subject: Getting Your Credit Report Prior to Attempting Credit Repair a Quick Guide [print this page] Getting Your Credit Report Prior to Attempting Credit Repair a Quick Guide
When you're striving to repair your bad credit, you've no doubt come across the wide range of ads on Television and on the internet promoting free credit scores. What you may well not be aware of however, is really how much those "free" peeks at your score may end up costing you in the long run.
How can you pay for a free score? Many of you may remember or believe that you have a right as a citizen of the United States to know your credit score. It is part of the anti-privacy laws that this information is made freely available to you. You can actually get a copy of the written report from a site known as AnnualCreditReport.com, However it is the written and slightly subjective report. It does not contain a numerical data, in other words it does not have the harder credit score at the bottom of it.
This can be a problem for anyone who wants to check their credit before they apply for a loan, or is trying credit repair on their own, and could use a peek at their FICO score to see if they've made any progress. Only being able to view your credit info when you're turned down for a line of credit kind of defeats the purpose of trying to fix it in the first place.
So should I go to the credit bureaus. In the United States there are three credit bureaus which many of us will have heard of (Equifax, Transunion and Experian). These large companies were set up originally to allow potential lenders to check the credit ratings of IT and tell. However they have quickly latched on to the fact that these very customers are no longer able to see information that should be free for them. They are also aware that they are not allowed to directly charge for free information, so the price you pay to these people is often hidden as a " search charge" or " administrative fee", rather than actually telling it like it is and calling it a fee for telling you your credit score. These companies generally just given the option of signing up on a month by month basis. The subscription will carry on until you remember to cancel it, and most times they will not accept an online translation, they will insist that you actually bring them up and tell them why you are cancelling. That's all well and good if you're in the middle of credit repair and want to monitor your report and check your progress each month, but what about the scores themselves?
No one below this number need apply Let's face it, you can read as much waffle as you like but what you really need to know is your actual school. When a lender is considering a loan or credit for your new car, they will not read through pages and pages of opinion or subjective text. They certainly will not be interested in wading through every payment you have made for years. They will skip to the bottom page and just look at the score. Take my word for it that is all they are interested in. You either pass or you don't and that's the end of it.The catch here for most consumers is that the services that will tell you your score all operate on a monthly subscription. If you do not remember to cancel it, you will be charged up to $15 a month. That's $180 per annum just for information that used to be free.
And if your score isn't as high as you need it to be.? So, you remember to cancel your subscription once you know your credit score, but what if your score isn't as high as you would like it to be? Well, in my experience you should get in touch with a reputable credit repair firm who will look through every single item on your credit report and try to work out the best that you should take to repair its status. Normally there will be an initial drive to pay off small outstanding balances and make agreements with your old accounts. It doesn't take long before the score against you respond to this TLC.
Let's not kid ourselves, fixing your credit score without the help of a professional would be a very difficult task. But you don't want to get ripped off along the way. Make sure whoever you sign up with does the initial consultation for three and you don't end up forking out a large monthly fee for a simple service or something you could do yourself.
