How Will a Letter Help Me Fix My Credit?

By Markus J. Makari

A, B, C, D, or F? What's your grade? Similarly, just like in school, you are being graded on your credit performance. However, unlike schools you are not told what you are being graded on. The Fico score is your credit report card. The first thing that needs to be done before you can begin to improve your credit grade is to find out what grade you are starting with.

When it comes to your credit report card, there are six things that you must choose to do on a regular basis, that is, check it, compare it, track it, build it, protect it and repair it.

Check It - Know your FICO score and the factors affecting it. Your FICO scores are the credit scores most lenders use to determine your credit risk. You have multiple FICO scores, one from each credit bureau (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion). It is crucial to note that each bureau may have different information.

Compare It - Monitor your credit report at least four times a year. The worse time to discover a problem with your credit report is when you go to obtain credit for that new car, mortgage, or vacation. Also, trends can also help identity spending patterns, both good and bad.

Track It - Tracking is an essential component to maintain and achieve a good credit score. You can set up alerts to receive changes to your report automatically. There are three main credit bureaus that manage credit records, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.

Build It - Establishing a satisfactory credit history has never been as important as it is today. Two most influential factors in your scores are, whether you pay your bills on time and how much of your available credit you actually use. Don't charge more than 30% of the card's limit. Don't charge more than you can pay off in a month.

Protect It- Make sure you pay the bill, and all your other bills, on time. Also, you can use a credit monitoring service that will give you with quarterly updates.

Repair It - How Will a Letter Help Me Fix my Credit?

According to The Fair Reporting Credit Act if an account is not being reported 100% accurately, by law the bureau must delete it from your file, within 30 days of your dispute. The majority of negative information is deleted using the dispute method. Here is how the process works.

If the bureaus cannot verify the accuracy of any account you dispute, they MUST remove the account within 30 days of receiving your dispute. It's the law.

The first (and most crucial step) is to order a copy of your credit reports from http://www.myfico.com and reviewed them for errors and negative information that has caused your credit scores to drop. Disputing negative information on your credit report is the most effective method to increase your FICO Score.

Afterwards, make a list of disputed accounts so they are separated from your good accounts. Make sure that you arrange these accounts so that the oldest record is listed first and the newest is listed last.

Then, when you find errors or out dated information on your report, you want to write a hand written credit dispute letter for the first two accounts to each credit bureau that is reporting negative information on this account. This is necessary because there are three bureaus and they all report differently. So, you want to make sure that you are not sending a dispute letter to a bureau that is not reporting negatively about you! If you are confused by this, 30 Days to a Better Credit Report covers this process and other techniques quite well, so having a copy will help you tremendously.

Now, that you know your credit grade and how to check it, compare it, track it, build it, protect it, and repair it, all it needed now is ACTION on your part. For helpful credit education and techniques, please visit http://www.wisewithcredit.com

Markus earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance and is a Certified International Credit Profession (CICP). He is an independent credit and collection business consultant.