There are a few simple steps to follow to get your damaged credit repaired
. Your credit may have been damaged for different reasons.
The first may be something came up in your personal life like a loss of a job or unexpected medical expenses. These unexpected things can cause great pain in your life and a person may resort to using credit cards to survive and pay monthly expenses. You later find out when the bill comes you are playing catch up each month so it becomes a vicious circle that drives you deeper and deeper into debt.
The second situation that may arise is you become a victim of identity theft. Some one robs your identity opening accounts in your name. They charge up a bunch of items never intending on paying the bill. This leaves you in a situation where you have to prove it was not your charges or accounts.
The best way to do damaged credit repair is by doing it yourself if you have the time. In my opinion this is something a person should make time for just like paying your financial responsibilities each month takes time.
Here are the simple steps to take:
1. Mark at date on your calender to yearly check you credit report. Just like you would for and important birthday or anniversary. Consider it a financial anniversary.
2. Go to the website http://annualcreditreport.com to get a copy of your credit report for free. You do not need to worry about your credit scores at this point so I would not pay for them.
3. Review the credit report from the three different credit bureaus (equifax, experian, transunion).
4. If you find things that are incorrect you are able to dispute the item on the website. Each credit bureau will then check out the information to make sure it is correct. If it is incorrect they must remove it.
5. Once everything is corrected you must now move on to paying off any collections or judgments that are not removed. The creditors are willing to negotiate a settlement most of the time to get the collection or judgment off of their books. If you enter into a settlement agreement make sure that you get it in writing that the debt is paid if full.
6. Make sure to keep current on your debts. This will go along way to repairing you credit. You would be surprised how quickly this will raise your credit score.
If you find that you don't have the time or feel you don't want to attempt to do the credit repair yourself you can always hire out the process to a reputable company.