Let's face it, your credit score is not as high as you would like it to be, and your credit history is not as white as the driven snow. Perhaps there is a reason for that. Years ago, you did not take the privilege of credit seriously enough and you have learned your lessons in the meantime. Or perhaps your credit history took a downward spiral due to unexpected circumstances which were out of your control, such as a job layoff, divorce, high medical bills, or something else.
Whatever the reason, there are very few people on the planet that have a squeaky clean credit history with the enviable credit score of 750 or higher.
But there are other reasons that ARE in your control that your credit score may not be as high as it should be. Multiple studies have shown that of the three separate credit reporting agencies that report your credit score, chances are better than excellent that there are errors in at least one of those credit reports on you, and perhaps all three of them.
The credit bureaus do not share information between themselves, since they operate independently as profitable companies. It is no skin off their nose if there are errors in your credit report, they could not care less. But that said, each of them has a legal obligation to find out the truth on a particular credit report item, IF you bring it to their attention that you believe the data is inaccurate or does not even belong to you. You are almost guaranteed to have such items on your credit reports, and the end result of this fact is that your credit score is being calculated lower than it really should be.
Given this fact, many people run out and try to find a credit repair company. For crying out loud, WHY? To get the errors corrected? You of course want to get the errors corrected, but be aware that there is nothing that a credit repair company can do that you cannot also do, at no cost. They would like you to believe differently, and if you really don't have time in your schedule to hassle with writing some letters yourself to officially get this into the dispute queue of the credit bureaus, well then maybe you need to spend the money for them to do it for you. But if you have time to sit down and watch re-runs of Gilligan's Island or Star Trek for the umpteenth time, I submit that you DO have the time to do this yourself instead of paying someone else to do it.
If you need a tree stump removed from your front yard or you need the shocks replaced in your car, I can understand where you would want to pay someone else to do that for you, because you very simply do not have the skill set to do it yourself. But surely you do have enough skills to throw together a few coherent sentences to dispute those errors yourself, don't you? Especially when the only thing it is going to cost you would be a few postage stamps?
Put forth the effort to understand how to spot such items on your credit report and how to get free copies of your credit reports so you know what to dispute and the proper way to dispute it. You can raise your credit score by removing items that should not be included in that calculation, and you will be much better off for your time spent.
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