The Truth Behind Credit Repair

What is credit repair and how did it get damaged in the first place? Well, the damage part is pretty straightforward. The more financial transactions you make the more tracking the finance companies can now keep on you. So whether you are paying your monthly gas or electric bills and miss a payment. Or if you are unfortunate to miss a credit card or mortgage payment, these can all lead to negative marks against your credit history.

This information is collected centrally and you can get a credit report from a number of agencies letting you know the state of your credit history. If you live in the USA you can get this report for Free and in the UK you pay a small charge to see a fully detailed credit report from credit reference agencies like Experian, Equifax and Callcredit. These companies compile a credit history report from a range of sources, such as your bank records, hire purchase companies and mortgage applications.

Nowadays more and more people are finding their credit history is not so good. This can be very unexpected and is only discovered when they try and get a loan and are told by the lender that they have been flagged as a high-risk applicant.

Given this dilemma a number of companies have established themselves in the market as experts in credit repair. These companies market themselves saying that they can repair any level of bad credit, even County Court Judgements. This is not strictly true and a lot of the work they claim, and charge, to do can almost certainly be done by you with a little homework.

So while watching TV or reading your newspaper you see claims like:

-Credit problems? Not a problem!
-We can remove CCJs, bankruptcies, and bad loans from your credit file forever!
-We can erase your bad credit - 100% guaranteed.

The problem with some of these companies is that they are not acting in your best interests. Some of them may even be a front for another loan company so they could end trying to push more finance onto you. Plus some of them also ask for a charge up front. These companies should be avoided and if necessary reported to the relevant finance authorities.

In order to repair your credit you should first get a hold of your credit report. As mentioned already this can be obtained from an authorised credit reference agency.

And once you get your hands on the report you can then see where certain lenders have refused you credit and you may feel that certain information held on file about you is not correct. If this is the case you cannot ask the agency to remove the record just because you say it isn't correct. A procedure needs to be followed and this is where it gets more complicated.

As an example lets assume there is a CCJ registered on your credit report. If you have paid a judgement within one month of it being entered then you can ask the court to cancel and remove it from your records. The judgment should then be removed from your credit reference file.

Paul Hockney is an online loan expert who provides Secured Consolidation Loan tips and advice.