Need to find a company to fix my credit score and rating.

May 20, 2009 1:42 PM

Need to find a company to fix my credit score and rating. I didn't understand years back when I had a credit card and kind of messed it up. Please help.

Please advise as to how I can fix my credit score and credit rating.

I am looking for a debt helper or a method to fix it.

posted by minsid to work & money (9 comments total)

Please explain what you did and when you did it. Depending on the issue, it may not be fixable by a company, only fixable by time and timely payments. So if you could provide some more info, you might get some clarification on what your options are.
posted by December at 1:45 PM on May 20

Here is a good article about how to improve your FICO credit score.

Don't be discouraged, but there is no company who can magically make a bad credit score better. If there was, we'd all have perfect scores! If a company claims that they can do things other than what you can do yourself (listed in that article), they are taking you for a (potentially expensive) ride.
posted by Houstonian at 1:49 PM on May 20

There are no companies out there that can do what you are seeking to have done, though many will claim that they can help you.

The only way to improve your credit score is to have a history of paying bills on time.
posted by dfriedman at 1:57 PM on May 20 [1 favorite]

If you have stuff on your credit report that isn't actually true, you can go through the hassle-filled process of getting it taken off. Otherwise, there's not really much you can do to actually erase the bad things that affect your credit rating, keeping track of what dumb things we've done is pretty much the point of why creditors use them.

The exact method used for calculating credit scores is proprietary, but Houstonian's link goes through the major components of it. The main way to get a good score is to not miss any payments ever, but there are also other minor things you can do like keep old credit card accounts open for as long as possible and getting your credit limits raised. One good thing is that it does favor new history over old history, so if you start making payments and don't miss any for years your score will get better and better over time

If you don't have any credit cards right now, it might be a good idea in the long term to get one and not actually use it, because even if you don't use it your account will show up as current every month. The main negative to that strategy is that having one could risk the chance that you'll get back into the same issues you had before if you do end up using it.
posted by burnmp3s at 2:04 PM on May 20

Also, what I was alluding to in my first post was if there is a reporting error or some type of identity fraud issue in your credit report, you can have that fixed without paying someone else to do it. Check out the FCRA:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre35.pdf
posted by December at 2:05 PM on May 20

Try the My Fico Forums
posted by Rubbstone at 2:18 PM on May 20

In what way, precisely, is it "messed up"? Is there incorrect information on it? Does it show a history of late payments or defaults? What exactly do you mean?

There are ways to fix SOME errors yourself -- take a look at what information is on there, and if you see any mistakes, you can contact the credit report folks and ask them to change it. "Mistakes" meaning things like incorrect addresses, incorrect accounts, accounts that you don't have, etc.

Also, if you have a creditor that you have a good relationship with which is not on your report -- say you were always on time with your student loan payments, but for some reason your student loans are not on there -- you can contact that creditor and ask them to update your account with the credit reports. Sometimes creditors space out and forget to send their info in to your account.

That's really all you can do. And that's all anyone else can do, to be honest.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:19 PM on May 20

The best answer I've EVER seen on this, from another AxMe thread
posted by leotrotsky at 3:39 PM on May 20 [1 favorite]

...The only thing about that answer, leotrotsky, is that it's not exactly...ethical. It requires you to gamble that you won't get caught doing something juuuust this shy of the law.

And any gamble like that carries the risk that you will lose that gamble -- and such gambling could make you worse off than you already were.

If the OP has paid off his delinquent credit to date, and we're just talking about past defaults/late payments, there's nothing that can be done but wait them out and try to be good about it going forward.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:51 PM on May 20