If you have less than perfect credit or even bad credit, don’t worry, you can fix your credit by yourself, but it does take some time.
First you will want to get a copy of your credit report from all three reporting agencies. You can do this once a year for free at annualcreditreport.com. Once you have your reports check to make sure they are accurate. If there are any accounts listed on your reports that are not yours, dispute them.
Once you have done this and the rest of the accounts are in fact yours, start with the smaller amount accounts first. You will want to write a letter to the creditor asking them to delete this information if you pay the debt in full and ask for verification of agreement in writing before you send payment. Most companies will be happy to agree. Once you receive the verification letter send payment. It usually takes about thirty days for the item to be deleted from your report, so you do want to check to make sure they keep their end of the agreement. If they do not remove the negative information then you need to send a copy of their letter with a copy of your payment to the credit reporting agency to have it deleted.
Once you have tackled all your small accounts, start with your larger accounts. You can try to settle for a lesser amount as paid in full in return for the creditor to delete the negative information from your credit report. Many companies will agree, they will be happy to get something rather than nothing. However, be prepared that there are some companies that will not budge, in this case if you can afford to pay the balance in full you can do so, if not ask for a payment plan, they will almost always agree to a repayment plan.
While you are repairing your bad accounts, you should get a secured credit card to help increase your score. Do not max out the card, and be sure to pay off what you charge off each month this will make your score jump within a couple of months.
By following these simple steps, although, they do take time and can actually decrease your score at first before it starts to jump back up, you will clean up your credit and within six months of having your credit cleaned and six months of on-time payments with your secured credit card, you will start of get offers for credit again. Just be sure to pay your bills on time and do not fall back into the bad credit trap.
I can attest that this works, I had a 420 credit score and after a year of repairing my own credit with these tips I shared with you, I jumped to a 670! It really works if you work hard at it!