How to Help Clean Your Credit Score and Report

The Best Ways to Clean your Credit

The first step in cleaning your credit score and report is to get a copy of all three of your credit reports. You need all three because you don’t know which report will be checked the next time you apply for credit. Here are the three bureaus you’ll need: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.

Once you have your credit reports grab a marker and highlight anything negative. Set a goal to clean up all the negative entries. There are a few different things to sort out before taking action to clean up a bad credit report.

First off, are negative entries listed on your credit reports actually yours? If you are certain that the information marked on your report is invalid the best way to get the items cleaned up is to send dispute the entries.

A valid dispute letter will force the bureaus to do an investigation. By the way, if you try to clean up your own credit report, you’ll need a valid dispute letter. Credit bureaus ignore “frivolous” disputes.

Unfortunately, credit agencies are slow to respond to consumers who are disputing items on their credit reports. You cannot clean up bad credit overnight. Although the credit agencies are bound by federal law to respond to you within 30 days of your dispute, they might just ignore it.

Unless you’re prepared to file a civil complaint in Federal Court, you’ll need to take other steps to clean up your credit report. The bureaus ignored my disputes and I found I was no further ahead after about 90 days of trying to repair my credit.

Advanced Ways to Clean up Bad Credit

If you already tried mailing dispute letters with no response, you have other options. Some options include debt validation, escalated information requests, pay-for-deletion, and more. Here’s a tip: don’t try these things on your own.

Hire an affordable credit attorney. I did and they raised my credit score into the 700’s. Here is the number for the service I used: 1-800-232-2903.

What if the Bad Credit is Really Yours?

However, if the items on your credit report are in fact, yours, you may have a harder time cleaning up your credit. If the negative accounts are recent then it is even more difficult to fight them.

The bottom line is that you can legally and ethically dispute almost any item. Your goal is that the agency will just delete the item – and get you closer to a clean credit score.

If you have more than one negative entry on your credit reports, or if they are much more severe such as a bankruptcy or repossession, it may be in your best interest to hire a professional credit repair attorney.

I hired Lexington Law after trying to clean my credit. I’m glad I took this simple step. Otherwise, you might be waiting seven to ten years for a clean credit report.

You can read my full story below – or give Lexington Law a call now at: 1-800-232-2903. You will discover they have an open and kind-hearted support team that will help you get back on your feet.

I just want to share with you my story about how my credit situation. If you are someone struggling with bad credit, then I was walking in your exact same shoes...

And today - if you look behind me - this is the house that I bought.

So, obviously my credit situation has changed.

Basically, while I was in college I ran up my credit cards and acquired a lot of unmanageable debt which destroyed my credit rating.

About a-year-and-a-half ago when I went to try to buy a house, the banks laughed at me and made me feel bad about what happened in college. (They basically implied that I was a deadbeat SCUMBAG even though it really wasn't all my fault).

I knew that I had to fix my credit, but didn't know how to do it myself so I went to Lexington Law.

Now, literally within several months, I was able to purchase a $300,000 new home without any trouble at all obtaining a mortgage.

So instead of going into banks with bad credit and being looked at as a scumbag, the banks were more than willing to help.

In fact, when I applied for my mortgage and the banker ran my credit, he came back and was saying...

"Wow! Sure thing sir. We'd love to help you out."

Lexington Law literally changed my life.

I went from being the person who has bad credit to being the person who is living in what I consider my dream home at age 29.

Some examples of the things that were on my report that are now gone were: all sorts of charge offs, collections, and I even had judgments listed against me (which I heard is one of the worst things you can have on your credit.)

I had basically every kind of negative listing shy of a bankruptcy.

Lexington Law has raised my credit score at least 237 points. I just checked my FICO score which is now a 737. When I started with Lexington Law, it was below 500!"

I encourage anyone struggling with bad credit to pick up the phone and give Lexington Law a call.

It was super-encouraging to see my credit score improve each month as the negative items were deleted from my credit reports. I thought some of the bad credit was permanent since creditors misled me into believing that delinquent information would stay on my credit report for the next seven years.

However, through their dispute process and "goodwill interventions," Lexington Law proved it is possible to remove any questionable negative item. (it is the same as pleading 'not guilty' in a court of law).

Additionally, the paralegal assigned to my case showed me other credit rebuilding techniques such as:

How to add up to three years of positive payment history to your credit with your regular phone or utility bills (these are things I pay each month anyway so it was a real "no-brainer)
How you can boost your credit score by optimizing your 'Utilization Ratio' - this involves transferring balances and there is a Right Way and Wrong Way to do this
How Lexington Law can erase your damaging credit inquiries (applying for credit puts a small "ding" on your credit. Inquiry Investigation helps you remove these "dings")

Deleting the negative credit items like charge offs and the credit card judgment, combined with the credit rebuilding techniques, rapidly improved my credit score. In fact, in month two my score went up 74 points!

After living with bad credit for so long, it was really encouraging to see that I was making progress in the right direction.

Not only did the attorneys at Lexington Law show me results, they also provided excellent customer service along the way. If you are someone who enjoys that "personal touch", then you may like how Lexington Law assigns a paralegal to your case.

My paralegal (Stephanie) was always available to discuss the status of my case over the phone and email. Even though I didn't expect or ask for it, my attorney would also periodically give me a call to check in.

Here are some strategies Lexington Law used to delete the really stubborn bad credit - such as the credit card judgment:

Unlimited dispute & delete
Goodwill interventions
Escalated information requests
Debt validation
Inquiry assist

You can also access you case online anytime you like. (I enjoyed logging in just to see all the deletions!)

If you are struggling with a bad credit score because of negative credit items, then I truly hope that you start repairing your credit today. I know how humiliating bad credit is and I know how easy it is just to 'sweep it under the rug' and pretend it will go away on its own.

I realize that your situation is probably a little different than mine, however, Lexington Law has already deleted questionable charge offs, a credit card judgment, late payments, collection items, and inquiries from my credit report and raised my credit score to a 737!

Here is a shot of my credit score online last month!