A good credit score makes it possible to access loans and other credit facilities such as credit cards and to get the best terms when getting these products. It can also help you get an apartment to rent or pay less premium for your auto insurance, among other benefits. However, some circumstances can make your credit score nosedive. Maybe you missed some payments, paid late, or maxed your card limit. This would call for you to work on repairing the credit so you get back to enjoying the benefits of a good credit score. You may even consider engaging credit repair experts to help you restore your credit rating.
So, what are some mistakes you may make when doing credit repair?
Not keeping tabs on your credit reports
When was the last time you checked your credit report? Well, if you have not checked them lately, or at least in the past 12 months, and you are working on repairing your credit report, then you are sabotaging your efforts. This is because the first step in improving your credit score is to be aware of the contents of your credit report. If there are errors, unreported payments, or wrong information, you need to dispute formally to have them rectified.
Failing to get professional help
There are things that you can handle yourself when it comes to repairing your credit, say picking out obvious errors form your credit report or ensuring timely payments. Conversely, there are other things that you may not be best suited to handle, for example choosing the accounts to be added to help improve your score. This is where credit repair experts come in to assist you. They will help you to get top tradelines bbb that will boost your score and enable you to enjoy the benefits of impressive sores.
Filing illegitimate disputes
While it is within your right to dispute errors or other things in your credit report, you must ensure that they are legitimate. Some people use underhand techniques to try to remove black marks in their reports by disputing illegitimate things. This technique is also employed by scam credit repair companies. However, credit agencies do not just eliminate things from your credit report because you dispute them but will first investigate them and consult the lender. If such disputed issues turn out to be illegitimate, they will retain them on the report, so your efforts will just be futile.
But you may ask for inclusion of the disputed issues in your credit file and future reports. Those who access your credit report will see the issues, but it will not help if you disputed everything negative even when it is legitimate. The downside is that those who check such reports and see that you disputed all negative things will assume all the disputes are meaningless.
Closing old credit accounts
You must avoid closing any old accounts unless it is necessary. This is because the number of years your accounts have been open, the amount of debt, and the mix of debts determine up to 55% of your credit rating. Closure of accounts makes you lose all of these crucial things from the equation of computing your credit rating. You should ideally use your old credit cards at least once every six months to ensure that they remain active.
The Bottom Line
You must avoid the above mistakes as you repair your credit and others such as falsifying documents and not getting proper credit education. It is also necessary to know that restoring credit takes time, so you need to be patient and ensure that you pay your debts in time even if it means having reminders or automating payments.
