Tips on Raising Your Credit Score

Review Your Credit Reports to improve your credit to know what might be working in your favor (or against you). This can be done by pulling a copy of your credit report from each of the three major national credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. You can do that for free once a year through the official AnnualCreditReport.com website. Then review each report to see what’s helping or hurting your score. Click on the link to gain access to your free annual credit report.

FREE Credit Report

Once you obtain your credit report, there are some items that you should pay attention to determine how your credit is being effected (negatively or positively). Some of the simplest items to focus on that can increase your credit scores are incorrectly reported items. Here is a brief list of items to notate.

Common Errors to look for:

• Clerical errors that may have been entered due to someone reading or entering your name or address information from a hand-written application
• Loan or credit card payments may have been inadvertently applied to the wrong account.
• Accounts that have been reported more than once, making it appear you have more open lines of credit or higher debt than you do. 
• If you closed a credit account, make sure that your report does reflect that it was "closed by grantor" making it appear that the creditor closed the account, and not you.
• If you're divorced, make sure that your former spouse's debts are not reflected on your report.
• Make sure that older bad debts that should have been removed from your credit report have been, because credit-reporting companies should remove them from your report after seven years.
• Finally, mysterious accounts and bad debts could be the work of identity thieves who have gotten ahold of your personal information.