to prove the listing is accurate, the information should be corrected or deleted from your credit report. Keep in mind that the credit bureaus can add the information back onto your report if the original furnisher verifies or re-reports the information even after the 30 days has passed.
In the past a credit rating of 620 was considered good and anything above 700 excellent; today's threshold for a good credit score is above 700 and an excellent score is even higher. Keeping up with the increasing standards of lenders leaves many Americans looking for a way to increase their scores.
The first step to cleaning up your credit reports is to obtain a copy of your credit report from all three major credit bureaus: TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. You are entitled to a free copy of your credit report from each credit bureau once a year. It is important to carefully scan each report and not rely solely on the report from just one credit bureau, as a mistake or other incorrect information could appear on just one report, and each report does not always contain the same information.
After looking through each credit report and noting the damaging items you feel are inaccurate, you can send a credit dispute letter to each credit bureau disputing the item, enclosing
The credit bureau is then required to verify the disputed items within 30 days by contacting the credit company in question. The credit company is tasked with proving the validity of the listing. If they fail to respond (something that happens with regularity) or are unable to prove the listing is accurate, the information should be corrected or deleted from your credit report. Keep in mind that the credit bureaus can add the information back onto your report if the original furnisher verifies or re-reports the information even after the 30 days has passed.