Get Free Credit Report

( Get A Free Credit Report is NOT a credit company. I have set this up to help my clients who have substandard credit help themselves. You should start improving your credit at the begining here ... I just give advise freely ... as long as you promise to stick it to the bankers! )

Get A Free Credit Report - The credit report is the mirror into your financial soul so you must stare into it deeply to affect real change. There are numerous agencies that will sell you a credit report but the link below will allow you to get a free credit report immediately. Once you have the report printed out come back to this page so we can isolate the bills you need to address.

(This company is called Privacy Matters and they are the rare company that comes through with a real three bureau credit report WITH SCORES for ALMOST FREE ... well they do charge you a buck to validate your debit card and they will try and get you to join a credit reporting service that will cost about $29 a month after a one week trail period.

It's actually a good idea because you will want to check your progress but for now you can simply join the service for the first 7 days, then cancel and get a $1 credit report to map out what you are going to do. Trust me - the "Free" Credit Reports you see advertised either don't give you all 3 reports or they don't give you scores and they try to hook you into the same $20/month services. FreeCreditReport.Com charges $39 for a three bureau report with scores. However, you can go to "FreeCreditReport.com" (click below) in 2 months and get another "free" report to check on your progress.

OPT OUT OF "APPROVED CREDIT" OFFERS:

You've surely got stacks of offers for credit cards. Believe it or not most of those offers are based on lenders looking at your credit report. This hurts your credit and is basically an annoying invasion of privacy. You can very simply click here and file out a form that will tell all three credit bureaus to make your credit off limits to anyone you have not authorized. Surprisingly this often results in an overnight improvement in credit scores, nothing amazing, but significant: 15 points is not unusual and that can be the difference between qualifying or not qualifying for a loan.

CHARGE OFFS & COLLECTIONS:

Obviously these items are affecting your credit worse than anything but they are also liberating in that once they are charged off, there affect on your credit will not become worse.

If an item is in a Charge Off or Collection status this must become a low priority item UNLESS IT IS A UTILITY WHICH COULD FACE DISCONNECTION. You never want any utility to disconnect because you will have to pay the total arrears plus a reconnect fee and possibly a deposit. Credit cards or store creditlines in these status' should only be addressed if they offer you a low settlement amount - usually the report will include a number that you can call to negotiate a settlement. Negotiated settlements are not good for your credit but they will help somewhat so if you can meet the terms it would be a good idea.

ACCOUNTS OVER 60 DAYS LATE:

You need to identify accounts that are reading currently 60 days or more late (indicated by a 3 in the payment history column, 2 means 30 days late, 4 means 90 days late, 5 means over 120 days late). You need to see which accounts you can realistically get up to date. If a $100 payment will get a credit card up to date, by all means do it because you need accounts that are reporting on-time payment. If however the minimum payment column is reading $565 on a credit card, then this debt may be "terminal". A terminal debt is one that you can't get to a current status with an amount of cash that wouldn't compromise paying other necessary expenses.

This is where you go into your credit report like a surgeon - you must make careful and painful decisions as to what debts you realistically can "cure" and which ones you will have to "amputate".

DEBTS THAT ARE OKAY OR "CURABLE":

You must try to find as many salvagable credit lines as possible because the only cure for bad credit is good creditlines. The last thing you want to do is pay off all of your good credit, then they won't report good payment. A store creditline with a $150 balance will be a great help in bringing your credit up - the same creditline is almost worthless with a zero balance.

If you don't have at least three good credit lines that you can salvage you will need to go out and get some. I have found several credit cards and credit lines that anyone can get, they all report to the credit bureaus so they can buoy your credit in no time...just put a small balance on them and forget them, except to make a tiny payment once a month that will rebuild your credit score in a matter of months. Okay, get a free credit report: That is STEP 3. Proceed.

Easy To Get Credit Cards

Reader's Write: "... Loanlad, I really f****d up. I got two cards like you told me. Then I immediately went out and maxed them out. Hecks, I ended up with like $70 in overlimit and late fees my second month. What should I do?"

Stan

*** Stan, you are just stupid. Let this be a lesson to everyone reading this...get the card for the credit benefit, not for spending money. You have to stay under 50% of the available balance and pay on time. Remember, these are BAD credit cards, they will be merciless if you don't stay on top of them.

Back to you Stanley: send a big check to the credit card company and take a smart pill.

A Cautionary Tale:

I get axed a lot why I don't do any hands on credit repair for clients anymore ( I used to do it all the time). Here's reason # 387:

About two years ago Randy came to me in desparate need of a $700,000 refy. His credit was crap but he had more excuses than Bayer has pills and I bought every one of them. I sent out dispute letters to all of the bureaus at the expense of many hours labor and certified mail charges. Two months later I pull his credit ready to bask in the glorious improvement he surely had experienced.

I can only guess that Randy was so sure of my efforts that he decided he could skip his mortgage the whole time. Needless to say his scores dived through awful to the bottom of horrible. I now had a client who couldn't get approved for a mortgage with Alan Greenspan as a co-signer.

Since then I have realized that the most important asset in credit repair is dedication and I can't supply that...only you can. Don't be a Randy.

HOW ARE CREDIT SCORES CALCULATED?

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