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Saturday, January 3, 2009

Improve Your Credit Score By Checking Your Credit Report

By Jim Bransby

Never before has your credit score been so important to decisions that are being made about you. When you apply for a credit card, car loan, or another type of credit, this will trigger a credit check and generate multiple credit reports. These are used by a lender to make decisions about whether or not to lend to you, how much, and at what rate. Credit scores are now even used by potential employers, utility and service providers, and other companies.

That said, improving your credit score is of vital importance. The major credit reporting bureaus use different methods to assemble credit scores, but these methods are similar enough that the same steps will be effective to improve all of your credit scores.

First of all, you need to know the players. There are three major credit reporting bureaus. Each of these has a file about you. Their files are built up over time by assembling the information that credit providers give the credit bureaus. Each time you obtain credit, it goes into your file; and then the credit provider gives the credit bureaus a record of your repayment of that credit.

For example, you have a car loan that requires you to make a payment on the 5th of each month for 36 months. Over the first year, lets say that you make two late payments on the 20th of the month, while the rest are considered on time. The lender sends a report of this repayment activity to each credit reporting bureau. Each bureau uses their own proprietary formula to compute your score based on the information reported by creditors to them.

The next step is applying to check your credit report. This is vital information a" think of it as your financial health record. There are many offers available on the internet through which you can apply to check your credit report and your credit score.

After you have obtained your credit report and score, look closely at the information that has been provided by your creditors. Be sure that all the creditors reporting to your credit file are actually your accounts. If you see creditors on the report that you did not borrow from, you can easily improve your score by having these incorrect entries removed from your report.

Next, review the payment histories on your report for accuracy. If creditors are reporting incorrect late payments or not crediting payments that you have made, your can further improve your score by correcting this information. The credit score report will provide the addresses of the three credit bureaus. Simply follow the instructions to contact them and identify errors in your report.

Each credit bureau will individually look into errors. Sometimes you will need to communicate with the bureaus more than once to get things resolved, so it is important to keep a file of letters and responses. As you remove the incorrect late payments or other inaccuracies, your score can improve dramatically in a short time.

As it is so vital, apply to check your credit report as soon as possible, then continue to do so at least annually. The more you are aware of your financial health record, the more easily you can improve your credit score. Since credit scores are so commonly used today, improving yours will help you in many ways.

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