Why Pay For a Credit Report When You Can it Free

The annual credit report program has been actually formulated to help the consumers to stay updated, get fair treatment and fight against the identity theft. In fact, now one can call up the prominent credit agencies and ask for a free credit report. However, in order to get a free report you would need to provide your name, social security number, address and your date of birth to the bureaus.

Why To Pay For Credit Report when You Can Get Your FICO Score Free

As per the law one can get credit report for free but he needs to make payment for the credit score. Until and unless the FTC decides to provide you free FICO score you must try to find out other means which can help you to get your Fico score for free. It is actually a good idea to keep a tab on the credit score periodically in order to avoid and fraudulent activities. In order to get a free credit report you need to visit the AnnualCreditReport.com a website which is jointly operated by the 3 prominent U.S credit reporting agencies. Apart from this option there are other ways which would help you to get a free report. Check them out:

As per the law you can get a free report if:

* You are getting certain public welfare assistance.
* You think there are certain inaccuracies complimenting your report due to identity theft or fraud.
* Since you are unemployed you would definitely try to get a job in the next 60 days.

Tax Liens and Credit Reports

A tax lien showing up on your credit or against your property can be one of the most devastating credit problems you can have. The IRS does not tend to be very flexible and they will take aggressive action to make sure that they are paid in full.

A tax lien showing on your credit will create havoc for you when you try to get new credit. You will definitely not be able to get a home mortgage and it will be difficult to get credit for car loans, student loans and even credit cards. Another problem is that even after you pay the tax lien off it can show on your credit report for as long as 7 years. If you don't pay it off it can show up for 15 years or longer.

In most cases you are better off trying to pay off the tax lien rather than fight it. Sometimes you can negotiate with the IRS and settle for a lesser amount but you can rarely get away with not paying them at all. The IRS will always find you and they will be after you until you pay them off or your die in which case they will still try to get their money from your estate. That is just the way it is. We've all heard about "death and taxes".

But after you do pay off the lien, whether by paying in full or negotiating, you need to do what you can to get the negative listing removed from your credit report. If you don't it can have a negative effect for up to 7 years and longer.

In order to get a tax lien removed from you credit report you must submit a dispute to the credit reporting agencies. Make sure you submit a duplicate dispute to all of the big three, TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. You have the right to dispute any unfair or misleading credit because of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Learn about your rights and enforce them so that you can have peace in your financial future.

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, any consumer has the right to dispute any items that are listed on the report. False and inaccurate information is often reported on credit and if you have already paid a tax lien you can ask to have the negative listing removed from your credit. You need to do this so that you can start with a clean score and move on.

The credit reporting agencies are private, non-government enterprises that are in the business to make profits. Their profits come from compiling and selling your information and they do not have a priority to make sure that the information is correct. It is your responsibility to make sure that your credit report is accurate and your information is portrayed as positively as possible.

You can make an effort to repair your credit and get negative items removed either by hiring a professional credit repair company or by doing it yourself. Either way you are responsible for making sure that your credit report and credit scores are shown in the best possible light so it is smart to take steps to repair any discrepancies on your report including tax liens.

Errors on My Credit Report?

The sad news almost every person in the United States has some type of error on their credit report. This is a true fact! Therefore, more than likely there is some type of error on your credit report. Remember, credit bureaus are run by humans and every person can make mistakes that could be nothing more than a typo, but can work against you and give you a bad FICO score. There are many different errors that may be found on your credit report such as a person with your same first and last name but with a different social security number. This can be very detrimental to your overall credit score.

You may not realize this but besides errors there can be things on your credit report that are detrimental that are not errors but blatant bad reports that were placed there intentionally by debtors. Today, all across America, many apartment complexes do a number on individuals moving from their complex. It does not matter if you pay your rent on time each and every month, give a 30-day notice, and clean the apartment. Landlords can and will keep your deposit and add things that you need to pay for such as another months rent since they could not rent out your apartment due to the residences needing painting or other damages being fixed. In almost every case, the manager of the complex will find some reason to keep your deposit and ensure that you still owe more money. They may not let you know this at all, but will report the information to the credit bureau. This can become a major headache if you wish to rent another apartment. You will not learn that this has been done, unless you check your credit report or try to apply to another rental agency.

If there are errors or discrepancies on your credit report you may find it hard to find employment, rent a home or apartment, or even receive a home loan. This is the main reason, that it is so important to receive a copy of your credit every year.
If you do find errors, you will need to contact the credit bureau that is in charge of the false information. You will need to show proof that the information is false. In the letter you send to the credit bureau, be sure to include your full name, address, and the details of the error or discrepancies you have found on your credit report.

The agency will look into the error and supply with you the information you need to correct to the errors. If the error is false, such as a typo, it will be corrected without any effort on your part.

Remove Bad Credit and Clean Up Credit Report Ratings

If you want to know some initial steps on clearing up bad credit then you'll want to read this article. Discussion will be made as to your first initial steps to clean up credit report inaccuracies. Then some discussion on how credit scores are determined and how to communicate with the credit bureaus.

After reading this article you will have an idea of the steps you need to take to identify bad spots on your credit, how to understand the credit numbers in your account and how to communicate with a good chance of clearing your record of bad marks.

So the very first step is to take an analysis of where you're at financially. Everyone is entitled to one free report from each of the 3 credit reporting agencies. Sending a request to Experian, TransUnion and Equifax is the order of the day.

When you get the reports back you are looking for discrepancies in anything that is identified. Whether a late payment was reversed or never was needs to be noted. These reports are the crux of the FICO score and anything derogatory in them will certainly affect your score.
Understanding how FICO derives your credit score is something that you will need to do your due diligence in so that you understand how even late payments come into play and affect that score. FICO scores range from 300 to 850. In actuality anything over 700 is considered an excellent score and only a few percentage of the people actually have 850.

Getting back to the reports that you received and noting discrepancies. You will need to contact the bureaus immediately and correct the problem. Do not email but send a letter. This makes a better impact knowing that you have taken the time to manually write a letter to correct a wrong here. That will go a long ways in getting a better response than by email.

As always any type of communication that you have with the credit bureaus make copies. It always seems to happen that the more important documents get misplaced, lost, mismanaged or whatever else the case may be. If you have copies of every correspondence that you send concerning your financial plight the better off you will be.

So in understanding the importance of that credit score is directly associated with your credit report you need to know what they are thinking of you. Get those reports and make sure that they are accurate, if not then start writing those letters to get your FICO score higher.

5 Things to Get Off Your Credit Report Quickly

There are five different things that you should always avoid getting on your credit report, as they can be incredibly damaging and hard to get rid of when you want to repair credit fast.

Foreclosures
If you are unable to make payments on your home, then the bank will more than likely move into the foreclosure process, and attempt to sell your home to someone in the hopes of reclaiming their money. Once this happens, there is nothing you can do, and even if you manage to cut a deal and keep your home, the negative effects of not paying on time can harm your credit score as well. These detrimental processes take seven years to be removed from your credit report, and make it almost impossible to repair credit fast.

Bankruptcies
This is perhaps the single worst thing you could do to your credit. Bankruptcies stay on your credit for ten years, and can likely keep you from getting credit extended to you for any reason. This does seem like a grand idea when you are faced with debt that you can't pay, but it should be stressed that if you want to repair credit fast, then you should avoid bankruptcies at all costs.

Charge Offs
Charge offs occur when you fail to make payments on a debt for 3-6 months in a row. The creditors will then write your debt as a charge off, and can submit or sell it to a collection agency. A charge off will stay on your credit for seven years, even if you pay the debt through a collection agency at a later date. So, charge offs should be avoided if possible.

Tax Liens
There are several kinds of tax liens that can be detrimental to your credit report. When you owe the government state or federal taxes that you do not pay, then they can place a tax lien against you, which will not allow you to get financed for anything until the debt is paid. If you wanted to repair credit fast with a tax lien, the odds are against you.

Judgments of Any Kind
When you fail to make payments and collection agencies have no luck collecting a debt from you, they can take you to court and get a judgment for that debt against you. Judgments are horrible for your credit score because they show that not only did you not pay, but you had to be taken to court as a drastic method for a company to get what you owe them. Judgments also stay on your credit for seven years, which gives them plenty of time to be seen.

The five things above are items that you never want to see on your credit report. While late payments are enough to lower your score significantly, these items could make it almost impossible for you to repair credit fast.