The first thing you will want to do which has proven to be a valuable credit repair tip is that you find out exactly just what is on your report. You can either pay for your credit report or seek out places that will run a credit report on you for free. Today, there are many people who steal vital information from others in order to purchase things illegally. You may not be aware of this until your credit report is viewed by you or someone else. If you do have things on your credit report, make sure you contact the creditor as soon as possible in order to find out what is needed by you in order to remove the negative rating on your report. It may be something as simple as a letter in writing stating that you never purchased anything from them before.

If you are a person who has just gone through a recent divorce or separation, there might also be things listed on your report that your spouse has purchased and it does not reflect you. If this is the case, because you were married, you may need to follow up with your divorce decree to see if it mentions anything related to debts incurred while you were married. Again, it is just a matter of contacting the creditor to find out the information needed in order to remove it. Many people fail to heed this credit repair tip and will just leave the item on their report not realizing that the negative listing decreases your score.

If you have not been through a divorce, have no items listed on your report that are not your purchases, but have items on your report that have been paid off, another credit repair tip is to contact the creditor and let them know that you are disputing the claim. With the right information in hand as proof that the purchases was cleared, you can take advantage of this credit repair tip by having the item removed. Most companies will be glad to do so at no extra charge.

Two of the best secured credit cards on today’s market for consumers with bad credit are Gold and Platinum HSBC secured credit cards. Notable highlights of the secured Visa cards include,
- no minimum income required
- annual fee waived on Platinum card
- international recognition
- long lasting rewards
Pity, because both secured cards are only available in Singapore and HSBC Asia Pacific region. If you have bad credit and live there, either card will be quite good to rebuild credit.

The HSBC Secured Visa card does not even require a minimum income to qualify. If you are 21 or older, simply open an HSBC Time Deposit account with a minimum of $10,000 SGD for Secured Gold Visa card or $20,000 SGD for Secured Platinum Visa card. Which are actually quite substantial sums in US dollars, $7,139 and $14,279 in today’s conversion rates, respectively. But if you have some cash to spare and time to rebuild credit, these secured credit cards are very sound. And for selected customers, HSBC will grant a credit limit of up to 100% of the approved deposit amount.

Now the annual fee part. It is waived for the first year. To get the second year annual fee waiver, you must make at least three transactions per month with your HSBC Platinum credit card between the second and fourth month of the card issued. You also must spend $12,500 SGD at the very minimum on your HSBC Secured Platinum credit card account.

For North American consumer, HSBC is currently offering four credit cards for consumers with bad credit, including Orchard Bank Classic Cards and Orchard Bank Secured MasterCard. Each is an excellent secured credit card to build credit anew. Below are the basic rates and other terms. The Classic Cards require no security deposit while Secured MasterCard asks for much lower initial security deposit compared to those of HSBC secured credit cards, available in Asia Pacific region. Well, with bad credit, you take what you can.

For those that don’t have the time to write letters personally, please see our credit repair reviews page for additional information on credit repair lawyers and services.

Sample Credit Repair Letters:

• Sample Credit Dispute Letter
• Sample Pay for Delete Letter
• Sample Debt Validation Letter

Payday loan settlement – know your lenders
Plan your escape carefully. It does not really matter if you have a dozen payday loans or just a couple. Once you decide you have had enough, it is high time to act. Take a piece of paper and write down all payday loans you have, breaking them down by two categories – Internet or brick and mortar stores, with the amount borrowed and the total amount paid to each lender, including interest, fees and what have you. It is very essential because they are regulated differently, and how you settle your debt depends on which category your payday loans fall and your state laws.

How to settle payday loan – check your state licensing laws
One of the key steps for a successful payday loan settlement is to see if the state law requires Internet payday loan companies to be licensed in your state or it accepts other state licensing. Almost every state requires payday loan lenders to be licensed in the state, regardless of where they located. There are two sites to check, Internet payday loan state laws and Payday loan consumer information.
Since the large majority of Internet payday lenders are not licensed anywhere in the country, but simply maintain a P.O. Box somewhere in the easy going state of Delaware, you will have a huge opening to settle the debt. As a matter of fact, if an Internet payday loan shop does not have required licenses, you can simply tell them to get lost and do not pay a dime. Quite a settlement for you, but it is not too nice since you did take their money on the first place, so at least pay them back the principal.

Payday loan settlement – check the maximums
Smart crooks do not fight the law, they bend it just so. The greedy ones do break the rules, hoping that dumb, uninformed borrower, and that would be you, has no clue. So they lend you as much as they could and charge you as high as they can get away with. Still, there are laws even crooks must abide by. If they violate even one, you have another opening for a settlement. Verify the laws in your state regarding whether rollovers are permitted, and the maximum allowable interest, fees and loan amount. That goes for both, duly licensed Internet lenders and your neighborhood brick and mortar stores.

Payday loan debt settlement with CFSA members
Many of your delightful friends are hopefully the proud members of the Community Financial Services Association of America, which, according to its website, is solely dedicated to promoting responsible regulation of the payday loan industry and your protection. The CFSA is further committed to working with policymakers and consumer advocates to ensure your financial safety and overall well being. It is so touching I am crying already. Sarcasm aside, those payday loan lenders that belong to CFSA, and those almost universally will be the neighborhood brick and mortar shops, are required under the membership rules to set up payment plans for the borrowers in distress. But to get any type of debt settlement with a CFSA member, you must file the request to settle before you default on your debt. And since such payday loan lenders are perfectly legal, law-abiding business entities, be prepared to repay your loan with interest and fees. Otherwise, you can be sued for the whole amount plus attorney fees and court costs. Thus, you better play nice and they are likely to settle or rather rearrange your payday loans in a way you can eventually escape them.

Escape payday loans – closing bank account
Close the checking account where you pay is deposited before the next pay date. Ask your payroll department for a regular check until you sort things out and can safely open a new account. Certainly, do not announce your intentions to close the account to your Internet payday loan lenders, but do it very quietly and quickly, otherwise they will go after your account immediately. After that, send Letter to revoke ACH debit authorization to each and every one of the lenders involved. Also revoke any wage assignment agreement you may have signed and give a copy to your payroll department.

It is imperative to check with your bank to make sure it will not force open your account if an ACH withdrawal comes through after you close it. After that you can settle your payday loan debt on your terms. And of course, never give the new bank account or credit card information to any payday loan lender. Once your settlement is reached, pay only by money order, wire or prepaid debit card. And of course, no post dated checks.

Smart Credit allows you to control all aspects of your credit – from one safe and convenient console.

Normally it would take at least 45 days before you could raise your credit score.  There is very little you can accomplish quickly disputing late payments, so we put those aside for now.

Credit Repair Tips

Collection accounts
Debt collection accounts, no matter how small or old, have a very negative impact on your credit score. Removing them from your credit report will improve the credit score fast.  Contact collection agencies and offer to pay off if they remove collections from your credit report.  Known as Pay for Delete, (you pay, they delete), this procedure can raise credit score 50 points at least. Depending on other factors, like credit account types you have, how old collection accounts are and for how much, you can even see an over 100 point raise.

Revolving debt utilization rate
This percentage ratio between balance and credit limit can be very useful in raising your credit scores.  Bringing it under 9% is one of the fastest ways to a higher score. You can raise it fast, combining a few things,
- paying off your revolving debt down, which is quite obvious
- requesting credit line increase from the creditors
- carrying a very small balance ($5 to $10) on one or two credit cards

Medical collections
If you have medical collections on your credit report, getting rid of them is the sure way to raise credit score. You need to ensure that the collection agency represents the doctor, dentist, hospital you owe money to, called the original creditor. For fast results, pay your debt to the original creditor in full, asking in return to remove their own derogatory records and notify collection agencies.  But you must follow up immediately with collectors yourself upon receiving satisfaction of debt letter from original creditors.

With these credit repair tips, will you be able to raise credit score 50 – 100 points? Most definitely. In 30 days? Very likely – but don’t wait until you find the house you always wanted, only to see it gone because you are not qualified.  Remember that debt validation and credit dispute also works, but often takes longer.

When trying to repair credit scores quickly, think of the 5 main components which influence credit scores in the following proportions -

Payment history: late payments, bankruptcies, collections, judgments – 35%
Debt utilization: the ratio of revolving balances to total revolving credit – 30%
Credit history length: how long the accounts have been open – 15%
Type of credit: credit cards vs. installment loans – 10%
Hard inquiries: applications for new credit – 10%

These proportions, however, may change depending on the type of loan the consumer is looking for.  If you must repair credit score quickly, understand that Equifax, TransUnion and Experian use at least three different scoring models for three different types of credit – mortgages, auto loans, and consumer credit, because these different types of loans carry different default risks.

The credit score models differ in what they are intended to predict, the statistical methods used to determine credit-worthiness scoring, and what data are used and how they are weighted.  That being said, one needs to take a different approach to repair credit scores each and every time.

Equifax uses Beacon 5.0 for home mortgages, but Pinnacle model for auto loans. TransUnion uses FICO Classic 04 and Empirica Auto 95, while Experian uses Isaac/Fair Model II and Advanced Risk Model respectively.

So between two models used by the same credit reporting agency, the credit score can differ by 50-60 points and sometimes more, resulting in quite different rates for a home mortgage or a car loan.  Since cars depreciate very quickly, and homes tend to hold their value or appreciate, the current debt weighs much more for the auto loans.

When aiming to repair credit score, concentrate on the factors that influence the model you will need the most.  More on how to credit repair tips.

Experian FICO is no longer available, so financial institutions are offering Experian Advanced Risk Score 2.0, which belongs to the FICO NextGen scores. The Advanced Risk Score 2.0 range is from 150 to 950 points, leading to further confusion among consumers on how just to interpret this credit score.

There are several resources where you can order your credit report for free, and since all you want is to proof-read it against potential identity theft, you do not need to buy credit scores.  For starters, you should get a free annual credit report once a year.  There are several good services that offer protection against identity theft AND a free credit report, including SmartCredit.

Apparently there are several “buckets”, but seems only two negative buckets are known about with a degree of certainty.  The first one is for serious derogatory records including 90-day or more late payments, a charge-off, a collection, and / or a 60-day late that is less than 2 years old.  The second is for public records such as bankruptcies, wage garnishments, foreclosures, and tax liens. If you have both, a public record and a derogatory record from the first bucket, you are likely to go to the second.

As with most of the FICO algorithm, there are many things about FICO bucketing that no one knows, except for the people who invented and implemented this concept.  The best thing one can do is resolve and dispute late payments and other issues that may be reported in error.  Searching for credit repair tips here can help you tremendously.