Many businesses offer to repair your credit. There are credit repair specialists, credit repair lawyers, credit repair kits and credit repair counseling; the list goes on and on. If you are confused about how to repair credit scores, then you will be even more confused by this vast array of services and items which are supposed to help you repair your credit. There are certain things that you can keep in mind which may help you choose between credit repair counseling and other products. Credit repair is a very individual thing. Everyone has different issues and therefore has different needs.

The first step in learning how to repair credit scores is to obtain copies of your credit reports. At www.annualcreditreport.com, you can view and print your credit reports. The information stored on them is the basis of your credit score. The FICO score is all that many lenders look at these days and many decisions are made by computer and the information recorded on your credit reports affects your FICO score. You can improve and repair your credit scores, if you can remove inaccurate, misleading or unverifiable negative information from you credit reports.

The next thing to learn about how to repair credit scores is how to report inaccurate information. Even people who have excellent credit should occasionally review their credit reports for inaccurate information. Identity theft is fairly common and can ruin a person’s credit rating. If you believe that you may have been a victim of identity theft, then you should notify the credit bureaus immediately and have them put a “fraud alert” on your account. Other inaccurate information should be reported in writing to the appropriate credit bureau. They have 30 days to investigate your dispute and when the information is removed it should help to repair your credit score.

Many people get credit repair counseling and consumer credit counseling confused. They are not the same thing. Consumer Credit Counseling Services, which are non-profit organizations, do many things to help consumers create a workable budget and pay off their debt, but they do not provide information about how to repair credit scores. Some “for profit” companies have chosen names similar to “Consumer Credit Counseling Services” in order to attract business. So if you are in need of credit counseling, rather than credit repair counseling, it is recommended that you learn about their fees up front. Even the “non-profits” charge a fee, but it is far less than that charged by the “for profits”. Paying off debt will help to repair your credit scores. A portion of your score is computed by comparing amounts of available to amounts of used credit.

Learning how to repair credit scores is time consuming and sometimes frustrating, but it is worthwhile. If you can successfully repair your credit scores or even improve your credit scores, you may save hundreds or thousands of dollars in excess interest. Including a consumer statement, sometimes called a “hundred word statement” may not repair your credit score, but some lenders do look at this information.

People who want to know how to repair credit scores and do not have limited finances may be able to obtain results more quickly by contacting a law firm that specializes in credit repair issues. These people can repair your credit for you, saving you time and probably saving you money in the long run. There are some credit repair counseling services which recommend strategies such as file segregation and applying for employer ID numbers in order to create a “new” credit history. These recommendations are illegal. You may want to know how to repair credit scores, but you do not want to create legal problems for yourself.

For more information about how to repair your credit, visit the Credit Repair Blog.

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