Cleaning up Your Credit

[Wayne Griggs]

Cleaning up Your Credit
Lenders Check Your Credit

Mortgage lenders generally check with three credit bureaus in order to evaluate your past payment history. Your goal in cleaning up your credit report should be to clean up each of the three bureaus. If you only work on one, this does not affect the reporting to the other bureaus. So don't make that mistake, you MUST work with all three!


Get A Copy of Your Credit Report

The first step is to get a copy of your merged credit report, which shows all three of the major bureaus, Experian (formerly TRW), Equifax (formerly CBI), and Trans-Union. (A good starting point is a Google search for merged credit reports.) Most mortgage lenders will obtain data from all three of these bureaus in analyzing your credit history. The exception is that some portfolio lenders (usually adjustable rate lenders) may only review one.


What to Say When You Call Your Creditors

There are two efforts that must be made. First, call any creditors reporting a negative and ask them to remove the negative item. Ask in a nice calm voice and do not get upset when they say no. Simply repeat your request over and over in your nice pleasant voice. If you get nowhere, then ask to speak to the supervisor. Make sure you keep a log of your conversation, noting the date, time, who you spoke to and what they said. Repeat this procedure over and over. In a high percentage of cases, it works.



Get Written Confirmation of Agreements

Be sure to ask for a letter by mail or fax that shows the creditor is correcting the negative information. You may need this letter for two reasons. First, they may not actually make the changes. With the letter, you can appeal directly to the credit bureau and they will make the correction. Second, if you are applying for a mortgage before the changes actually hit the credit bureau’s report, your lender will need this documentation.

If you have a charge off or collection account that shows as unpaid, don’t just send them a check and pay it off. Call the creditor on the phone, explain that you have the funds to pay the account in full, and calmly explain why it should not have been reported on your credit in the first place. Then ask if they will provide you a letter deleting the account entirely from all credit bureaus if you pay off the account. Try to get them to fax it to you. As before, be sure to document all of your telephone contact and always keep a nice pleasant tone in your voice. In a large percentage of cases, this also works.


Disputing the Report -- When Your Creditor Will Not Remove an Item

There will be cases when the creditor does not agree to remove the negative credit item. If it is an item that is definitely not yours, call the credit bureau immediately (except for Equifax, who only responds by mail). When on the telephone, do not discuss any negative items that are accurate. Do not discuss any items that may be accurate in general but have some small error in detail that you can dispute by mail. Once you confirm any accuracy at all, you cannot dispute it later by mail.

For the remaining items, you need to dispute them by mail, writing directly to the credit bureaus. Write a letter to the appropriate bureau including your name, social security number, address, disputed accounts, and account numbers. You must sign the letter. Inform the bureau that you are disputing the data as it appears on your credit report.


Mistakes on Your Credit Report

Almost every item on your credit report will have some mistake, even if only slight. Do not acknowledge any any of the accuracies, but be sure to note all inaccuracies. Write next to each item something like, "not mine, not accurate, mistaken item, complete error," or whatever is most appropriate. Request a copy of the corrected report within thirty days. If they do not respond within 30 days, send another letter. In this letter you will include a copy of your dated original letter and a new letter firmly requesting they remove the disputed information. Include a cc: to the Federal Trade Commission.


Do Not Call the Credit Bureaus - Write Letters

The credit bureau may write a letter asking you to call. Do not call under any circumstances. Your phone call will be recorded and a log will be made of the conversation. Simply write back with copies of your original letters, telling them of the original date you submitted your request. Keep a file of all correspondence to and from the credit bureau and follow through continually. Do not get discouraged, as this will be worth your while.

What happens is that the credit bureaus forward your dispute to the individual creditors. who have forty-five days to respond. If they do not respond within the allotted time the item must be removed. However, if they do respond at a later date with information that documents the credit report is correct, the item will be placed back on your credit report.


Bankruptcies

For those of you who have filed bankruptcy in the past, the items that were discharged will normally show up as a charge-off or uncollected debt. You will want to write to the credit bureaus, providing a copy of your complete bankruptcy papers and request that they show the debt as "discharged in bankruptcy." This looks better and raises your FICO score. FICO sores above 680 make it easier to obtain mortgage loans.


Conclusion

You may not be able to clean up every item on your credit report using these methods, but you will certainly be able to improve the way it looks to potential creditors.

[IGotRealEstate]

I would also recoomend companies that do it for you. There is a company in Minnesota called Minnesota Credit Association.They send letters one a week until mistakes and corrections are taken off.

[Rich@vtws]

Good post. Imagine....a site with no bs, good people and usefull info!
Who would have ever thought it possible

[Tconsub1]

Hello,

My name is Trey Sublette and I am new to the site. I work for a company here in Southern California and we have two divisions. One division does personal credit repair and the other division helps people obtain unsecured corporate credit. I'm sure you've heard of a lot of companies that do this and you might even have someone already but we aren't like those other companies. We have a legal team that has worked with and the Attorney General of California (Gerry Brown) – so they are quit experienced! We don't send out the same old universal letter, we have our legal team call these collection agencies and speak directly to the person they need to. Our lawyers work on our clients behalf and make sure that everything is taken care of and eliminated from their credit reports permanently - this is key. After fixing their credit we send them back to there respected mortgage broker to get them funded for the loan needed. The most activity right now would be people forming corporations to go out take advantage of all of the foreclosures going down right now. Our service is guaranteed - so everyone wins!

We can remove:
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We can even add good credit history to their reports to also raise their Fico scores. On the corporation side we deal with clients helping them obtain $250,000 to $5,000,000 in unsecured corporate credit. We help build there corporation in levels and usually takes 5 to 6 months. Let me know if you have any questions what so ever about the process! i am truly looking forward to utilizing the site to become better at my profession.

[Sam Dodd]

What about my Real Estate Corporation? Sam Dodd Inc Could you lend me 5,000,000? Im good for it I promise!!! LoL Sorry for the thread hijack.

[webmaster]

the guy is a complete spammer. That's right I just called you a spammer! You better get your legal team on that You are not welcome here, nor is your clogging up of our forums with your self promotional crap appreciated. This is the second time I am reading this post in different threads, against the rules on a couple levels so we won't be seeing you again

[shayne54]

Just adding my .02 personally i would not have your clients call the creditors. Everything else looks good. Just please don't call any collection companies!

[avonreal]

i thought it was the lender(e.g. credit card company) that reports to the credit agencies not the borrower.

[gult]

There are a lot of good articles about credit report on http://www.CreditReportMonster.com, there is all kinds of information about credit reporting and scores online, its very helpfull.