Trying to rebuild credit

[Anonymous]

Hi, I have really bad credit due to my illness that lasted 3 years.  I finally finished school and just started working.  I want to rebuild my credit but I don't really know where to start.  Can anyone recommend a professional that can help me rebuild my credit?

[Anonymous]

Welcome!!!      Do not pay someone to do what you can do for yourself.  You are in the right place to learn how to do it for yourself.  Read carefully these threads and ask all pertinent questions..

[Anonymous]

Welcome to the forums!

Your in the right place to help yourself. Generally speaking anyone you would pay to help you rebuild your credit is going to cause you more problems than they will do good.

Here's a suggested plan of attack:

     1) Start reading here for two purposes. You need to get yourself up to speed on terms and concepts. You'll also want to start identifying what your specific issues may be.

     2) Clean up credit reports. Always identify the issues in your credit reports before app'ing credit and do your best to clean them up. This is very important.

     3) App for carefully selected credit products that will help you further improve you credit.

You can't be in a hurry. You have to be careful and very methodical. Post questions as you read to further your understanding. As you identify the issues on your CBR's ask how to go about dealing with them. You will get tons of help. Best of luck! You can do this!

[donkort]

Yes, these folks do offer comprehensive and useful advice. There are form letters on this site that can be used, for example, to ask for "good will" deletions of bad credit accounts, and letters asking a creditor to verify the existence of a credit account.  And many others. 

Come to think of it:  I believe it would be useful if you would about the HIPAA process, and ask questions about it--this applies especially to medical debt.

I wish Fair Isaac could come up with a way to reduce the impact of medical debt, provided the consumer comes up with proof that the debt is, indeed, medical. Incurring medical debt does not, in many cases, predict the ultimate credit behavior of the consumer. The potential damage caused by situations which are beyond our control is ridiculously great.   

I'm glad you're well, and have finished school and are beginning to establish yourself.  Excellent Luck in your future endeavors.

[donkort]

I forgot to add:  you should go to the "Rebuilding Credit" forum; I believe those folks would be quite useful, since the focus is exclusively on "rebuilding credit." 

[RobertEG]

The very first thing I recommend is that you go to the site annualcreditreport.com, and get a copy of your FREE credit report from each CRA. This is a totally non-commercial site created under the FCRA requirement that consumers are entitled to one free credit report per year from each CRA.  It wont give you free scores, but scores are not the issue now.  It is making sure the data with each CRA used to generate those scores is accurate and complete.

Once you have those credit reports, compare them, and note the derogs, valid or invalid.  Then come back here for advice on how to address each.