In the United States, you cannot live without credit. My credit was marginal at best, until I took action to straighten it out. I did not use a do it yourself system or a fly by night credit repair company. Instead, I did some of the work myself and hired a credit repair professional to do the hard part. The results were remarkable! I was so successful that I am willing to share my story with you.

The first step in repairing your credit is having a complete picture of your credit file and obtaining a copy of your credit report from the three credit reporting agencies: Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union.

I learned that due to the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), consumers are entitled to a free copy of their credit report every 12 months or when they are denied credit based on information that is included in a report. There is a website, toll free number, and mailing address to order all three reports from.

Once I had my credit reports, the next step was reviewing the information contained in them. This is where it got difficult. I saw items in collections, short payments, and 30-60-90 day late payments. I am unsure how these were determined and how to verify if they are accurate.

I owe the local telephone company a bill for $300, that has been sold to two different collection companies over the past 3 years. That debt was listed three times! (once as a debt to the phone company, and one for each collection agency.) I was confused to say the least.

It was about this time that I called a professional that specialized in credit repair and consumer law. After an initial consultation, I learned that the information on my credit report had to be accurate by law. I also learned that it was the responsibility of the credit reporting agencies and the lending institutions to ensure that the information was accurate, not me.

The credit repair professional assured me that any formation that was not verified as accurate, would be removed by the credit reporting agencies. I was able to rest easy and let the professionals do the work for me.

It took about three months from start to finish for the entire process. In the end, the collection agencies were sent running, and my credit report was updated to reflect accurate information. The lending institutions were forced to respond to my attorney’s requests for information regarding the payments I made to them as far as four years ago.

I am completely satisfied with the outcome. While my credit is still not perfect, all inaccuracies have either been removed or updated on my credit report. Some of the creditors neglected to respond to my company’s requests for information in a timely manner and the negative information was removed from my report by default. After months of being denied credit, today I received approval on a modest size car loan. This is certainly the first day for the rest of my life.

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