How To Fix A Bad Credit Score FAST & FOR FREE

in just a moment i'm going to show you a reliable set of steps to fix bad credit fast this video is for you if you have no credit bad credit or just want to boost your scores as high as humanly possible probably similar to you my parents never told me about the importance of good credit or what it takes to boost your credit and the truth is that having bad credit is downright expensive not only are you denied for the best credit cards out there but you also get the worst terms on car loans and home loans or may not be able to qualify at all for a car loan home loan or an apartment i'm on a mission to change that and by the end of this video you will know the simple steps you need to take to fix and boost your credit score fast the best part about it is that all the steps are absolutely free and you know what else is free you helping the channel out by hitting that like button on this video so that more people can see and benefit from this video but seriously follow the steps and you are sure to boost your score in no time and if you have any questions be sure to leave a comment below let's get into it step number one pull credit reports before doing anything else you must know where you are and what you have to work with you can pull your credit report from all three major credit bureaus equifax transunion and experian for free by going to annualcreditreport.com i've also found that you can view your credit report for free by visiting the official sites for each credit bureau and starting a dispute online lastly you can view your credit report by signing up for a credit monitoring service such as credit karma in short you shouldn't have to pay to get a credit report the purpose is to find out what items in your credit report are causing your scores to be so low now make sure you get a credit report for all three credit bureaus generally they will contain the same information but they tend to show and report different things on each one for example you may have a collection on one report that does not show up on another and that is something you don't want to miss step number two check for errors nearly 25 percent of all credit reports contain errors that may be harming your credit score without you even knowing so now that you have your report here are the errors you want to look out for the first is wrong personal information think name misspellings wrong addresses and things of that nature next is missing accounts those would be on-time payments that are not showing this is a huge one then there are accounts that do not belong to you incorrect dates false inquiries incorrect bankruptcies and foreclosures duplicate accounts incorrect account statuses delinquencies or derogatory remarks think about closed accounts when they're supposed to be open or late 90 days when it should only be late 60 days you want to look out for things like that now once you've identified errors make note of them as we will learn in a second how to get rid of them alright step number three check for negative marks here i want you to make note of all the derogatory marks that actually belong to you i'll be showing you the best method to resolve these negative marks in just a moment so start by looking for these items first is no credit history or very little history at all we've all heard the phrase it takes credit to build credit wait i think that had to do with money but either way is true for credit as well to get a fico score you need to have at least six months of credit history and one credit bureau reporting your activity to get the highest credit scores you will need to have credit for at least seven years next look for any late payments these are payments that are typically not reported late until 30 days after your due date and will be in your credit report for seven years then i want you to pay attention to any collections collections hurts your score a lot and is basically unpaid debt that is sold to collection agencies for pennies on the dollar you know the ones that call you all day and night from 20 different numbers collections typically happen after five to six months of late payments and stay on your report for seven years next look for account charge-offs after a period of time after you fail to resolve the debt or simply cannot pay the lender will simply call it awash aka a charge off account charge off stay on your report for seven years next up is high utilization when it comes to your credit score high utilization is considered using more than 30 of your total credit limit available then there's repossessions when you can't pay for an item such as a car the lender has the right to repossess the item aka come get it back from you repossessions will stay on your credit report for seven years then there is student loan delinquency or default man i can make a whole video about student loans but just know that private student loans that are late by more than 30 days can show up on your credit report and student loans that are late more than 90 days can show up as well student loan delinquencies stay on your report for seven years then we have bankruptcy different forms of bankruptcy will stay on your credit report for different lengths of time chapter 13 bankruptcy will stay on your credit report for seven years and chapter seven bankruptcy will stay on your report for 10 years lastly we have foreclosures which occur when the bank takes the house back after failing to make payments foreclosure stay on your report for seven years okay so we know what to fix let's talk about how to fix it here's exactly what to do first with how to fix errors if you see items on your report that are not accurate or not yours you have the right to dispute it you can dispute anything you see with each individual credit reporting agency either in writing or online using the dispute forms on their website credit reporting agencies are required to verify that information with the creditor within 30 days by law if the errors cannot be verified it must be deleted so simple rule not chores are not accurate disputed heck even if it is accurate you should try and dispute it anyway many creditors won't go through the hassle of verifying and you may get an easy removal just by trying now i'm not necessarily recommending it but there is literally no harm in trying all right say you have no credit history or a short credit history if you have a short credit history do these four things to help your credit score the first thing is to take out a secured credit card secured credit cards require a cash deposit which then acts as your credit line meaning if you deposit 200 your line of credit will be 200 the good news is that secured credit cards report on your credit report which can improve your payment history and your length of credit once your credit is improved enough you can ask the credit card issuer to convert the secured credit card into a regular credit card and the best part about it is that your account will remain during the transfer keeping your length of credit in place the second thing you can do is to get a credit builder loan credit builder loans were made to actually help those with little to no credit history or those with bad credit in general to qualify they don't require you to have good credit to get approved but do require you to have the income necessary for repayment the third thing you can do is become an authorized user on someone's credit card this means that you are not responsible for the payments but the account is reported on your credit report so it's best to become an authorized user but someone you know has good credit building habits as both the positive and the negatives will be reported also make sure that the bank actually reports authorized user activity to the credit bureaus most do but some do not according to nerd wallet here are the banks that do report the fourth thing you can do is report non-debt items on your credit report most people don't know this but you can actually request that your on-time rent payments show up on your experian credit report and that's done through experian rent bureau you can do this by simply asking your landlord or using a third-party rent payment service additionally you can sign up for experian boost which can add up to 24 months of positive telephone utility and streaming device payments to your experian credit report pretty cool right next we have late payments okay let's talk about what you can do to improve your credit if you have late payments the first thing you would want to do is make a payment as soon as possible i know duh but hear me out payment history is the most important part of your credit score making up 35 of your total score and making it the fastest way to help or hurt your score and the longer payment is late the more it hurts your score because 180 days late is worse than being 90 days late which is worse than being 30 days late i understand that paying might not be the most immediate thing you can do but as soon as possible at a minimum make a minimum payment the second thing you can do is ask for what's called a goodwill adjustment you'd be surprised how far you can get by simply asking a creditor to remove late payments as a goodwill gesture it works especially well after being on time for quite a while as it proves good faith to do this just call or mail the creditor or forgiveness letter explaining your situation here's a template that you can use the best thing that can happen is just a question away the third thing you can do is negotiate removal by signing up for auto payments does this really work yes it can and is worth it to try but only attempt this knowing you will have the funds to cover the automatic payment now let's discuss high utilization rates if you have a high utilization rate meaning over 30 on a monthly basis lowering it to under 30 can improve your scores dramatically here are a few ways to do it the first thing you can do is ask your issuer when they report many credit card companies report your balance and payment history every 30 days but the day they report is not always the same as your build due date it could be before or after which means you could be paying off your bill on time and still show a high utilization rate to help fight this ask your credit card issuer what day they report to the credit card agencies armed with the correct date you will know when and how often to pay your credit card so you always show the best utilization percentage the second thing you can do is ask for an increased credit limit there are times when your credit card issuer will raise your credit limit without you even having to request it but it doesn't happen often so to take matters into your own hands by asking for an increase either online or via phone by increasing your credit limit you automatically decrease your utilization rate note that there may be qualifications to getting an increase accepted as well as a hard inquiry so make sure you have a good chance of qualifying before risking the hard inquiry the third thing you can do is to ask to be an authorized user on someone's credit card if someone with the consistently great payment history and utilization rate allows you to be an authorized user on their account it automatically helps your utilization rate as well the fourth thing you can do is open a new credit card when you get a new credit card you increase your credit limit and therefore decrease your total utilization the downside of applying for a new credit card is that it will likely result in a hard inquiry and can affect your average length of credit if accepted now i don't typically suggest this route unless you have a very long credit history and the ability to qualify for a card a bonus tip for your utilization is to not close unused cards closing a card can result in a lower credit limit which pushes your utilization up and can lower your average length of credit if you had the card for a while all right let's talk about charge offs and collections if you hate charge offs and collections you are not alone here are a few ways to deal with them on your credit report the first thing you should do is dispute it if there's an error you want to check for things such as a wrong account number outdated status wrong date of delinquency or a date passed seven years ago if any of these things appear go ahead and follow dispute based on the incorrect information as mentioned previously in many cases creditors and collection agencies are too lazy to fight the dispute the second thing you can do is ask for a goodwill deletion when dealing with charge offs and collections ask and you shall receive sometimes go ahead and send a letter to the original creditor explaining your situation and asking them to remove the collection or charge off a well-written one that points to a specific circumstance may get it removed for you this usually works best after you have paid the debt the third thing you can do is write a pay for delete letter that's right try sending the charge off creditor or collection agency a pay for delete letter that explains that you will pay the debt if they remove it from your credit report think about it they need you just as much as you need them if you don't pay they don't make money on their purchase debt it's not guaranteed to work but it's definitely a win-win scenario and something you should definitely try the fourth thing you can do is ask for a lower payoff remember most debt is bought for pennies on the dollar meaning the collection agency will likely attempt to recover the total amount even though they bought it at a much lower discount always and i mean always ask for a payoff to be reduced if you decide to pay the collection or charge off explain that you don't have the money to pay the amount and if they are willing to take a number lower than say 50 of the debt once again they need you to pay to make money so this tactic nearly always works just know that paying off a charge off or collections will have a minimal impact on your credit score but can help in getting a goodwill letter accepted and qualifying for other loans and lines of credit in the future another thing to keep in mind is that if you're close to your 7 year mark when the collection may be removed it may not make financial sense to pay the debt off something to consider then there's student loan delinquency repossessions bankruptcies and foreclosures for those negative remarks getting them removed is nearly impossible the first thing you can do is dispute all incorrect information you will want to comb through these with a fine toothed cone as information being wrong is your best bet for a miracle removal if you do find something that is wrong dispute it the second thing you can do is simply wait for them to be removed from your credit report remember most of them should be removed in 7 years with the exception of chapter 7 bankruptcy which stays on your credit report for 10 years the best thing that you can do is work to improve everything else this means working overtime to improve your payment history your utilization rate your mix of credit and your inquiry count now here are three extra tips to help you even more with fixing your credit tip number one visit the credit repair subreddit on reddit.com if you never heard of reddit it is the world's largest forum where people come together to discuss certain topics in this case credit repair as of the time of this video the credit repair subreddit called credit has over 73 000 members and hundreds of posts with people just like you detailing exactly how they fix their credit definitely take a look at it if you haven't already tip number two is to limit the amount of new and closed accounts as mentioned previously when you open a new account you risk ruining the other categories of your credit score which is length of credit history and inquiries when you close an account you also may negatively affect your utilization and length of credit history if the account has been around for say a long time now tip number three is to use experian boost they are not sponsoring this video but i do believe that it can be a good tool for improving your credit score experian boots adds up to 24 months of positive cell phone utility and streaming device payments to your experian credit report if you've been making on-time payments with these accounts it can provide a major boost to the heaviest weighted category of your credit score your payment history check it out well there you have it everything you need to know to fix your credit if you found this video helpful do me a favor and hit that like button for me it helps others to find this video on youtube and subscribe to the channel to see more videos like this one i'm quran from life accounting until next time [Music] you

Channel: LYFE Accounting

Views: 245,616

Keywords: fix bad credit, fix bad credit fast, how to fix bad credit, fix bad credit quickly, credit repair, credit repair secrets, increase credit score, increase credit score 573, credit score increase

Id: Snj21KwMBeg

Length: 17min 24sec (1044 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 04 2021