Erasing Negative Credit

The fourth quarter is already here and for most of us it was a busy year. For those who suffered job loss or worse yet gave into those retail stores sale temptations – you may have suffered some critical hits to your credit report. We’ve often talked about the importance of checking your credit report on a consistent basis – it will not affect your credit rating to check your own report and you must stay on top of any potential problems.

Although there is no way to pay a company or individual to have your negative credit ratings removed – you can over time turn those negatives around yourself. It just takes budgeting, monitoring and a strong will and self-discipline.

Let’s review those steps:

• The moment you see trouble coming in your finances – contact your creditors and alert them to your situation. Your goal should be to discuss a temporary new payment option – either negotiate a reduced interest rate; a new monthly payment amount; or getting approved to skip a few payments. Whatever the outcome – get it in writing to include the exclusion of any negative impact to your credit report. Never hang up without the person’s full name, title, phone number and the date you should get a response.

• Always remember your priorities – house, utilities, food, insurance, auto loans, and prescriptions.

• Re-Evaluate your budget to include sweeping through credit cards and getting rid of those high interest, high fee relationships. Don’t close the accounts – just pay off the balances as quickly as possible – then leave the cards alone. Remember; if you cannot pay your entire balance every month then don’t charge it. The only exception to this would be a serious emergency.

• If your bill is due on the 15th – you must pay it on the 15th or before - Just being one day late will negatively impact your credit report.

• Consider working with a credit counselor – contact a local nonprofit counseling agency in your community. Most often they can provide free or reduced fee services to help you through some serious credit concerns.  

• Write dispute letters as soon as possible when you find errors on your report. Remember to look for dates – most negative credit listings should be removed after 7 years.

• For any bad debt or collection – you need to work with the collections agency – but remember that you are not obligated to pay any large fees or penalties; nor suffer verbal abuse or threatening actions from the collectors.

You can also contact the National Foundation for Consumer Credit, American Consumer Credit Counseling or Debtors Anonymous.
If you need legal information contact: Consumer FindLaw

Credit & Financial Matters