Method #4
Follow The Credit Bureaus' Instructions

This Method Isn't Quite As Bad As The TIme Method
For Fixing Your Credit,
But Its Close

Intro:

I've looked around the internet and found more than one site, unfortunately, that says to just go directly to the credit bureaus and follow their advice on how to go about correcting mistakes.

Please. I don't think so.

If you come across a site like that, run away...FAST.

Just in case you're not sure what a credit bureau is, allow me to elaborate for a second.

A credit bureau is simply a company that collects and reports all of your credit related information, not only for you, but especially for your creditors. There are three primary credit bureaus today-- Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. All three usually have a credit report on you and it's in your best interest to check each of them on a regular basis.

Seems like these bureaus would be the logical place to go for advice then, doesn't it? I mean, these are the guys you're getting your reports from. They are the ones that a lender goes to in order to decide whether or not to lend to you.

So why then is it practically a bad credit repair sin to follow their sage wisdom?

I found a comment at www.CreditRepairMagic.com that is just dead on target with this particular subject. In their words, following the instructions of the credit bureaus is...

"Like the wolf instructing the sheep. The credit bureaus are NOT your friends."

Let me remind you that nearly 80% of all credit reports have serious mistakes and errors on them. Are you sure you want to listen to anybody that can't get it right 4 times out of 5?

Obviously, the answer is a big fat "No."

But why is it that these billion dollar companies don't get their primary product working right? Notice that I didn't say "can't," but rather "don't."

The reason is money. Isn't it always ultimately about the money?

Unfortunate, maybe, but true.

The credit bureaus get the overwhelming majority of their income from the lenders and creditors that are requesting your information from them.

Who then do you think the credit bureaus want to keep happy?

If you said, “The lenders and creditors,” then you would be correct.

So how does this help the creditors make more money?

They make more money when they can charge you higher interest rates.

And how do these creditors get to charge you higher interest rates?

By you having lower credit scores.

And what causes you to have lower scores?
Yup, you guessed it. Negative information.

Hmm. Like I said, just follow the money.

I'm thinking the last thing the credit bureaus want to do is help us get rid of mistakes, errors and otherwise negative information that's showing up on our reports.

Personal Experience:

In the Time Method I mentioned that at one point I thought the only way for my credit to get better was time. Then I found out that I could take some action on my end to help fix my poor credit problem.

So, what did I do?

I went to the credit bureaus for information. Now, at least, I was taking action. But, like most people, I didn’t realize that this was not the best course of action to take.

The bureaus let me challenge certain accounts online. After I challenged them and they weren’t deleted or corrected, they wouldn’t let me challenge them again. I was led to believe that I couldn’t challenge a second or third time if it was necessary in order to get false information corrected.

The interesting thing was that I wasn’t just challenging negative accounts for the fun of it. The accounts I challenged were truly incorrect and should have been fixed or deleted!

It was after this experience that I looked further and found a credit repair program that helped me take it to the next level. I’ll talk about that more with the next method.

Pros:

• Same price or less than the other credit repair methods, since some are also free and some are not.
• Little work since you can challenge accounts directly online, and they often only let you challenge once.
• Not required to write your own dispute letters, since you can challenge online.
• Not necessary to read and understand an entire 100-300 page eBook on credit repair.

Cons:

• Since this method will remove little or none of the negative information on your reports, your scores will improve the least, which will leave you with higher interest rates compared to the other methods. So, even though it doesn’t cost anything, it’s the most expensive proactive method because the higher rates mean more money out of your pocket.
• If you aren’t able to challenge again, your bad credit situation may never get better.
• If your bad credit accounts do eventually fall off your reports, it will be because the bureaus tricked you into settling for the Time Method; i.e. you’ve resorted to waiting months or years for the credit bureaus to remove the accounts.
• When you need more credit, you may not be able to get it since your poor credit score may not have gotten any better or, if it did improve, it may not have been enough.

Conclusion:

This method is better than the Time Method since you are doing something instead of just sitting on your hands. It is possible that some of your negative information will actually be corrected or removed.

But it's doubtful that even a majority of your negative accounts will be corrected.

So, although it's virtually free to listen to and follow the instructions of the credit bureaus, it’s the worst of the proactive methods you can use.

Don't do it!

Let's not waste any more time on this method of fixing bad credit then and move on to the methods with some merit to them; Method#3, Fix Your Credit Programs, or Method#2, Fix Your Credit Companies.

Of course, you can always skip ahead to the best method, Fix Your Credit Software, as well.