10 Step Credit Repair Guide
Thank you for visiting our ultimate credit repair guide! We’ve been asked for “a guide to how to repair my credit myself” from many consumers and we’ve been asked, “what is the best way to repair my credit?”, “how do I repair my credit” or “Should I hire a credit repair company?” We’ve got the answers to all of these questions right here within this 10 part free credit repair training tutorial. If you do not fully understand how credit repair works, simply run through these 10 steps, and in the end, you will be close to being an expert! :) Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions.
Repairing your credit does not have to be difficult. You just have to know the steps involved. In step 1 of this 10 part series, we discuss how credit repair works and what you can expect when either repairing your credit yourself or if you are using a credit repair company. Let us show you how the credit repair process works from start to finish.
We will show you what will happen step-by-step in chronological order from the moment you pull your credit reports until you receive your dispute letter results from the credit repair agencies.
Understanding Credit Repair Laws
When undergoing credit repair, it would behoove you to fully understand the credit repair laws that have been enacted for your protection. Understanding and leveraging these laws will help you to legally remove negative items from your credit reports. Remember, you are not powerless when it comes to improving your credit score. Since about 79% of credit reports contain errors, your credit could be suffering due to no fault of your own.
That’s why you, as a consumer, are awarded several rights within these credit repair laws that protect you from such errors and inaccuracies. Also, see our in-depth guide to some very powerful legal credit loopholes that you can leverage right away eliminate negative information, and raise your score quickly.
How Much Does Credit Repair Cost
The cost of credit repair will vary from case to case because each individual situation is different. Factors include how many derogatory items that you have, how recent they are, and how stubborn they are to get removed. So what we’ve done, is we’ve benchmarked a lot of data from the last 10 years to get an accurate average cost per consumer to repair their credit.
We have looked at the average amount of time each consumer has stayed within a credit repair program and multiplied that by the average amount that the companies charge to come up with a number that you expect to pay. It’s not as much as you might think, and we feel it is certainly worth it if it helps you to raise your score and establish good credit. PS: You can repair your credit on your own and save a lot of money. See 13 clever ways on how to raise your score fast.
How Long Does Credit Repair Take?
“How long will it take to repair my credit“? This is another question that we get asked often. Because each individual client’s case is different and because personal expectations also differ, the length of time is unique to each case. A client that has many derogatories will surely take a little bit longer than if a client only has a few items to be deleted. The stubbornness of how hard it is to getting difficult items to remove plays a factor as well.
So what we have done, is we have taken over 10 years of data directly from our recommended credit repair companies and we’ve looked at the length of time that the average client stayed in the program to come up with a pretty accurate amount of time of how long it takes to repair their credit.
Understanding your Credit Reports and How To Read Them
There are three major credit bureaus, and when you order your credit report from them, they all have different layouts and formats. Some have unique codes and statuses of how your accounts are standing, and how you are managing and handling them.
For the most part, though, getting to the pertinent information is not that difficult. We will show you how to scour your report and look for items that stand out and need improving or simply need getting deleted. It’s just a matter of understanding the art of how to read your credit reports.
Checking Credit Reports for Accuracy
Once you know how to read your credit reports, checking them for accuracy is the next most important step. Accounts can be listed twice, accounts that aren’t yours could be listed, your credit limit that your creditor reported could be wrong, your name could be misspelled, and much much more.
Going through your report in-depth, and with a fine-tooth comb, is imperative to finding the smallest of inaccuracies. We’ll show you what to look for and what to do when you find it. Do not let the credit bureau sell your information to your prospective creditors with inaccurate information about your financial profile. We want to make sure that you did not do that.
Once you have found and identified inaccuracies in your credit report, the next step is to dispute them. In part 7 of our 10 step guide, we will show you how to dispute by writing letters to the credit agencies and most importantly what you need to put in those letters.
There are some secrets to the trade to get results. It’s always better to hire a professional credit repair company to do this step, but you could also do it on your own. Go to step 7 right now and learn how to dispute inaccuracies today.
Wait For Credit Agency Response Letters
After you send your dispute letters to three major credit bureaus there is a small waiting game. The credit agencies (or creditors) have 30 days to respond to your disputes. You simply need to wait until you get the verification letters of their findings of what you disputed. This usually takes about 45 days from the time that you initially set your dispute.
When you receive your response letters from the agencies, you simply read them and see what they have deemed as verified or what they have deleted for you.
Redisputing and Repeating The Process
Once you have received the responses from the credit bureaus on the items that you have disputed you can see what has been deemed as verifiable and what has been removed off of your credit reports.
At this point, all you need to do is re-dispute all of the items that were not removed from the previous round. Make sure that you have a good reason for disputing. All of your information must be 100% accurate or it must be removed.
Even if you’re still in the middle of repairing your credit you can start utilizing strategies that will help you to immediately start rebuilding your credit and your financial well-being. By taking small baby steps and by being responsible and making your payments in a timely matter, over time you can surely rebuild your credit.
Take a look at some of these sound strategies you can implement straight away to rebuild your credit.
Here are Some Quick Jumplinks to Our Other Resourses
Thank you for visiting our step-by-step credit repair guide! Below are other great resources to help you to repair your credit.
See our credit repair help guide to find answers and solutions to a lot of common questions and to some of the more difficult problems that you might be needing answers to. We are here to help and we hope our resources are useful.
Our blog has a handful of interesting articles that we hope may be of some quick assistance.
Want to be in the top echelon of consumers with the highest scores? See our guide on how to get an 800 credit score today!
Want to know a little more about us? See our mission and read the story of our founder Charlie Daidone and how he repaired his own credit using the very companies and strategies that we endorse.
See our top picks of the best overall credit repair companies All of the companies that we endorse, we have used firsthand and we have proof of real actual deletions and improvements that these companies have realized for us.
We have also decided that we want to be a 100% authority on all things credit repair related, especially the reputableness of the many online companies, so we decided to create the most extensive list of every single national credit repair company with the intent to provide consumers with the best and most accurate up-to-date information. All of our findings are to the best of our knowledge and what we have gathered through our in-house research. If we do not know enough about a particular company, that will be noted and, as we always do, we will urge consumers to do their own research and use due diligence before moving forward with a credit repair company.