Method #5
Time

The Worst Of The 5 Methods
You Could Choose To Fix Your Credit

Intro:

One of the ways you can improve your credit, at least in theory, is to simply wait.

The thought of doing nothing and just hoping that things will get better, by simply sitting on your keester, just kills me.

I'm sure that it's not sitting well with you either; otherwise you wouldn't be reading this right now.

Just so you know though, 79% of the credit reports out there have errors on them. That's not me saying it, that's coming straight from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, www.uspirg.org.

That means that even if you've never done anything wrong, such as having been late on a credit card, you probably still have negative information on your credit reports that's lowering your score.

Quite frankly, that stinks, but that's the way it is.

Now, if you do choose this method of fixing your credit, then you:

• You should know that some things may take seven years to fall off your credit reports; and bankruptcies, for example, can take 10 years.
• You should also know that some won't ever come off your credit reports.
• You are choosing it, by default, if you aren't actively choosing one of the other methods.
  

That's a long time to wait, don't ya think?

Personal Experience:

Much as I hate to admit it, I’ve tried this approach a couple of times in my credit history.

The first time, it was simply because I had no idea I could do anything to fix my poor credit problem.

And that’s the main reason for many other people, as well.

We either don’t know we can be proactive about fixing our bad credit or we’ve been mislead to believe that time is the only method available to us in the first place.

The second go-round for me was a situation where my life was upside down professionally and financially. Since I saw my credit problem as just a part of my financial problems, I decided not to bother doing anything to fix my credit.

I look back now and see just how dumb that was.

If I had cleaned up my bad credit the second time, I would have been able to pull myself out of my financial shortcomings faster, simply because I would have had the power of good credit to do so.

Pros:

• Same price or less than the other credit repair methods, since some are also free and some are not.
• Least amount of work, i.e. none.
• Not required to write your own dispute letters.
• No chance of accidentally following any outdated advice since you’re not following any advice.
• Not necessary to read and understand an entire 100-300 page eBook on credit repair.

Cons:

• Even though it doesn’t cost anything, it’s easily the most expensive because your interest rates will be higher, which means more money out of your pocket.
• Your bad credit situation rarely gets better on its own.
• If your bad credit accounts do eventually fall off your reports, this method clearly takes the longest for it to happen.
• By doing nothing, you’re basically giving up all of your legal rights.
• If and when you do need more credit, you may not be able to get any at all.

Conclusion:

Does time help? Yes and No.

It is true that a negative account that’s only one month old will hurt your score more than if that same account is one year old. So, in theory, the longer you wait the less a bad account will affect your score. And eventually, if the credit bureaus do their job, then you will see the negative account fall off your report.
So, why do I also say that time won’t help?

First, remember that 79% of credit reports have mistakes on them. Why should you sit around waiting for that mistake to fall off your report? Why allow it to hurt your credit during that time?

Second, you have the legal right to make sure that the creditors are reporting your information correctly and that they have the documentation to prove it. If they can’t prove it or won’t prove it in a timely manner, it’s against the law for them to continue reporting that negative information about you.

In essence, the creditor is often breaking the law, but you are the one paying for it. Why let a creditor hurt you and your family like this?

Third, although the credit bureaus are supposed to remove your negative accounts after a certain period of time, sometimes they don’t. Their failure to properly remove negative information is a sizable portion of the 79% of the mistakes I keep mentioning.

Finally, it is NOT mandatory for credit bureaus to report your negative information for 7 years or 10 years, as most believe. It’s actually the opposite of that.

The truth is that the credit bureaus are not legally allowed to continue reporting your negative accounts any LONGER than the 7 or 10 years…NOT THAT THEY MUST. There is no law that says that the credit bureaus must report your negative accounts for some designated period of time.

So, of the five methods you can use to fix your credit, this is the worst option for you to choose.

As I mentioned before, the key is to follow through and DO SOMETHING, don’t just ignore the situation. That, in and of itself, is why the Time Method is the worst possible approach you could take.

So, let's move on to the second method you could choose for restoring your credit; Follow The Credit Bureaus' Instructions. But I'll warn you, it's also the worst of the four proactive options, and you won't be choosing it after I finish explaining it to you.

Of course, if you'd prefer to skip ahead to one of the better options, then check out either Method#3, Fix Your Credit Programs, or Method#2, Fix Your Credit Companies.

Or skip ahead to the best method, Fix Your Credit Software.