I will be writing this guide in a series of steps/articles that will take you each step of the way towards greatly improving your credit rating. I will cover every detail in order to maximize your efforts. Check back frequently for new guide steps.

Before doing anything with your credit, you will need to get your credit reports from each of the three major credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. If you haven’t seen your credit report for more than a year, then you can get a copy of each free at annualcreditreport.com. I highly recommend doing it this way because it is totally free and you don’t have to subscribe to any service or make any sort of financial investment, plus you get the credit report instantly as opposed to having them mail it to your home. You can read more about getting your free triple credit reports in this post.

Once you get your free credit reports, the first thing you need to do is to print them all out on plain white printing paper. Depending on the quality of your credit, you could have a ton of pages or hardly any; either way you need to print them out for easy reference. Once you have them printed out, it would be even better for you if you could use a three-hole punch on the pages and insert them into a three-ring binder. This will make the task of flipping back and forth through the pages much easier. If you can do this then great, if not then that is fine also.

Spreadsheet Templates

I will create various documents to aid you in your credit repair quest along the way, most of which are just Excel spreadsheets customized for you to begin entering information into right away. The first template I have created for you is the “Erroneous Credit Report Entries Template”. This is just an Excel spreadsheet, designed by me, to aid you in keeping track of all the negative entries on your credit report that you will be requesting validation on. If you do not have Excel, then I recommend downloading Open Office, it is a totally free open source software suite that does everything Microsoft Office can do, without the $400.00 price tag. You can open Excel files with Open Office no problem.

**Click Here to download the spreadsheet template I created for you**

About This Spreadsheet

This spreadsheet has eight columns. Creditor Name is where you put the name of the company claiming the debt. Account Number is where you put the account number of the outstanding account. Type is where you put what type of debt it is, like medical, car, etc.. Past Due is where you enter the amount of money past due as listed on the report, if the amount is different with each report then you can put both amounts in here. Date Opened is when you originally opened the credit account.

The next three columns are columns for each credit bureau, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Sometimes the same debt will show up on one report and not the other two, or on all three, or on two of them. For each debt, check the other two reports to see if it is present there. These columns will show a drop down menu when you click on the arrow to the right of the cell. You will be presented with a list of options. Appears On Report means it is on this particular credit report. Not Present means it isn’t on this particular credit report. Letter Sent means you have sent a debt validation request (credit dispute) letter to this particular credit bureau. Removed means that this particular credit bureau has responded and were unable to validate the debt so it was removed. Validated means that this particular credit bureau responded and were able to validate the debt, so it remains on the report until paid off.

Let’s Begin!

Take each credit report, all three of them, and make sure that the “Personal Information” section information is accurate on all three reports. You would not believe how many people think that this isn’t an important factor when determining credit score. They couldn’t be more wrong. When a creditor runs your credit and asks for a FICO score, the first thing the software does is compare your personal information that you submitted to the creditor to the information contained in all three credit reports. If they differ, then your score goes down, it is that simple. Creditors love predictable, stable people who have had the same job for years and the same residence for years. They also like people who keep the same name for years, and so on. If you have had 10 different addresses in the last 2 years, then the software may think you are a higher risk and calculate your FICO score accordingly.

Make sure all of this information is correct, if not then you can dispute the information by mail, I recommend through the mail because there is a recorded timeline. If doing this by mail, then be sure to use the sample letter we have and submit it just like a creditor dispute, just change the wording and explain that you believe your personal information is inaccurate, be sure to provide the correct info for them in the letter. They will respond to you and either change it or keep the info unchanged.

Next Step

Now, look at each entry in the “Adverse Accounts” section and enter each item into the spreadsheet I provided for you. When entering each item, check the other two credit reports for the same item, then enter the proper selections on the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet I gave you has two example items entered into the sheet; these are for example only and can be deleted. You must enter every item from all three reports. I know it is tedious but tedious people have great credit, and that is what you want right?

You may be wondering why we are entering every single item into the Erroneous Entries spreadsheet. After all, some of them ARE accurate, and you know it, right? The answer is: who cares, even if the account was once legitimate, there is always a chance that your original applications were lost, or the original creditor is no longer in business, or the creditor is inundated with validation requests.

You have nothing to lose by disputing every negative item on your credit report. You can only gain by doing this. Nearly every time I tell someone to do this, there are always one or two entries that the creditor can’t validate, and then they MUST come off your report, even if they are legitimate debts. This is what I call the “Shotgun Approach”, and it always works to some degree. It is a great way to weed out all the debts that you will need to pay off, and the ones you won’t.

Once you have all of the adverse items listed in the spreadsheet, you need to send a dispute letter for each and every one of them. You do this through the mail to each credit bureau’s address. I would submit one letter to each credit bureau and put every item for that credit bureau in a detailed list. Make sure to specify a separate dispute reason for each item, and if this is the first time you are disputing these items, then make every reason “not my account/not my credit card”. This is the reason you should always use at first, if the item remains on your report then you can resubmit disputes as often as you want. You can use a different reason every time if you wish. If you do this, then the credit bureau is required by law to respond to each and every one within 30 days. NEVER SUBMIT ONLINE, you make it easy for them, plus you cannot dispute specific information in the Credit Reports.

Once you have submitted the disputes to each credit bureau, track the results using your spreadsheet. As each dispute is resolved in one way or another, enter the status in the spreadsheet column for the corresponding credit bureau. This process can take a few weeks; the creditor has 30 days to validate the debt. After that, it must be removed. If the debt is legitimate, then that creditor may re-report the debt to the credit bureau all over again. Chances are that if they didn’t validate it within 30 days, they won’t re-report it. It does happen though, so if it pops up again, then you know why. The objective is to get every item possible removed before we address the remaining ones, and that is what this initial process does.

Stay tuned for the next part of this guide, it will be posted in a few days. Give yourself a pat on the back for making a commitment to better your credit.

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You hear it all the time on TV, read it on the web, free credit report this and free credit report that. Of course, free never really means free does it? No. They will give you your free credit report only after signing up for one of their monthly credit monitoring services, which are usually a waste of money anyway. Did you know that you can get a free copy of your credit report from the credit bureau?

It is true. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires each of the three major credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, to provide you with a free credit report once every year upon request. The keyword here is request, they won’t send it to you unless you ask. Make it a point to order your copies every year around the same time. Check each one for accuracy and signs of illicit activity.

To order your yearly credit report online, visit the website annualcreditreport.com or you can call their toll-free hotline at 1-877-322-8228.

Identity theft is a tough crime to fight, partly because the victim frequently doesn’t even know they have been victimized by a credit thief until months or years down the road. By then, the thief is long gone, and who knows what kind of trail they will leave, if any.

In this day and age, you have to be proactive instead of reactive when it comes to identity and credit fraud. Thieves count on you being lazy and lax with your financial records, don’t give them the upper hand. Check your credit report regularly.

UPDATE 10/28/09: I personally went to annualcreditreport.com and got each one of my three credit reports for NOTHING. While you only get one every 12 months, it is still really convenient. I downloaded mine and printed it out instantly. You don’t have to join anything or sign up for any service. They do give you the option to purchase your FICO score for $7.95 but you don’t have to, if not then just press the “No Thanks, Just The Report” button. The reason you never hear of this site is because they don’t advertise it. Makes sense I guess, probably a cost thing, and a fraud thing. Before entering info into ANY site, look at the browser address box and make sure you are at the site that you think you are at.

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You credit report is a digital file that holds complete records of any type of debt you have. It records things like missed car payments, repossessions, credit card outstanding balances, court-ordered judgments, mortgage defaults, debt collection agency accounts, and other types of debt. Anyone with a United States issued social security number has a credit report on file with the three major credit bureaus. The credit bureaus, (Experian, Trans Union, and Equifax) are the keepers of this file. Anytime you borrow money and do not pay it back on time, or not at all, the company that you borrowed it from contacts the 3 credit bureaus and files the outstanding account in your credit report.

Items can stay on your credit report for up to 10 years, and even then, some of them remain. Lenders will go out of their way to make sure the debt you incur to them is reported to the credit bureaus, and that is because they rely a great deal on the integrity of the credit report. Anytime you want to borrow money, a lender will run your name and retrieve your credit score, this credit score is a numerical interpretation of your entire credit report, it is a rating. Depending on what type of loan you need, your credit score needs to be at least 500.

The lenders do not take your word for it that you are going to pay them back and on time. They use your credit score to make that decision, and the logic is rational. If you have a low credit score, it means you have had problems paying your bills, regardless of the reason. This is all a lender needs to know in order to decline you for a loan. As you might imagine, bad credit rating can keep you from getting many things in life. Cars, houses, school loans, credit cards, and even car rentals all require a good credit rating to acquire.

Thankfully, there are ways to improve your credit, but it does not happen overnight. Anyone who tells you that it does is trying to sell you something, and it is a pack of lies. It takes years to get debts removed from your credit report, even when you pay them off! Of course, the best thing to do is pay your bills and never default on any loan, ever. Many people have bad credit, and a lot of them ruined it when they were young. Credit card companies love to give young people credit cards, because they have a tendency to run the balance up all the way to the max. Then when they run the card up to the limit, they have no choice but to make payments on the balance since they do not have the principal. Most of these payments cover interest and barely any of the principal. The credit card companies do this on purpose, and ruin young people’s financial security before they even get out of college.

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