Archive for August, 2008
The first step if you want to clean credit up is to get a triple credit report.
The second step is to check the details for accuracy – it is absolutely vital that there are no mistakes or inconsistencies.
You should check things like your name, your address, your date of birth, etc. Just correcting misspellings, and slight variations will repair your credit in a lot of cases.
You have to be very, very meticulous when checking for accuracy in your credit report. For example if you write part of your address both upper case and lower case, it may be seen as two different addresses and damage you credit.
Likewise you have to be careful about abbreviations. For example,
• St instead of Street,
• Gds instead of Gardens,
• Ave instead of Avenue
These are perfectly acceptable as long as you don’t only ever write it one way. If you are not consistent then you might risk fragmenting your data and not getting the credit you deserve.
You might think that these sorts of minor differences shouldn’t make any differences. You may be right in most cases, but since there are lots of different credit checking systems around the world, wouldn’t you prefer to be 100% sure that every computer is reading the data correctly?
It might be a bit of a tedious task to check all of the data in your report, but believe me this is so important, and you can’t afford to skip this step.
Once you have decided on the “correct” way your details should be displaying, you should write it down in a safe place (perhaps the back of your diary). Every time you apply for credit you should refer to that piece of paper and copy out the info perfectly.
I am labouring over this point because repair to credit is done by consistently building layer upon layer of consistent data.
Notice I said “consistent” data. That’s something that most people don’t seem to realise. It’s a shame because many repair credit/ bad credit problems could be solved if people took on board this simple advice.
It always surprises me how many people looking for repair to credit advice have never checked their credit report. It is the most important first step when trying to clean up credit.
If you have never checked your credit the first step is to get a triple credit report. The triple report is the one to get because it is complete and has no information missing. It shows you the whole picture on your credit score.
In both the UK and US there are three main places to get credit info.
• In the UK they are:- Experian, Equifax, & Callcredit
• In the US they are:- Experian, Equifax, & TransUnion
If you only get a single report you might miss out on some important information held by one of the other companies
To get a triple report:-
• In the US, go to AnnualCreditReport.com
• In the UK, go to CheckMyFile.co.uk
Once you get the info back, you will have everything you need in order to repair credit, bad credit counciling, etc.
What the report won’t tell you is how to clean credit up, or give any sort of judgement on if you have good or bad credit.
It just gives you the facts on their database, so in the next post I will give you some tips on what to do with this information in order to clean credit up.
I want to share with you an important tip on how to clean credit up.
Recently, someone was telling me that they were refused credit by a popular mail order company. This had never happened before and was a bit of a mystery. They wanted some repair to credit advise to quickly sort the issue.
Up until recently, their credit score had been good and they done nothing to get any black marks as far as they knew.
My advise was to get a triple credit report to see if there was anything on their that could be pulling the score down. I also said that it may have something to do with moving home – sometimes previous tenants, or neighbours credit scores can affect your own credit.
Taking my advise, my friend phoned checkmyfile.com and asked them why she was refused credit when their report had been very positive just a few months ago. The lady at checkmyfile.com said that because she had just moved home she might not be on the electoral role for her new address.
She also said that if you wait for the local authorities to update the data it could take 3-6 months. Instead it would be much quicker to request the update immediately.
If you are looking to clean credit up, and you know that you have recently had good credit score it I would always think about what might have changed in the intervening period. In this case it was moving home, but also missing a bill deadline can have a bad effect on credit rating.
To clean credit up, it helps to know how it is calculated. Credit scores vary from country to country, but I will be focussing on the US, where it is defined by Wikipedia as “ a number based on a statistical analysis of a person’s credit files”.
Americans are entitled to a free credit report from each of the three main agencies (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax) in any 12 month period.
Once it you have your credit score most people need to learn how to clean credit up (that’s why I credit this blog).
Another very common problem is that it is not immediately obvious if you have good credit or not. I was trying to get an idea of what score is good and found this:-
“Al Thorup, exec- utive director of the Indiana Mortgage Bankers Association, says a good credit score today is the neighborhood of 660 to 680 or better, depending on the agency, but warns that “credit scores” are dynamic.”
The whole article was a very interesting read, and can be found at:-
Here’s how to keep tabs on your credit | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star
