Credit Repair. It's Easier Than You Think.

The term credit repair has been used by many in a negative way. Let me be clear right up front. Removing accurate but negative information from your credit report is not only wrong, it is illegal. In fact, that's credit fraud.

Credit repair on the other hand is perfectly legal. Credit repair is nothing more than making sure your credit report is telling the truth about your credit history, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Your credit report should contain an accurate factual history about your credit. Unfortunately most credit reports are not accurate and that bad information brings down your credit score and that hurts.

The number one question people ask me about credit reports is, "I paid off an old account that was in collections. They should remove that right?" Wrong. Think about your credit report like a school report card. That D that you got in chemistry isn't going to go away. It remains on your transcripts as a statement of the grade you got at that time.

Here is a step-by-step guide to repairing your credit. If you follow these simple steps you will be able to make sure all of the incorrect stuff goes away so you can make your credit report shine again.

1. Click here and order your consolidated credit report and make sure you purchase your credit score as well. Print the report out.

   Do not rely on a free report or individual reports from the separate credit bureaus. If you are going to do that, stop reading right here and go away. I don't need you to sabotage or complicate my simple process.

2. Find a clear space and lay out your credit report so the pages are side by side.

3. Slowly and carefully read through your credit report and on the first pass I want you to circle any accounts that do not belong to you.

4. On the second slow and careful pass through your credit report I want you to pay attention to how the individual credit bureaus are reporting the same account. Are they all the same? Do any have incomplete information? Every one that you find that is not accurate I want you to put a big star next to that credit bureau under that account.

5. On this pass through I want you to look carefully at any accounts that are listed as still in collections, should have been included in a previous bankruptcy but still are being reported as open and any judgments that you might have had that were paid off but are still showing as open. Circle those items. They are wrong and need to be disputed.

6. On the last pass I want you to look for any old accounts that might show a balance owed that you had forgotten about. Highlight those and make payment arrangements on those if you still have a balance due.

7. Now that you have identified all the information on your credit report that needs to be repaired all you have to do is handwrite a letter to each credit bureau and tell them what is wrong on your report. Give as much information as you can to help them verify and get rid of the errors. If you see an account on your report that is not yours but it shows recent activity, you may be a victim of identity theft.

8. The credit bureaus will review your letter and make any investigations or adjustments they can. After 60 days from the time you sent the letters I want you to order another copy of your credit report with your score and make sure all your issues were addressed. I also want you to look at your credit score and see how much it has gone up.

9. If you don't want to be bothered with doing all of this yourself you should contact Springboard, the nonprofit group, and they can give you a hand.