People hear credit score terms from credit repair companies and other institutions that can be very deceptive and confusing. Such phrases include Beacon score, New Empirca score, Fico score, credit score, Experian score, Equifax score, and Trans Union score. Don’t be alarmed. Many wonder how you can have three different credit scores at one business location, travel to another business location in the same day and have three totally different credit scores that differ by fifty points.

There are approximately eight different scoring variations because the credit bureaus don’t actually score you. All your credit scores come out of San Rafael, California, not the credit bureaus themselves. More on this as you read further down.

Do you want a higher credit score? You may have negative trade lines (individual credit accounts that appear in your credit report) such as late payments, charge offs, collections, foreclosures, repossessions, etc. on your credit report. You may also have too many inquires, aka’s, addresses, or places of employment that may be injuring your credit score.

The good news is it is absolutely legal to remove derogatory or negative items off your credit report and have credit score repair. (As long as the account is obsolete, outdated, misleading, erroneous, the dates opened on the account are incorrect, the dates closed on the account are incorrect, or if you can not recall the account as well as many other reasons.)

With this being said, there are improvements that should be in the credit model. For example; many of us pay on accounts every month and they don’t appear on the credit report, such as car insurance, medical insurance, health club/gym membership, rent, and home utilities. Do these accounts show up on your credit report? Probably not. Your real concern should be improving the key components of your credit score.

You can dispute and remove negative items off your credit report to help increase your score. This should only be initiated once you learn the appropriate methods in disputing and removing of any negative items off the credit report.

You should have in place the following before you start any credit repair on your own:

1. You will need a calendar to time your letters, disputes, and continual correspondence

2. You will need the addresses of the credit bureaus, subsidiary bureaus, creditors, collectors, your State Attorney General, Federal Trade Commission, and possibly a local attorney that you can cc (carbon copy) all your correspondence that you have documented.

3. You will need certified mail as well as a notary

4. You need a spread sheet to track what items have been taken off the credit report so that you don’t continually dispute items that are removed. If you fail to do this the bureaus may consider and declare all your letters to be frivolous in nature and they will legally reserve the right to not investigate or not to change your credit.

5. You should be familiar with the credit laws

Once you have these in place be sure to get familiar with the credit laws as noted in step five. Here are a few things to look out for:

The Fair Credit Reporting Act
Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act
UCC laws
Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
Equal Credit Protection Act

There are numerous credit laws that affect positively and negatively both the consumer
and creditor. When viewing credit laws it is important to decipher whether the law is
pertaining to a credit report or the legality of a debt. It is a myth that all consumer debt
is owed for seven years. Almost all debt is governed by state statutes and not by federal law. Check the laws within your own state that govern the legalities of debt.

One final tip for the do it yourself credit repair person that has not taken the option to look into credit repair companies, look at your balances on all your lines of credit. It’s recommended that your balances should be kept preferably under 20 percent, but at a minimum of under 50 percent of the maximum available credit. It is understandable if you cant do this right away, but you should start trying right away. A helpful tip would be to start with one of your lower balance cards and get this to under the 20 percent then work on the next card.