A bad credit score can impact your ability to get a credit card, home loan or an apartment. However, credit checks are now often run on job seekers! Additionally, a bad credit score will impact your insurance rates, the amount of interest you pay on current loans and credit cards, and your bad score can stick on your records for years.
Many factors can impact your credit score. A qualified credit repair expert can provide you with relief. The best credit repair professionals have access to all three credit reporting bureaus (Equifax, TransUnion and Experian) and can help you review current debt load and old debts. They can also help you find errors.
Data Entry Errors
Oftentimes, your credit can be impacted by a keying error on an old debt. For example, if your social security number is tied to a debt and was entered incorrectly at the origination of the loan, that debt can hang around on your credit report even after you’ve paid it off. Carefully review any debt documentation that lists your name and personal information for data entry errors and submit these corrections as soon as possible. Chasing them down and correcting them later can be messy and expensive.
Check Out Customer Reviews
No matter the reason for your bad credit score, help is available. There are several credit repair organizations with excellent ratings, such as Skyblue and Lexington Law. These organizations make no promises, proving their honesty, but they will work hard to trace down and repair errors. It’s important to remember that the best credit repair organizations will not charge you until they’ve made an impact on your credit rating.
Fulfill Your Obligations
Your Lexington Law credit repair team or one in your area may need additional documentation from you. Your fast response to their document requests will improve their ability to help you. Be responsive to their requests and they can be active in helping repair your credit.
Once Your Credit Is Improved
Once you’ve gotten help and done the work in improve your credit, it is critically important that you safeguard it. Some of the work of safeguarding your credit score is simple, and only requires building some good habits. For example,
Pay bills on time. If you’ve got a habit of being late with bills, pay them the day they come in. Either get on-line or sit down and write the check as soon as you open the envelope. Late fees are a huge waste of money.
Don’t bounce checks. The lazy way to do this is to stash an extra $50 in your checking account, but don’t record it in your register. This cushion should protect you from paying overdraft fees, which are an even bigger waste of money. If you have any automatic withdrawals from your checking account, total them up and make that amount your cushion.
Don’t max your cards or your credit limit. Your current debt load can heavily impact your ability to borrow, even if your score is good. Credit card interest can get punitive very quickly, so pay down cards as quickly as possible. There’s nothing worse than working hard to build a good credit score only to be turned down because your debt load is too high. It’s also important to note that canceling all your cards but one and carrying one large balance can negatively impact your credit score. If you need to keep your score above a set level, don’t consolidate.
Don’t co-sign for loans. It’s hard to say no to people who ask you to do this, but you have to be true to your future and to the hard work you’ve already done. Additional damage can be done to your credit if a co-signer defaults on a loan. Even if the co-signer pays the debt, that debt can lower your borrowing capabilities.
A good credit score can put that new car or home within your grasp. If your credit is a mess, get professional help and expand your buying power.
