How to Repair Credit for Free

| Tedis Baboumian |

The information on your credit report affects financial decisions that can have a big impact on your life from being approved for a credit card to getting a job to purchasing an insurance policy. A good credit score comes from a history of being responsible about how you handle borrowed money by always making payments on time and not borrowing more money than you can afford to pay back. If you don’t have good credit and have made some mistakes handling loans or credit cards, you may be wondering how to repair credit for free.

What is Credit Repair?

Credit repair is fixing inaccurate information on your credit report that is bringing down your credit score. Repairing your credit can be time-consuming and you may wish to have someone else take care of it for you. Some companies work on getting items removed from your credit report in exchange for payment. They may contact the credit bureaus or write letters on your behalf and follow up on disputes. They usually have experience working with creditors and credit agencies and know what items can be disputed.

Repairing Your Own Credit

If you want to try to handle repairing your credit yourself, the first thing you’ll need to do is get a copy of your credit reports from AnnualCreditReport.com. Review your reports to make sure they are accurate. Things to look for include:

  • Errors involving personal information, such as your address or social security number
  • Mistakes on your payment history such as showing you paid late when you paid on time
  • Duplicate accounts
  • Incorrect outstanding balances
  • Negative items that should have been removed after seven years such as collections accounts, foreclosures, judgements or liens
  • Inquiries that you didn’t authorize

Make sure there are no items on your credit report that don’t belong to you. Any errors or inaccurate information that you find needs to be disputed.

What You Need to Do

Submit disputes to the credit bureaus in writing. You may also want to contact the creditor that’s reporting wrong information. The credit bureau has 30 days to respond. If the dispute doesn’t come out in your favor, you have a right to add a 100-word statement to your credit report.

Besides filing and following up on disputes, effective credit repair also means being careful to take charge of your credit going forward. Catch up on any past due bills and get in the habit of paying your bills on time. If you’re using more than 30 percent of the available balance on credit cards, work on paying them down. Taking out a personal loan to consolidate your debt may also help to improve your credit.

Getting Help with Your Credit

Many consumers feel that they don’t know anything about credit and want help with credit repair. Dovly is an AI credit engine that can handle the dispute process for you, and we’ve launched a free credit repair plan. When you partner with Dovly, you can be assured you’ll be in the best possible hands for working on your credit. Contact Dovly today and start fixing your credit.

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