Let's assume that you have a copy of your credit report.  Now it's time to do some work.

Credit reports are a strange animal here in the United States.  Your creditors can and do provide damaging, private information about you to the credit bureaus without any concern of litigation from you.  The legal systems allows this under the greater-good concept.  The benefits (listed on the bottom of: What are Credit Scores) exceed the costs of damaging your personal reputation and your ability to get credit and participate in the American Dream of home ownership.  It is your responsibility to keep your credit report accurate.  If a creditor damages your reputation by listing a judgment they have filed against you, that creditor has no responsibility whatsoever to clean-up your credit report after you have satisfied that judgment.  If you don't notify the three credit reporting agencies and prove that the judgment is satisfied, that judgment will stay on you record.

We suggest that you download a sample letter listed on the Sample Letters page on this website and challenge all negative information on your credit report.  Enter your unique information and save the letter to you hard drive.  Then copy and paste the information from each of the three credit reporting agencies and mail the three letters via U.S. Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested.  Be sure to keep copies of everything.

After you receive your new credit report, be sure to compare your old credit report against your revised credit report.  Notice that a bureau may delete some items only because a creditor failed to respond to its investigation in a timely manner.  This occurs quite often; the creditors failure to deal with a bothersome piece of paper has now been turned to your advantage and is helping to clean up your record.  Now, repeat the process.  Be persistent.

We understand that this is a lot of work.  If there is inaccurate or damaging information or any of your three credit reports at any of the three credit reporting agencies, the benefits of a clean accurate record may exceed the costs in your time and energy to write and mail three letters. 

Working with your Creditors:

After you have done all you can do to clean-up your report, it time to clean up you existing debts.  Start with imminent judgments.  You will be dealing with people that have more power than you have.  So be careful of what you tell them.  These people are not your friends.  Some do not follow the rules.  As an example if you tell them where you work, they may get a judgment and garnish your wages.  But you will probably be able to negotiate payment terms.  Get everything in writing before you send in a check.  Creditors will lie to you.  Make copies of everything.  Mail everything Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested.

Next, installment loans.  Creditors will be thinking about repossession.  So be careful of what you tell them. 

The balance of your creditors should be dealt with on a case by case basis.  May times it is best to pay creditors on the day your mortgage loan closes.

Click Here for the Glossary.

Continue by clicking on: Adding Positives.

The information on this page and in this website is derived from sources that we believe are reliable. This information is not guaranteed.  We are not offering legal or accounting advice and suggest that you contact a lawyer and an accountant before taking any action.