Credit Reports
You know your credit is bad because you can't get approved for a loan. That's not enough to know, however. We need to know exactly how bad it is and why. The first step is to obtain a copy of your credit report. As you probably know, there are three major consumer reporting agencies: Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. You will need a report from each bureau. You can request these reports via telephone, mail or internet. You can also do this through a credit monitoring service. Regardless of the method, you will need to provide all relevant information to avoid any delays.

Dispute Negative Items

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you have the right to dispute any information contained on your credit report. You may do this simply by submitting a dispute letter to the individual credit bureaus. Once they have received your request, they are required to verify the information with the submitting company. By law, they have thirty days to complete this verification. If it can't be verified, it must be deleted.

Many people will tell you that if the account is "really" yours, you can't dispute it; however, if you read the FCRA closely, you will see it makes no mention or distinction of this. Whether or not the account is "really" yours has no bearing on the bureaus' responsibility to verify it. If it can't be verified, it must be removed since it can't be legally reported. It truly is that simple.

Build Positive Credit

After you've mended your credit report, the next phase in your rebuilding efforts is to ensure positive information begins reporting. Acquiring new accounts is just as important as remove negative items. One of the best ways to do this is by getting a secured credit card. The interest rates are usually pretty high and the credit limits are usually low, but that's OK because you are strictly using these cards to rebuild your credit - sort of a means to an end. Again, keep your balances at about 30% of your credit limit.

The most important part of the legal credit repair process is learning from your mistakes and realizing where you went wrong. Learn to live below your means and budget your money so that you don't repeat past mistakes.

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Lexington Law Cleaned My Credit Report