Put your Credit History in The Past

The two terms are often used interchangeably, regardless of the method(s) employed. Certainly the most common route taken by consumers is to tackle their own credit “cleanup”, but that may be changing in recent years.

Let’s face it, life is busy and the average American has very little “free-time” these days. According to polling performed for H&R Block by Onepoll, the average time their respondents were free from responsibilities totaled less than 30 minutes a week!

Credit Repair Service or DIY Credit Repair

If you happen to be unable to find the time required to fix your own credit, most people should be able to spend the time needed to research and find the best credit repair company 2019 has to offer.

The fact is whether you perform your own credit fix or hire a reputable credit repair service, the most important thing is to not procrastinate. Make yourself a commitment that today will be the start of your credit repair journey.

Still the question remains-

What is credit restoration? What is credit repair? Is there a difference?

To answer the third question the answer is no not really. The only difference maybe in the terminology itself. For some reason there seems to be a certain stigma against the term credit repair. Much in the same as there may be in repairing an old car versus restoring an old car which sounds better to you, “I’m currently repairing my 1983 Buick” or “I’m currently restoring my 1983 Buick”?

But is it just semantics? Maybe so- maybe not. If you think about it one way, the only time you want to repair something is if it’s broken but you may want to restore something that’s not broken just to make it fresh or New Again. On the other-hand, if something is in disrepair- you repair it (or take it to a professional).

Using our car analogy, one may choose to restore their original paint job on a beloved car. The paint job wasn’t “broken”, there are no chunks of paint falling from the car body in a glorious metal flaked polyurethane shower, but it wasn’t as good as it could, not as good as it once was. So, someone decides to put in the time, the effort, and or the money to begin restoring that paint job to a luxurious mirrored polish.

Ultimately, no, it doesn’t require a broken credit history.

Improving a credit profile doesn’t require a charge-Off or a bankruptcy on file. It just requires less than perfect credit and a desire to have the best chance for Financial Security.

Different bad things hurt scores to different degrees

I’m kind of feeling the car analogy so hope no one minds if I continue that train of thought, for another moment.

If a small rock or a say a little pebble bounces up from the road and hits your car it may cause a relatively minor amount of damage, right?

A Hard Inquiry / Hard Pull is much like that pebble, causing a ding in a credit file.

A collection judgment or bankruptcy would be considered much more serious damage.

Think of those as my door just fell off that’s not good. We could go on to say that a High credit utilization is someone keying your car or that a 30-day late is spilling coffee on your upholstery these things are easier to clean up but certainly damaging just the same.

It makes no sense to restore your car at the same time that you take a ball bat to it. So why do so many people attempt to restore their credit while continuing the same bad choices that got them in that situation in the first place? The answer may be in our habits.

In order to make any real or long-term positive change we have to first commit to a change in our destructive habits. Of course, this may not apply to all readers here.

You may be a victim of identity theft

Or maybe it’s just poor record-keeping by a creditor, computer or human error, so this isn’t to suggest that everything bad that happens to your credit report is your fault because that’s certainly not the case. That being said, I would be remiss if I didn’t encourage each of you to take a good hard look at your financial habits, and ask yourself, is this the best that I can do.

If you do fall into that category and you are one of the tens of millions of Americans that make less than stellar credit decisions, you may also consider credit restoration as a restoration of self. You’re not repairing yourself because you’re not broken. You just need a fresh start or a blank slate to start anew.

Regardless of what you want to call it credit restoration or credit repair, it’s likely to begin at the same place- reviewing your credit report.

When it comes to your credit report ignorance isn’t bliss. Your credit report isn’t Schrodinger’s cat, where if you don’t look in the box, it’s both good and bad, because every time you apply for a loan, someone is looking in the box, and they’re looking hard!

In short, if your credit is bad- it’s bad. It’s will affect. End of story. Which is why getting a copy of your free credit report from each Bureau then reviewing it thoroughly is absolutely vital and must be your first step in credit restoration.

Disputing information on your credit file

The Next Step is to dispute everything that you don’t recognize or that you’re just unsure of. According to a government study over 40 million Americans have an error on their credit report. Furthermore, 20 million of those have a serious error on their credit report.

That’s why I say if you’re not 100% sure that the information is completely correct you need to dispute it.

This incorrect information could be a 30-day late payment, a 60-day late payment, it could be the wrong balance, it could be collections on an account that you never heard of, all of which are far too common. So, as you’re going through your copy of your credit report from the three bureaus make sure to look at it very closely and make note of anything that you may question, you’re going to need that information for your credit bureau dispute account numbers balances dates make note of everything.

While we do have rights under the FCRA, your credit history isn’t the American justice system. You are not innocent until proven guilty. You’ve been charged and found guilty with bad credit history without even knowing it.

To fight back, you’re going to need to have excellent record-keeping and the ability to document your findings so that you may challenge the faulty documentation made by the credit reporting bureaus and or the creditors reporting the negative accounts.

Now that we have a copy from each Bureau of a recent credit report, we’ve outlined all questionable negative items and made notes of all the relevant information on each of those negative marks (often referred to as “tradelines”), it’s time to begin drafting your letters to the Bureau’s.

But before we get into the different templates and various outlines that are commonly used in these disputes (some being better than others for different scenarios), we need to agree on one thing… disputing online is bad- don’t do it. I already hear you asking, “But Mike, disputing online is approved and encouraged by the bureaus themselves, how can it be bad?” Well, great question!

This is why online disputes are bad:

When you dispute online you are essentially waving rights afforded to in follow up inquiries, and that could (and often will) come into play later. Depending on how the credit bureau responds to your initial dispute, taking the easy way, opting for an online credit report dispute, will very well end up costing you far more time and headache down the road.

So, if you already have that Credit Karma Dispute tab open, do yourself a favor and close it now. Always be ready to invest time in writing (or printing) out your credit bureau dispute letters and physically mailing them to the bureau using certified mail.

Now that we have that out-of-the-way let’s get back into the drafting of your credit report dispute letter!

You’ll find some amazing templates link here in our DIY dispute letter catalog which are available to use at no charge. Caution: I strongly urge you to personalize these templates in lieu of a direct “copy and paste”.

What is a Frivolous Dispute?

Most vanilla dispute templates available online regardless of being fee or free, they are so overused by well-intentioned credit rebuilders, they begin to stick out like a big sore thumb to the Credit Bureau!

Without a little personalization and variety to their format, upon reviewed by human eyes (or A.I for that matter), they are immediately identified as yet another run-of-the-mill common template.

Guess what, evidence suggests that credit bureaus frown on this, and may even discount a dispute entirely because of it. The lesson here is, follow a template, but use it loosely- bring some “flair” to your request for reinvestigation.

Okay, now that’s out of the way, you have your dispute letters ready, one to each bureau all drafted beautifully, with each line item identified clearly along with your dispute reason, and you’re ready to mail it off. You will find the mailing addresses for each Credit Bureau inside our DIY section link here so, you can get those mailed off right away.

Just don’t forget you are sending them certified or registered mail, so you have record of their delivery. Remember how important documentation is, you must be able to prove when the credit bureau received your letter, because upon receipt, their clock starts ticking.

This is why a Dispute Letter has to be Certified Mail

Under the FCRA credit bureaus have 30 days to respond to your dispute, and if they are unable to do so they are then required to simply remove the disputed “baddies” from your report entirely. Most people would think that billion-dollar companies would be more reliable given a 30-day window to take action, but the evidence is to the contrary.

Far too often consumers will get no response or a very late response, and this is a violation you can act on. And know you will likely need a 2nd Dispute letter demanding the item be removed due to their failure to respond to the first.

So what’s the final verdict- any real difference between the two terms?

Everything you just read above can and typically will be, the EXACT same start to any credit fix, no matter how big or how small.

I believe the evidence shows that there isn’t really any difference outside of people being conditioned to roll their eyes at the term “credit repair” (a stigma likely crafted by the clever credit bureaus themselves).

The only difference between the two, may be that “restoration” MIGHT be considered a better descriptive term when restoring a perfect credit history after a small snag. Primarily, however, you will find that it is simply linguistic preference, and the terminology itself shouldn’t shouldn’t discourage you from taking action.

So pay no mind to the “snobby” rhetoric- there’s never any shame in bettering one’s self and ignoring your credit problems only makes them harder to deal with later.