Free Credit Repair Guide Part II

3. Rank questionable/negative items

Step 2 covered how to identify items, both positive and negative on your credit report. Now you have this list, you should rank each item according to the amount of damage they are doing to your overall credit picture. Rank the most damaging information first, followed by the next most damaging information, followed by those items which are neutral. Do this for each credit report, as remember, they may not all have the same information on them. They may even have duplicate information. If this is the case, you will need to write to each credit agency individually for each duplicate item.

The items here are listed in order of descending importance with the first item being the "most damaging" to your credit.

• Bankruptcy
• Foreclosure
• Repossession
• Loan Default
• Court Judgments
• Collections
• Past due payments
• Late Payments
• Credit Rejections
• Credit Inquiries

Also, if your creditor has NOT notified you of negative information they have recently placed on your credit report, they are currently in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. You can use this to pressure the original creditor to remove the listing by reminding them they are in violation of the FCRA by not notifying you.

4. Requesting Corrections and Disputing Your Credit

What should you challenge?

Everything, and you should always shoot for a complete deletion. In your initial challenge, don't dispute the information within a collection listing, charge-off, court record, repossession, foreclosure, or settled account. Save disputing the information within the listing for the NEXT ROUND OF DISPUTES. Start off the reason for your dispute on a negative listing whenever possible as "not mine". For a list of the most common dispute reasons, go here.

What items are the toughest to get off your report?

You will have the toughest time getting bankruptcies, judgments, child support and foreclosures off of your credit report as these things are so easy for the credit bureaus to verify electronically through e-Oscar. In the case of a bankruptcy, you most likely will have a few trade lines saying "included in Bankruptcy". If you want to challenge your bankruptcy, you need to clear off all credit lines mentioning a BK FIRST.

Edouardo decided to challenge each and every one of his collections, as well as his credit card late payment. He wrote a letter to each of the credit reporting agencies that:

• listed each of his negative listings by name, collection agency and amount of the delinquency
• Under each of the list accounts, he said he was disputing the accuracy.
• He also included his Name, SSN, Address, and a copy of his driver's license.
• Edouardo sent his letters via Express Mail, which gives him a receipt for the mailing, and guarantees delivery. Total expense for Express Mail: $36.
• Here is an example credit dispute letter.