By Jeanette Joy Fisher

Your credit report gets viewed by other people besides credit grantors. Potential employers and insurance companies can deny you employment, auto and home owner’s insurance based on your credit report. Understand your rights protected by The Fair Credit Reporting Act.

No matter what many credit counseling scam artists may try to tell you, no one can legally remove any information that is up-to-date and accurate from your credit report. They can’t do it, and you can’t do it yourself. However, you CAN request an investigation of anything you find in your credit file that you believe to be either incomplete or inaccurate. That is perfectly legal, and can be done at NO cost to you. In fact, anything that a credit repair company offers to do for you can be done yourself, generally free or for a nominal fee.

In fact, there’s a law that guarantees it. It’s called the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Under provisions of the FCRA, you are entitled to receive a free credit report if a company denies your application for credit, employment, or insurance. You must ask for the report within sixty days of the refusal, and the company must tell you which credit reporting company they used, and provide you with their address and phone number. (The three nationwide companies most often used are Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax.)

The FCRA has made it mandatory for consumer credit reporting companies to correct information that’s incorrect or inaccurate. To correct inaccuracies, you must first contact the reporting company, in writing, telling them which information is incorrect or incomplete. In your correspondence, include copies of documents that will verify your claim. (Don’t send originals!) Clearly detail why each piece of disputed information is incorrect, and then ask that the inaccurate information be either corrected or removed from your file completely. It’s generally worthwhile to include a copy of the credit report itself, with each disputed item circled.

Once you’ve put your package together, send it to the company in question by certified mail, indicating “return receipt requested.” That will allow you to be certain that the company received your package. Also keep copies of everything for yourself, of course!

The FCRA makes it mandatory that the reporting company investigate each item you have disputed, often within thirty days, unless they consider your dispute to be unworthy of researching further. By law, they must also forward everything you have provided them on to whatever company or organization initially provided the disputed information in the first place. That provider must then review and investigate the situation and report back to the reporting company. If the provider has mistakenly provided inaccurate information, they must correct it with all three major reporting companies.

Once the investigation has been completed, the FCRA mandates that the reporting company must provide you with the results, in writing, and a free copy of the report if the investigation resulted in a change in your credit report information. You may also request that a copy of the amended credit report be sent to anyone who may have received the disputed report during the previous six months. If the report was given to potential employers, you have a right to request that a corrected report be sent to any employer who may have received the inaccurate report during the past two years.

Copyright Jeanette J. Fisher

About the Author:

Jeanette Fisher

teaches six ways to build credit.

Free credit ebook

“Credit Tips for Mortgage Financing”

worryfreecredit.com

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By Barry Dawn

With the recent mortgage scare and the aftershocks still reverberating here and there, people are wary of considering financing to get out of their credit card debts or saving their homes from foreclosure. But the prognosis is good as the economy is taking an upbeat trend; still the decision is yours.

The Prospects for the Pros

It is never easy to deal with a mountain of credit card debts; while you pay off one pay-later purchase on one credit card, the interest rates on purchases you used with your other credit cards grow steadily without let-up. Either you sell your house to pay off your debts and live in a cave or get a mortgage to pay off your debts and hold on to your home.

Considering a loan may not be attractive at this point; but then what other options do you have if there is no other way to stem the tide of increasing credit card interest rates? If you opt to pay off your debts in one go to avoid compounding interests and add-on fees that require a big amount of money to pay off, which you know you do not have, a mortgage provides a practical solution to this vexing problem.

Interest rates have declined recently. A 6 per cent interest rate for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage sounds very good, right? It has gone even lower but of course this will swing a little bit higher. Compared to the pre-bust period in the industry, the offer is way much better – think 7 or 11 percent interest rates that people latched on to last time. At the going rate, taking out a loan for the purpose is practical.

The Cons of a Loan

Not every one though is a good candidate for a mortgage. Lenders short of looking through the spyglass have clever ways to check you out and the less impressive your credit rating, the higher the interest rates are charged to your mortgage. Seems you are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea but before you faint away, here’s a lifeline – you can shop around for lenders offering the lowest rates for borrowers with poor credit rating.

If you can wait repair your credit score before taking out a mortgage. Interest rates have fallen but then mortgage companies are strict with their requirements. There are lenders though who place a premium on paychecks but after they know what remains of your monthly income. If you can still survive comfortably with the leftovers of your paycheck, including the monthly mortgage bills, the lender will approve your application.

You have been presented with two options if you have a spotty credit rating. You go for the higher interest rates or you repair your credit score. But as things go with people who are desperate to get out of the credit card mess they are ready for anything. Take this advice – if you need $20,000 for your credit card debts, get a $20,000 loan and just that. It won’t take ages to pay this off and you’ll be debt-free in five or ten years.

Living with a mortgage is never easy. Whether it is a low-interest or high-interest fixed rate loan, you have to live frugally on less. So now, is it now or never?

Allegro Mortgages Corp. Best Broker for All Your Financing Requirements (416) 987-0008

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