If you are married, separated, or divorced, and most of the credit you obtained is in your spouse’s or ex-spouse’s name only, you should start to get credit in your name, too.
Getting credit in your own name is also an excellent strategy for repairing your credit if:
a) All or most of your financial problems can be attributed to your spouse, or
b) you and your spouse have gone through financial difficulties together, but most credit was in your spouse’s name only.
In order to understand how this works, you first must learn about which of your spouse’s accounts can appear on your report.
If your credit is badly damaged, you may need a professional to teach you better spending habits and to help you put together a plan to repair your credit. There are many credit repair individuals and organizations out there ready to help, but there are also those who prey on people in this tough situation. Let us discuss the right way to get your credit back in shape.
Debt Counseling Legitimate debt counseling services do not promise quick fixes to wipe out your debt completely. Reputable companies will help you learn how to control your spending and teach you how to work with creditors to establish a repayment plan. Unfortunately, an entire industry of, sometimes illegal, operations exist making outrageous promises. Don’t be fooled by the perception that these credit-repair scams have secret or insider information that will make all of your problems go away. These companies are also known for charging exorbitant fees for their “services.” Some of these operations are actually fronts for bankruptcy lawyers. Bankruptcy is a step to be taken only when all other steps have failed as it can have negative, long-term consequences.
Restoring your Credit Rating With the right help, time, and determination you can restore your good credit rating. A reputable counselor will recommend a plan something like this:
Pay all of your bills on time according to your repayment plan. This is your first step toward proving that you can be responsible with credit.
Re-establish your credit as soon as possible. A great way to do this is with a secured credit card. A secured credit card has a very low credit limit and requires a deposit that stays with the account until you have proven your credit worthiness.
Eventually, you will be ready for your first large extension of credit, such as a car loan. Responsibly paying back this loan is a significant and perhaps final step toward repairing your credit.
Again, there are no quick fixes to restoring your credit but it is absolutely possible with time and personal responsibility.
Elizabeth Dennis writes for the popular home buying guide, Newbuyer.com. She also regularly contributes to The Cell Plan Guide, a resource for cellular plan news and information and The Hair Removal Surgery Guide.
David Lipman Director, NCBI, NLM, NIH, Bethesda, MD Genbank’s Greatest Hits: A Sampling of Discoveries Slides available: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov Fast Credit Repair Video Rating: 0 / 5
“A great credit score can help you finish rich! Liz Pulliam Weston gives solid, easy-to-understand advice about how to improve your credit fast. Read this book and prosper.” –David Bach, bestselling author of The Automatic Millionaire and The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner “Excellent book! Insightful, well written, and surprisingly interesting. Liz Pulliam Weston has done an outstanding job demystifying an often intimidating and frustrating topic for the benefit of all consu Fast Credit Repair
Question by Lady: How to fix credit and raise credit score?
I’m trying to fix my credit and raise my credit score what are the steps to do that. I read that if you have any debt on your credit report over 2yrs. do not pay it because it lowers your credit score. Is this true.
Answer by athleticutie22 You should always pay your debt. Think about it, you got into debt, why should you not have to pay for it? That doesn’t make sense.
First of all, never pay someone for financial advice. Pay off your credit card bills, loans, etc as soon as you can. Even if you can only make the minimum payments, do that. Don’t miss payments or become late on payments.
Only buy what you need. Don’t apply for any more credit cards or accept any new credit card offers.
Don’t take out any loans, unless absolutely necessary.
Raise Credit Score Techniques That Don’t Work – Piggybacking
In the past one of the best raise credit score techniques was piggybacking. This is the process of using someone else’s credit to increase your own. For example, if person A has bad credit, all they would have to do is have good credit person B add them as an authorized user on one of their credit cards with a long good repayment history. As a result, this information would be added to the bad credit person’s credit report and their score would instantly increase.
This was the surest, fastest and most effective way to potentially increase a person’s credit score over 100 points. Unfortunately, this strategy does not work anymore, or not as well anyway.
In 2008, the Fair Isaac Corp (FICO), the main credit scoring agency, changed the way they compute people’s credit scores. One of the things they did was closed the piggybacking loophole in order to put and end to this controversial practice. Originally, this was allowed because it helped parents establish good credit for their children as they started their adult life.
Since people discovered how powerful and effective piggybacking was, they started abusing the loophole. Credit brokerage companies and people started “renting” their credit to other people in exchange for several thousand dollars. Not only is this a risky move for the person with good credit, but it manipulates the credit scoring system as a whole in a way that makes it ineffective.
As a result, in 2008 FICO closed the piggybacking loophole by no longer factoring the co-authorized users accounts into their credit scoring formula. Now consumers have to face the music when it comes to bad credit and use other strategies to fix their credit score.
Find out how your credit score compares to the national and get your quick credit fix. Download your credit score and reports for free at http://www.thecreditfix.info
Senay Ataselim-Yilmaz, Chief Operating Officer, Turkish Philanthropy Funds, writes that philanthropy often solves the very problems that stems from market failure. Some social issues, however, cannot be tackled by questioning the return on investment.
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