How to Clean Up your Credit History

Your credit history has a major impact on the quality of your financial future. People who are better at managing their money will be rewarded with lower interest rates, and the opposite is true for people with bad credit history- they will pay more for loans via higher interest rates.

To Clean up your past credit discrepancies, start with the big three credit reporting agencies; Experian, Trans Union, and Equifax. These are where you will obtain a credit report so that you have a visual of what your credit history actually is.

You will review and challenge any marks on your credit report by writing the credit bureau with a letter of request to change inaccurate information.

It is also advisable that you order a copy of your credit report every year to check for unauthorized activity, such as identity theft. Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes and can leave innocent consumers financially ruined for years to come. If you find that you are already a victim of ID theft, you can contact the credit bureaus right away and request that a fraud alert be put on your file, which will trigger a much more stringent identification verification process when applying for credit.

If there are current creditors on your credit report that you are having trouble making payments to, contact those creditors right away to work out a payment plan better suited to your income. If that does not work, contact a local, government-sponsored, consumer credit counseling service that can help you out with payment arrangements and negotiations.

Cleaning up your credit history is one thing, but keeping it free of debt is something different altogether. A credit monitorring service is well worth the low fees they charge to keep on eye on your credit report and will immeadiately notify you of any unauthorized activity.

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