If you are looking to improve your credit realize you are not alone. If your score is below a 700 you should take action to improve your credit score.

1. You first need to get a copy of your credit reports – you need to get a copy of your report with each bureau. In other words you need to get your Trans Union report, Equifax report, and Experian report. Why? You will probably be surprised to see how different each report is.

Also you need to know which bureaus are listing what negative items on your report so you can dispute these items and get them removed!

2. Identify what negative items are bringing down your score – this will include items such as; a credit judgement, charge offs, tax liens, repossessions, foreclosure …

3. You should dispute these items with the bureaus – you know that saying that you have to just live with bad credit for 7-10 years – well it is complete BULL!!

In fact the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) a piece of legislation that was passed to protect you from the credit bureaus says that the longest an item can remain on your report is for a “maximum of seven years.” Nowhere is there a mention of the minimum amount of time an item must remain on your report!

In fact it is just the opposite. The reason the law was passed was to prevent lenders and creditors from keeping a negative item on your report for longer than 7 years! Unfortunately, this law is constantly be violated as we have seen bad credit items stay on a report for much longer than seven years – which is illegal.

Additionally in the FCRA it says you can dispute any item you feel is inaccurate. I find it almost laughable when I hear all these myths that the so called “experts” perpetuate about how you can not dispute items on your report and have to just live with bad credit – IT’S NOT TRUE!!! You can dispute ANY item – according to the law and enjoy improve credit score.

In a recent study it was found that approximately 25% of all credit reports contain an error on them. Unfortunately this error could be costing you real dollars and cents – in high interest rates, down payments – and who knows it could have disqualified you for a job position. A rapidly growing trend is employers will run a potential hire’s credit before offering them a position.

4. Pay your bills on time – even if you have made mistakes in the past and have some bad credit items that doesn’t always mean your score will be ruined. In fact as these mistakes age on your report they will influence your score less and less.

However you payment history is a VERY important factor when your score is calculated. If you can start to build a positive on time payment history it will help your score even if you have negative items on your report.

5. Settle your outstanding debts – often people believe that if they just pay old debts it will help their credit score – THIS IS NOT TRUE!! Unfortunately you can pay old debts and the items will continue to remain on your credit report. An account may be changed to ‘paid’ but that could even hurt your score as it shows you have been active with the account – instead of the debt being an old aging financial mistake.

When you settle your outstanding debts you need to first seek debt validation. This forces the bill collector to prove that they have legal rights to collect this account – and you would be surprised how often a bill collector is unable to provide this simple documentation.

If they can not prove they own your debt – you don’t have to pay and the bureau has to remove bad credit item from your credit report. If they do own your debt then you need to come to a settlement agreement but as a stipulation you must have them agree to stop reporting the item to the bureaus.

Don’t worry – this is common practice and the reason you must do this is so that you can file a credit report dispute after your settlement.

Once the bureaus deem your dispute valid they will investigate the item and contact the bill collector to verify the account. However as a stipulation of your settlement the debt collector will not verify your account with the bureaus and therefore the bureaus will have to remove the item and give you a clear credit report.

Sounds easy, right? It can be, however the big road block most people run into is getting the credit bureaus to deem your dispute valid and conduct an investigation. Unfortunately it is not in the bureaus financial interest to ensure they have accurate information about you.

This is because you are not the customer. The bureaus sell your information to private business – every time your credit is checked the bureaus cash register rings. The credit bureaus annually recorded profits in the billions of dollars!

And when they investigate disputes they are spending money that would otherwise be potential profits. In fact the bureaus have been fined time and time again for not complying with the FCRA and conducting investigations.

This is when many individuals turn to credit repair companies – because they are familiar with the bureaus tactics and have the legal resources to ensure a dispute is investigated. A service also has more tools to combat the bureaus they can use; court intervention, goodwill intervention, debt inquiry, and most importantly debt validation.

We recommend the Lexington Law Firm they have been in business for over 20 years and in the year 2010 they removed over 1.2 million items from their clients credit reports.

If you go with a service all you have to do is forward them your credit reports and tell them what items you want to dispute. Then sit back and wait for the investigation result letter from the bureaus. This will tell you if an item was verified or removed from your report.

In sum you don’t just have to live with bad credit – take action today and repair my credit history. For a free credit consultation call 1-800-230-1954.