The amount of work I spent to fix my credit made me keenly aware of my financial shortcomings.  There are people who truly do not know they have bad credit scores until they need a loan and get turned down.  Once that happens, the only thing that runs through your mind is “what will it take to fix my credit?”  In our ADD world, we want to believe we can fix this is thirty days.  There are a number of sites online that will tell you that you can fix your credit that quickly.  They are lying to you.

If you are serious about getting answers to the question “fix my credit”, you need to start with the question, “why is it bad?” Get your credit report at annualcreditreport.com.  This is the only required source for free credit information.  You may remember the funny commercials and jingles for other free credit reports.  Those reports are part of a paid service.  Once you have your report, there are one of two reasons your FICO score is bad.  You likely have no or insufficient credit history, or you have negative credit history.  These problems require slightly different approaches in the “fix my credit” work.

If you lack credit history, find a secured charge card that also reports to the credit reporting agencies.  The secured card is backed by cash you deposit with an issuing company.  Some sources of these cards are available at www.fixmycredittodayblog.com.  Make certain the card issuer reports to the CRA’s.  You still must make monthly payments on these cards, even though the issuing company has your money.  You won’t lose your deposit if you pay your bill as agreed. A good practice in using secured cards is to never use more than 50% of the limit on them.

Here’s one of the schemes you will read about from companies claiming to “fix my credit fast.”  Its the “challenge the debt” scheme.  Here’s how it works.  Challenge every negative piece of information on your credit report.  You must do this by mail and have some kind of valid reason for it. Federal law requires the companies who posted the negative information to confirm it with the credit bureau.  Will it work?  Maybe temporarily. Most creditors update their files with the major agencies weekly or faster.  All the creditor has to do, and its done by computer, is say yes its a valid debt.  The legal requirement is met, and your credit still sucks.  Not exactly what I had in mind when I wanted to fix my credit.