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Under a new Federal law, you have the right to receive a free copy of your credit report once every 12 months from each of the three nationwide consumer reporting companies.

To request your free annual report under that law, click here:

www.annualcreditreport.com.

"Improve Your Credit Scores, Improve Your Lifestyle"

Live the good life the easy way and discover how you can pay up to $423 LESS per month for your home...LOWER your car payment by over $100 per month...and get approved for the best offers at the lowest interest rates—just by improving your credit scores. It doesn't matter how much money you make or how bad your credit is now. Once you discover the simple techniques that you can use to improve your credit scores, you'll get offered lower interest rates on everything you purchase with credit. You'll be able to refinance your existing home and auto loans to much more favorable rates. You can save so much money, it'll be like you're getting an additional paycheck every month. Click on the icon below to find out more about "Improve Your Credit Scores—Improve Your Lifestyle"

12 Free Tips:

How to Repair Your Credit Report and

Increase Your FICO Credit Score

Low Credit Scores will cost you a lot of money in higher interest payments on loans, credit cards, and insurance.  Try to increase your Credit Score before making any large purchase.  You can save a huge amount of money by making sure your Credit Score is as high as possible, since this will lower your interest rates on loans, insurance, and mortgages.

For example, a borrower who applies for $250,000 Home Loan and who has a 580 Credit Score will pay over $350 per month extra than if they had a 720 Credit Score.

A word of caution: there are many Internet sites that charge you a small fortune for either repairing your credit or buying a book that will tell you how to repair your credit.  What you need to understand is that they all try and repair your credit the same way as you would, mainly by disputing items and getting them removed from your report.

With the free tips available on this page, you can repair your credit yourself, and keep it high for the future.  Following through on these tips yourself will cost you little to no money. 

However, if you need to raise your credit score but you don't want to do the legwork yourself, we highly recommend LEXINGTON LAW FIRM to fix your credit report and increase your credit score.  The company has been around since 1991, and has over 300,000 satisfied clients.  The money you spend with them will pay for itself many times because your higher credit scores will enable you to get much lower interest rates on houses, cars, etc.  It's no wonder over 15% of their customers make over 100K a year.   Like anything else, you can either do the work yourself or pay an expert to do it for you to save you time and hassle. Whichever way you choose to increase your score, LEXINGTON LAW FIRM should be your choice if you decide to pay a firm to help fix your credit report instead of doing it yourself since they are the leaders in this field and the only one to offer a full money-back warranty.

Here are the steps to quickly repair your credit:

• First, get your credit score by pulling your credit report.  Without this key information, you won't know what to fix and how to fix it to increase your score.  You have 2 choices in getting your credit report and score:  You can either pay for a credit report package or sign up for a credit monitoring service that will charge you a monthly fee.  If you plan on fixing you credit yourself, we recommend using MyFico.com (first 30 days free) since you can run your report unlimited times and monitor how things are being changed without paying each time you check for updates.  They will even email you any changes, so know exactly when things are changing, since they monitor your credit file every business day. 

  If you need to just find out your score once to see where you are currently at, you can get your score one time from MyFico.Com as well, with no further commitments.

  (You can also get your credit report free once a year from the government, however it wont include your credit score.)

  It will cost to get your Credit Report and Score, but you will make it back many times over if you fix something wrong or use the information provided to increase your credit score.   The three credit reporting agencies are Experian, Trans-Union, and Equifax.  Since some lenders only report to one of these companies, you will probably have three different credit scores.  Credit scores are calculated based on formula developed by Fair Isaac Corp, and can be referred to as "Beacon Score", "Fico Score", or "Empirica."  The formula is mostly the same for all these types of scores since it was developed by the same company.  The only difference is that each credit reporting agency might have different information about you, and because of this have different scores for you.  Your credit score is determined by this breakdown:

• 35% Payment history

• 30% Outstanding debt

• 15% Length of your credit history

• 10% Recent inquiries on your credit report

• 10% Types of credit in use

Below is a table showing different score ranges and how they affect your loan payment:

Score Range	Rating	% of US Population	Extra Cost Per month for 200K Loan
780+	Perfect	20	$0
720-780	Excellent	20	$0
675-720	Average	20	$86
620-690	Fair	20	$242
Below 620	Low	20	$353

 

Some lenders will look at the scores from all three reports, while some might only look at one. Mortgage lenders will look at all three and pick the middle one. Remember, you don't lose any credit points for checking your own credit report. You will lose some points if there are a number of credit inquiries over time for applications such credit cards, auto loans, department store credit cards, etc.  However, you will not lose any credit points from vendors checking your score for marketing purposes.  Remember, you can only affect your score if you initiate the credit check by applying for mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, etc.

So now you know that repeated inquiries into your credit standing will hurt your overall credit score. Think about this the next time you get an offer for 10% off your purchase just for signing up for a store credit card, and just say no!  You might save $20 now, but could lose much more than that later due to a worse credit score.  Also, if you are shopping for a car or mortgage, try and keep all the inquiries to within two weeks since credit scoring companies will treat all these as one "inquiry."

Once you've received your credit report, look at the percentage breakdown above and focus on the things you can repair, such as payment history and outstanding debt.

• Make sure everything on your credit report is right. 

• If you see something wrong, make sure you dispute it with the agency. You can dispute it by way of phone, letter, online, or by e-mail. By law, the creditor must prove the accuracy of what you are disputing within 30 days. If they don't, it simply gets removed from your report. If you have evidence that something is wrong, then go ahead and submit the evidence via registered mail to the credit agency and they will have to remove the inaccurate data right away or prove that it's accurate.  Even it you don't remember if it's accurate, dispute it anyway, since the creditor will have to prove that the information is accurate.

• If you have any accounts in collections or that are very past due on your credit report, you need to get them removed to really increase your credit score.  Again, by getting your credit report you may find things you never even knew about!  If disputing these items has not worked, you will have to contact the creditor or collection agency directly.  Our advice is to offer to pay 50% of your debt and negotiate upwards from there, however only if they remove your bad credit history off your credit report (not just marked paid by them).  Make sure you get this in writing; most agencies will take the opportunity to collect the bad debt and fix your credit report.  Removing these items will dramatically increase your credit score since the derogatory item will be completely removed from your report.  Note:  If you have already paid off these derogatory items, dispute it with the agency again since it will be their burden to prove it, and they usually won't bother disputing it since it's already been paid off.

• If your credit needs some quick repair, and you have extra cash, pay down as much of your debt as possible. The higher your ratio of current debt to available credit limits the better you look to a lender, and the higher your credit score will be. 

• The flip side of this is to call existing credit card accounts you may have and ask them to increase your limit, though you won't actually use it.  This will also increase your credit score.

• Note: Do not open additional credit card accounts to increase this ratio, since that may hurt your credit. But increased credit limits on existing accounts will help.

• Cancel some cards if you have too many, but if you are carrying debt, try to keep the ratio of debt to available credit limits at around 40% with about four cards for the best credit score.  Don't cancel cards if it will put you below this ratio, and if you have to cancel cards, make sure you only cancel ones with less than one year of credit history. 

• Another great way of helping your score is by spreading your debt to different cards.  Although you may pay more interest, your score will improve since not one card will be close to its limit.  For example, if you have 20K limit on one card with 18K of debt, and have another card with a 15K with 2K of debt, it's better to move 8K of debt from the higher card to the lower card.  By doing this, you will lower your ratio of debt to credit line, helping your score even though you haven't paid anything down.  We would not recommend canceling cards unless you have done everything else on this page, since it's not worth the risk short-term, however over longer time periods it will help your score if they are under 1 year old.

• If you have no debt and have had no credit history within two years, go get some!  Even though you don't need to repair your credit, you need to create some credit history. This may sound strange, but it works very well since it shows you can borrow and pay back money.  Begin responsibly using a credit card for as much as possible, and pay it back in full every month.  Or take out one of those promotional 0% loans from one of your credit cards for as much as possible, put the cash into an account, and pay it back slowly (but before the 0% interest rate expires -- and don't spend it!).  You will notice your scores dramatically improve after you have paid back the debt.  This will also create credit history for you, and it's never too late to start building your credit.

• If you have a partner/spouse or relative with good credit, have them add you to their credit card.  This works very well since you will get credit for their payment of bills, and this will create more positive credit history for you. 

• Pay your bills on time by having them automatically deducted from your bank account or paid online before they are due.  Being consistently late with payments is the easiest way to lower your score, and also the easiest way to keep your credit improving month after month is just pay your credit card bills on time or early!  Even if you can only swing the minimum payment, get the payment there before the due date. Most credit card companies allow you to pay online, so make sure you take advantage of this and don't waste time and money on stamps.

• By looking at your credit report, find out how often and when your lenders report.  By timing your payments to right before they report to the credit agency, you will be able to show less debt and thus have a higher score!  Again, this is why it's important to get your credit report, to learn what is out there so you can find out what and when things are being reported.  It is estimated that on a new car purchase of $20,000, the difference in payments between a person with good credit and a person with bad credit is almost $10,000 over the course of 5 years.  This number gets much bigger if you are looking at mortgage rates, which span 30-40 years.  You should do everything you can to increase your credit score and remember to check it several months before making a big purchase, such as a house or car, so you can minimize your interest rate. If you don't, you may needlessly pay a lot more for financing due to high interest, thereby increasing your total debt. By repairing your credit beforehand, you will save yourself money in the long run.   There are better things in life to spend your money on than high interest rates!

HELPFUL CREDIT WEBSITES:

www.credit.about.com

www.consumer-action.org

www.consumerfederation.org

www.credit.com

www.creditinfocenter.com

www.financialrecovery.com

www.icfe.info

www.annualcreditreport.com    (877) 322-8228

www.ftc.gov/credit

www.creditcardcenter.com

www.creditcards.com

 

National Credit Counseling:  www.nftc.org

 

There are 3 Credit Agencies:

www.equifax.com

www.experian.com

www.transunion.com   (www.truecredit.com)

 

To get FICO Score:

www.myfico.com

 

A mortgage broker can also pull all 3 bureaus for you, but it does count as an inquiry.

 

WHAT WILL LOWER YOUR SCORE:

 

Balances too high

Late payment  (a  mortgage late is worse than a credit card late)

Not allowing time between opening the account and charging on the card

Length of revolving credit history is too short

Allowing the proportion of loan balances to loan amounts to be too high

Judgments, collections, etc., that have appeared on public record are on your credit report

Having too few bank revolving accounts (means you have too many store credit cards vs. VISA cards)

Having too many accounts with balances

Having too many bank or national revolving accounts

Having too many accounts opened in the last 12 months

Do not have a well established credit history

One or more charge-offs or accounts turned over for collection

Account payment history too new (creditor hasn't had time to report payments to the agency)

loan balance should not exceed 35% of total credit available on each account

 

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR CREDIT:

 

Pay your bills on time.

Don’t close unused accounts, especially if they are old.

-  These show you have a long positive credit history.

-  Even if you closed it, it would still show on your credit report for 7 years.

Only apply for credit when you need it, and shop for rates/terms.  Try to steer clear of retail store cards.

If you get divorced, separate accounts after the divorce.

Correct inaccuracies on your credit report, make sure those are removed/corrected.

Avoid excess inquiries.  (Every time you apply for a loan, that creditor inquires about your credit and that inquiry stays on for 2 years.  If it stays on longer, you can ask for it to be removed.)  Exception: -- You can have multiple inquiries for the same item as long as they are within 30 days of each other; then they will only count as one inquiry.

Avoid consolidating balances on one credit card.

Negotiate with creditors about interest rates/terms.

 

 

Bankruptcy will stay on for up to 10 years – but you can still be proactive from that point forward to start rebuilding.

 

 

DISPUTING BY MAIL OR ONLINE:            

     

1.  Get a copy of credit report from each agency.  Highlight the CREDIT REPORT NUMBER at the top of the page.

 

To dispute online, go to: 

www.experian.com/disputes/index.HTML

www.equifax.com/disputes

www.transunion.com (click on personal pollution, dispute credit report).   You will need to enter that CREDIT REPORT NUMBER on your dispute.

 

Provide the ID information.

Click on the item you believe is inaccurate or that you want removed.  You can add your own statement up to 120 characters.

If their response is not in your favor, you can dispute it again and again and again.  You can dispute in writing as well as online. 

Letter must include:  name (first middle last), address, phone, DOB, SSN, copy of credit report, copy of picture ID (driver's license), copy of utility bill with name and address.

If you don't get a response in two weeks, send it again.

Under the Fair Credit Reporting act, they have 30 days to report back to you.   Bombard them with a letter every 7 days, even if you have to send them 30 letters.

Dispute each credit item separately for each Agency, and send a copy to the creditor too.

 

After 7 years, late payments should be automatically taken off.  If it isn't, you can write a letter to ask them to take it off.

 

YOU CAN SAVE YOUR HOME!

DON'T SELL YOUR HOUSE TO THE FIRST PERSON WHO COMES ALONG!

DON'T GIVE YOUR HOUSE TO THE BANK!

CLICK HERE FOR AUDIO MESSAGE from Laura Shuster, author of

"The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Saving Your Home From Foreclosure"

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