Is your credit rating in the dumps? Are you paying high interest rates and fees? Are you sick of the high cost and embarrassment that comes with bad credit?

The good news is – there are things you can do today to improve credit score.

1. First you need to figure out what is on your credit report. This can be done at www.annualcreditreport.com – this is free and will provide you a copy of your report with each bureau once a year.

2. Next you need to identify the bad credit items. These are charge offs, liens, collections, repossessions, civil judgements …

3. You now need to dispute these items. To do this you must file a credit dispute with each bureau. This means you must write a letter to each bureau in which you include the disputed item, reason for the dispute, dates, and any other information you have concerning the item.

4. The bureaus will typically blow off your first letter, second letter, and sometimes even third. You will often hear back from them requesting that you provide additional information about the item in question. The bureaus will do this regardless of if they need it or not.

This is a stall tactic used to encourage you to give up on trying to fix credit score and instead just live with the high cost of damaged credit. However if you are persistent you will get the item investigated or you can hire a professional credit law firm to do this on your behalf.

5. Settle you outstanding debts. If you are being contacted by debt collectors you should negotiate payment. However before you negotiate a settlement we strongly encourage you to seek debt validation.

This is when the collection agency must prove that they have a legal right to collect and contact you regarding this debt. If they can not prove this then you do not haveto pay the debt and the item will be removed from your report once it is disputed.

If you decide to repair your credit report on your own, make sure you remain persistent and determined. While the bureaus are huge bureacuracies and have created a bunch of red tape to get through you can have your dispute investigated. If you use a service just sit back and relax.

When an investigation occurs the bureau will contact the lender and ask them to verify the account. If the lender is unable to verify your account then it must be removed.

To your benefit it is very common for lenders to throw away the paperwork for old accounts and not want to spend the man hours researching a debt. For instance a credit card that is charged off will show up on your report.

Next, the credit card company is going to sell your debt to a collection agency. Now the credit card company has a tax write off and has gotten all the payment they believe is worth trying to get out of the account.

There is no need for them to keep the paperwork as this costs money and jams up access to needed information. Further, this company is going to be unwilling to spend the time to verify this account and that it was charged off, because there is no motive.

The credit card company would just be spending money for no reason to do this. Therefore it will not be verified and the bureaus must remove it from your report!

Take advantage and get your start to a clear credit history today – get a free credit consultation by calling 1-800-230-1954.