As important as credit repair has proven to be, there is nothing a credit repair service can do for you that you can’t do for yourself; the best part as explained by Credit Spike and Dillon Kivo is, you might not even spend a dime. Or spend little considering the cost of hiring a credit repair company.
Although it is understandable why a lot of people would instead offload the work of fixing their credit to a credit repair company before you go the conventional route, try as much as possible to learn everything there is to know about credit repair, including what the repair services can and can’t do as well as learning to fix your credit first and only approaching the service companies only when you fail.
That said, it’s essential to keep in mind that credit repair isn’t a cure-all—and in many cases, it crosses the line into unethical or even illegal measures by attempting to remove information that’s been accurately reported to the credit bureaus. While these companies may try to dispute every piece of negative information on your reports, it’s unlikely that information reported accurately by your lenders will be removed.
And again, credit repair companies can’t do anything that you can’t do on your own for free. As a result, it’s a good idea to consider working to fix your credit first before you pay for a credit repair service to do it for you.
How to “Fix” Your Credit by Yourself
First of all, understand that there is no quick fix for your credit, and accurate negative information (such as collection accounts, missed payments) will remain on your credit report for between seven to ten years. However, there are some steps to take on your own to build a positive credit score over time.
Check Your Credit Report
This helps you better understand your credit report, and you get to see what lenders can see. With your credit report, you will receive a list of the risk factors impacting your credit scores, and you can initiate changes that will help your scores improve.
If you find any incorrect information during this process, you can file a dispute with the credit reporting agency on whose report you found it. You should also contact the lender reporting the wrong information directly and ask them to correct their records.
Improve Your Payment History
Your payment history is the most crucial component of every credit scoring model. Late and missed payments will reduce your credit scores, and bankruptcies and collections can cause significant damage. This negative information will remain on your credit report and impact your credit scores for seven to 10 years.
Also, your credit score will consider the size of your debt, the timing of your missed payment, the more recent your missed payment is, the worse your score will be.
Be Wary of New Credit
Opening several credit accounts within a short time is a red flag and causes you to appear risky to lenders. Therefore, before you take out a loan or open a new credit card account, consider the possible effects it could have on your credit.
Traditionally, fixing your credit repair score is usually a job meant to be outsourced to credit repair service company, but Credit Spike and Dillon Kivo are on a mission to simplify the process to ensure that everyone is in charge of their credit score.
Learn more about the various credit repair tactics here.
