I Have Bad Credit, How do I improve my score?

If your credit score is below 600 you have bad credit. This may affect your ability to buy a car, house, rent an apartment or refinance existing debt.

Before you start spending time and money improving your score, ask yourself: Has your financial situation improved or not?

If you are still in the throughs of financial difficulty working on your credit won’t do you any good. You will continue to have late or missed payments that will keep lowering your score – so first make sure you are on sound financial footing before you begin working on repairing your credit.

If your situation is improved or your credit was damaged by no fault of your own (such as Divorce, Fraud) you can sit around and wait for all of the negatives to fall off your credit but that takes a very long time. Hiring a credit repair company will speed things up substantially. What could take 7 to 10 years, can be done in a year or even less.

How Long do Derogatories Stay on my Credit Report?

7 Years.

A derogatory is a late payment, charge off, settlement, collection. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) says that credit bureaus may only keep records for seven years back. So if you do nothing in seven years any bad credit items will be removed. 

There are some exceptions to the 7 year period: Judgments, Taxes, and Bankruptcy.

How Long Does a Bankruptcy Stay on My Credit Report?

10 years. Bankruptcies stay on your report longer than derogatories.

Credit Repair FAQs

I pay rent every month on time does that improve my credit score?

Unfortunately, most landlords do not report to credit bureaus so on-time rent payments don’t help your credit score, but a previous landlord can provide a positive rental reference and confirm rental history when you are applying for a new place.

What do Credit Repair Companies do?

Credit Repair companies advise you on which credit accounts to open, close, and pay down or pay off. They also challenge collections and charge offs on your report and settle and delete them. They help you raise your credit score.

I have no credit, can a credit repair company help me?

Absolutely! I see this a lot with foreign nationals, who are moving to the United States from another country. The first thing you want to do is sign up for a secured credit card so you can start building your credit right away. 

How much can a credit repair company improve my credit score?

Anybody can have good credit, if you make good decisions, and get help from a credit repair specialist there is no reason you can’t get to a perfect score of 850.

How long does it take to repair credit?

It depends on your current score, the more damage to the credit the longer it will take to fix. I’d expect 3-6 month’s time if your credit score is in  the 600 range to get it into the 700s. If you have a 500 score or below expect 6 months – 1 year of work to get to the 700s. 

How much do credit Repair Company Cost?

It depends on your current score. For people with 600 scores it won’t cost as much to repair their credit as someone with a 500 score. In general they charge between $1,000 to $2,500 range to repair credit. This is money well spent because you will save this money on interest, and will make your life easier.

Should I hire more than one credit repair company?

No, you should only hire and work with one credit repair company at a time. You might think by hiring two or three credit companies that your score go up faster. This is not true. The information that your credit repair company is the credit bureaus and creditors needs to be consistent. If you have two or three different people talking on your behalf and they are all saying different things, this could actually hurt you and not help you.

Credit Repair Companies