Help With Credit Score - Can you repair your own bad credit?

Can you repair your own bad credit?

I have recently researched information on repairing bad credit after bankruptcy, etc. It appears that items, whether true or false can legally be disputed from yourself as frequent as every 30 days. And, unless the credit bureau agencies can provide valid proof (from the original creditors) within a 30 day period, they must remove the derogatory credit from your file. Although it can take 2 - 3 times of writing dispute letters to actually get a response, this seems very interesting. It also appears that the FCRA is really in the consumers favor, but not really advertised to us because the 3 major bureaus profit from our credit history. Any experience/advice on someone cleaning up their own bad credit (not through credit repair scams)?

Public Comments

yes keep disputing till your happy with results.also make small payments on bills you owe.we have finally recovered from identity theft and its a long deal to straighten out your credit.
You can dispute a credit report that is untrue, however, it is unlawful to dispute a truth. Say you filed bankruptcy then try to dispute it to get it removed - that is illegal. As far as repairing your credit - pay what debts you have on time. Make more than the minimum payment. If you have several credit cards that have $0 balances and you aren't using them, cancel them. Creditors see $0 balance credit cards as a chance for you to go further into debt and they are less likely to give you an account. Also, don't make a lot of applications. Every time you apply for credit it can hurt your score. And it doesn't look good to be applying for a lot of credit cards, especially store cards (Best Buy, American Eagle, JCPenney, etc). And lastly - wait. Eventually, with time, you credit will clear up. But it can take years - 5, 7 sometimes 10.
Credit repair can only be achieved through financial discipline and hard work. Any easy way out of a poor credit history is undoubtedly tempting, but it may lead to further financial difficulties in the future. If a poor credit history is due to circumstances beyondpayment patterns, his situation can improve in a period of two to three years. This way, even in the case of bankruptcy, a consumer is likely to be offered charge and credit cards within a year or two if maintaining a steady income.
What you suspect is absolutely true. I have done this myself. You send dispute letters to the credit bureau reporting the negative item(s) and say something to the effect "This is not mine get it off". The key is to HANDWRITE these letters, do NOT use a word processor. It will look less like a frivolous dispute that way and credit bureaus do not have to investigate frivolous disputes. The credit bureau has 30 days to verify the accuracy of the item and if they cannot then they must remove it from the credit report. it may take 60 days to get the results of your dispute, and many items might come off in the first attempt, but others may take several tries, so the whole process could take a year or two, depending on which credit bureau has the negative items and what these items are. The idea is that somewhere along the line someone at the original creditor will slip up and not verify the item in time. Keeps sending disputes until they do slip up. After about a year of doing this you will start to get notices from the credit bureau (Experian did this to me, and I just laughed) stating that its impossible to get legitimate items off your credit report, and if you are paying someone to do this you are wasting your money. Don't believe them. they're lying. You CAN get legitimate negative items off your credit report because I have done it, many times. I've found some good information here too... http://debt.knowledged.info/credit_card.html Hope that helps.