Bad Credit: Clearing Your Credit Report

Your bad credit prevents you from getting the most attractive and beneficial credit card offers available. So, you need to be able to improve your rating as soon as possible. Remember, bad payment records stay in your credit report for years, keeping you fromlowest interest rates and rewards.

Basically, there are 3 ways you can clear your credit report and boost your score rating. The first one is to obtain a special credit card with built in credit repair services. Today, individuals with bad score ratings have a great variety of ways to obtain such a credit card and use its benefits and flexibility for making purchases. However, it is not only the convenience that you should look for when using this credit card. Make sure that the card issuer provides free online access to your account and sends monthly reports to all the three credit reporting agencies. Then all you need to do to improve your score and clear your consumer report is pay your bills on time every month. Eventually, the negatives in your credit report will be replaced with positives. To speed up the process of credit repair you can also do the following:

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  Keep a decent debt-to-income ratio.
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  If you have other credit card accounts and they are not delinquent, keep them open. This way, you’ll grow your credit history and show stability with credit.
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  Try to finance your everyday “wants” with cash and use your card for emergencies only.
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  Consider getting a second or part-time job to earn money to pay for past due debts.
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  Remember, your ability to get a card with poor credit depends on how bad your score really is.

If your credit is hopeless and you have unmanageable debt, you’d better consider the other two ways of clearing your credit report.

One of them is credit debt consolidation. There are lots of organizations out there that claim they can settle your debts with the creditor and clear your report. However, many of them a scammers looking to rob you blind. So before you rush to sign a deal with the first company you see, talk to an attorney. It may help you find a legitimate and reputable company to help consolidate your debt. Anyway, you should be aware that you credit report will not get clean right away. All the debts that were settled through a debt consolidation service are recorded as “not paid as agreed” and remain in your credit file for 7 years from the date the account first became delinquent.
And the last thing you can do to make your credit better is to file bankruptcy. It may seem nonsense because bankruptcy remains in your report for 10 years. But on the other hand you get a clean slate, and in the subsequent 10 years you can rely on a cosigner to get a credit card to help you rebuild your payment history and clear your credit report.