1. Start Paying Your Bills on Time

The largest core area of your credit score is your payment history.  And not paying on time is going to kill it.  This is the number one best way to raise your credit score.  It does sound simple but individuals struggle with this piece every month.  It often has to do with the lack of a budget or lack of experience managing money.

2. Pay Down Your Debt

If you owe a lot, you need to develop a plan to pay down your debt.  This is the second biggest way to raise your credit score.  Your utilization is 30% of your credit score and being close to your limits will hurt it.  It also comes back to having a budget and developing a plan to use extra money to pay down debt.

3. Avoid Balance Transfers

Many individual use and advocate balance transfers as a way to get out of debt.  The truth is they often don’t work.  It has the effect of just moving the debt around.  Also, since your credit utilization is calculated on an account by account basis, you will can this to rise.  This will put you closer to your limits with that card and hurt your credit score.

4. Don’t Apply For Credit If You Don’t Need It

Don’t think you should apply for every credit card offer that comes to you.  Also, if a store offers you a 10% discount to apply for a store credit card, it isn’t worth it.  Each time you do this it creates a credit inquiries.  These have the ability to hurt or not hurt your credit score.  The idea is if you are applying for new credit all the time you represent a risk and will hurt your credit score.  You should only apply for credit as you need it.

5. Dispute Credit Report Errors

If you are looking of how to raise your credit score, you should start with disputing errors on your credit report.  You don’t think there are any errors.  Well, chances are you are wrong.  Studies have shown that 70% of credit reports have mistakes on them.  The only who is going to catch these most of time is you.  So check for and dispute errors.  This will help to raise your credit score.

6. Check Your Credit Report More Than Once Per Year

Now that you understand that errors are reported about you, you need to be looking for them.  You should look at your credit report a minimum of once per year, but if you really want to stay on top of it, twice would be better.  This prevents recently reported errors from staying on there if you dispute them.

There are even more than these and I will continue add more.  I hope that these are helpful

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1. The Right To Dispute Investigation

If you think there are errors on your credit report you have the right to dispute errors.  Upon this dispute the credit bureaus must conduct an investigation.  They also must respond back to you within 30 days of the dispute.  The investigation usually includes the credit bureaus contacting your account or creditor about the possible error.

2. The Right To Have Errors Corrected

If the item disputed is reported by the account to be inaccurate, it has to be removed from your credit report.  Also, if your account does not respond back on a disputed item in the alloted time it will be removed from your credit report.

3. The Right To A Written Response

After the investigation is over the credit bureau owes you a response in writing.  If there was a change to your credit report, the credit bureau also owes you a free credit report with the new data.

4. The Right To Add a Statement To Your Credit Report

Often the error will not be removed.  If you think that this is still an error and after you have contacted your account and they haven’t removed it, you can add a 100 word statement to your report.  This basically explains your story, but it will not help your credit score.

5. Your Right To Sue

If any of your previous rights are violated you do have the right to sue.  This is done in a Federal Court.

You need to know your rights.  This will make you a better consumer.  Also, it will help you if you dispute errors on your credit report.

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This can almost be too late.  For example if you have a credit report errors.  These are going to take at least 30 to 45 days to be disputed and possibly removed from your credit report.  If they are not removed, you then have to contact your account to dispute the item and hopefully have them remove it.  This will take even more time.

A more aggressive approach is to check you credit report every six months.  I know that you get just one free one per year, but shows your financial fitness.  You need to protect it.

If you just want to sleep at night not thinking about checking your credit report every 6 months you could sign up for a credit monitoring program.  They do cost money, but not as much as you think.  The best bang for your buck is the MyFICO quarterly monitoring.

So lets compare this to a 3in1 credit report that you would normally get which costs 39.95.  This is every single one you get costs this much.  With MyFICO quarterly monitoring it costs $49.95 per year.  That is just $10 more.  What you get will quarterly monitoring is a lot.  First, you get to review your credit report every quarter.  You will also get your FICO score every quarter.  Plus you will get $25,000 in identity theft insurance.

So if you are wanting to check your report twice a year you would spend around $80.  If you want to check your credit report and get your FICO score quarterly it cost $49.95.  Check it out for yourself: FICO® Quarterly Monitoring

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How is this going to improve you credit score.  Well, if you have an error it is more than likely a negative one.  If you dispute the error and it is found to be incorrect, it will taken off your credit report.  This negative factor will no longer be in the equations and has the potential effect of raising your credit score.

The first part of this equation is to get a copy of your three credit reports that is right all of them.  Here are some links to some sites that you can find all three.

• Fico Scores/Reports
  
• Get an Equifax 3-in-1 Credit Report Now
  
• Get Your Free 3-in-1 Credit Report
  

Why all three? Because each credit bureaus has their own report on you and they don’t share data.  Also, your accounts are not required to report to all three.  So if an account reports to just one credit bureau and their reports will state something that isn’t true.  So, if you don’t have the right report you will never find it.

Here is a quick overview of the error disputing process.  If an error is reported to the credit bureau, they have to investigate it and get back to you within 30 days.  The investigation involves contacting your account and asking them if this information is not correct.  If the account agrees that it is wrong or they don’t respond back it will be removed from your credit report.  If the account says it is correct it stays.  If this is still an error you must then take it up with your account.

Now lets review your credit report and the things to look for.  You should keep a separate piece of paper or some way to record what you think are errors.  This will serve as a quick reference and as a checklist for you to follow up on.

The things to Look For

The first section is your personal information.

• Name
• Social Security Number
• Birth date
• Addresses

A common error could be the misspelling your name.  But if you see addresses that you have never lived at, this could be the sign of a much bigger problem like identity theft.  Hopefully not, but write down any errors you see.

The next section is your accounts.  Here is what to look for here:

• Any Late Payments older than seven years.  These can be removed.
• Accounts that you don’t know about.  This again could be a sign of identity theft.
• Your spouse’s debts that they had before marriage.
• Delinquencies that you didn’t know about

The next thing to look at is your inquiries.  Here are two things to look for:

• Any inquiries that are old then two years.  These can be removed.
• Any hard inquiries you didn’t know about.

The last thing to look at on your credit report is your collections and public records.  Here is what to look for:

• any bankruptcies older than 10 years.  These can be removed from your credit report.
• paid liens or judgments older than seven years.  These can be removed.
• duplicate collections.  This is often the case if you have been sent to collections and then a collection agency sells the debt to another.  It could have the presence of two collections and can be removed.

Now, that you have your list, you need to do your research.  It is best if you have some proof on your side when disputing errors.  After this you can dispute the mistakes.  There are three ways: telephone, mail, and online.  Here is that information for each credit bureau:

Experian

• Mail: Experian Disputes -  P.O. Box 2104 Allen, TX 75013
• Phone: (888) 397-3742
• Experian Dispute

Equifax

• Mail: Equifax Disputes – P.O. Box  740256 Atlanta, GA 30374
• Phone: (866) 238 8067
• Equifax Dispute

TransUnion

• TransUnion Disputes  – 2 Baldwin Place P.O. Box 100 Chester, PA 19022
• Phone: (800)916-8800
• TransUnion Dispute

When you do send in your disputes, you should include your evidence.  This will be forwarded to your account and will help back up your case.  Furthermore, if you do choose to dispute through the mail send the mail certified.  This way you can be assured of its delivery.

The process will begin with the credit bureau contacting your account with the dispute and the information provided.  The account then has a period of time to respond.  If they do not respond in time  it will be removed from your credit report.  If the account responds stating that it is incorrect it will be removed.  Also, your account will be required to contact the other credit bureaus to ensure it is taken off of the other reports.  If the potential error is stated to be true by your account, it will stay on your report.  You then will have to contact your creditor about the error.

The credit bureau’s investigation is conducted over a 30 day period.  Most responses come with in 30 to 45 days.  If there was an error, you are entitled to a new copy of your credit report without the error.  Also, you can request a new report be sent to anyone who has received your credit report in the previous six months.  You can also have a new report sent to any employer who has access your credit report in the last two years.

If the item is unresolved, you can ask the credit bureau to include a statement of the dispute with your credit report.  This will have no effect on your credit score, but will be given to anyone wanting to review your credit report.

The process will take some time so if you are planning to apply for a loan you need to find and fix any possible errors right now.  You should be trying to get the best possible rate on a loan and you need to do anything to improve your credit score.   This is the one of the simplest and quickest way to give you that boost.

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