Developing A Credit Rebuilding StrategyWritten by T.B. Collins
Continued from page 1
The first step in developing a plan of action is to know what is contained in your credit file, and how to read file. We suggest that you have a complete credit analysis performed and results sent to you. Millennium Credit Service provides a Credit Analysis Program that can analyze your credit report and give consumer a guide to what needs to be corrected to improve their credit rating, to find out more about this service and other services offered by Millennium Credit Service visit their website at http://www.millennium-credit.com. Now that you have a firm understanding of what information is contained on your credit report, and if you had an analysis performed you have a general idea of how to start rebuilding better credit, it is time to start developing your strategy: •First, go through report and ensure that all of personal information is correct, this includes social security number, address, employment, and name. This information should match information provided on any future credit applications. •Verify all accounts contained on credit file, make sure they are all of your accounts and if there are any entries that are not yours list them as items to be disputed. Items that are not yours can be disputed and agency has (30) day to correct any inaccurate entries. •Check date of last activity on all negative accounts because they can only be reported for up to (7) years on your report and bankruptcies up to (10) years. If any items are older than time listed you have right to have them removed from your file, but time limit starts from date of last activity. These are first steps needed to be taken to start rebuilding your credit, if you need any assistance or feel that task is a bit much, you can always hire a professional credit repair company like Millennium Credit Service to do work for you. Just remember there is nothing a credit repair company can do for you that you can’t do yourself, only difference is that these companies deal with consumer reporting agencies all time, and they provide an objective professional attitude when repairing their clients credit. This is important because it relieves consumer of headaches and frustrations of deal with consumer reporting agencies, but be sure to hire a company that gets paid for services performed and does not require up-front payment.
T.B. Collins is the president of Millennium Credit Service, and has been offering credit repair advice for over 10 years. To find out more visit http://www.millennium-credit.com
| | Avoid the Three Biggest Financial PitfallsWritten by Terry Mitchell
Continued from page 1
Credit card interest is another item that will erode a person's or family's financial assets very quickly. The interest rates you pay are about 534,457,469 percent! Just kidding, but it does seem that way sometimes. Seriously though, they often run as high as 18 to 21 percent. A $20 meal will end up costing $36 when paid for over a five year period at an 18 percent interest rate! Paying only minimum payment can result in an endless cycle of debt that will eventually be practically impossible to escape, outside of bankruptcy. If you find yourself already in this situation, I suggest you see a professional credit counselor as soon as possible. If you are already paying more than minimum payment, try to gradually increase this payment and suspend all new credit card charges, if possible, until you've paid off balance. Obviously, only sensible way to handle a credit card is to pay off all charges each month as they are accrued and not maintain a balance, thus avoiding all interest. A credit card is a nice convenience tool. However, if you don't have one and you feel that you could not pay off charges each month, then you are far better off not having one. If have one or more cards and have run up balances that you have had to struggle to pay off, you would be better off getting rid of it/them. Short-term loans are also debts to be avoided like plague. These include those "quick refunds" offered by many tax preparers, those "pay day" loans offered by predatory lenders popping up like cancers on seemingly every street corner, and many kinds of unsecured loans. The worst thing about short-term loans is their deceptiveness. Most people don't realize what kind of wild interest rates they are paying. For example, $10 in interest paid to keep $200 for one week results in an annualized interest rate of 260 percent! Allowing a tax preparer to deduct $100 from your $1500 refund so you can get it instantly instead of waiting six weeks for I.R.S. to send it to you will result in an annualized interest rate of 58 percent! I bet someone advertising those kinds of interest rates would have difficulty finding any takers, yet people take on these kinds of loans all time as long as interest rates are disguised. People who are wise financially avoid most, if not all, of these biggest wastes of money. Most people who are financially independent right now got that way in whole or in part by avoiding wasteful spending.
Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, and trivia buff from Hopewell, VA. He also serves as a political columnist for American Daily and operates his own website - http://www.commenterry.com - on which he posts commentaries on various subjects such as politics, technology, religion, health and well-being, personal finance, and sports. His commentaries offer a unique point of view that is not often found in mainstream media.
|
