how can i fix my credit within a year?

Answer 1

First, you'll need to spend a little money on a 3 in 1 credit report so that you can have a starting point to begin repairing your credit. Then dispute any account that you find is inaccurate. Lastly, I have a link on my answers profile that can help you repair your credit.

Best of luck,

Answer 2

More specifically, pay off as many debts as you can. First, cut your expenses to the absolute minimum. Then, work on one debt at a time, beginning with the smallest one. Once you get one paid off, go the the next smallest one. If you have 2 debts that are about the same amount, pay off the one with the largest interest rate first.

In the meantime, close down as many credit cards as you possibly can. Don't simply quit using them ... call the company and close them down, so they don't show up on your credit report.

Answer 3

This would be a difficult task depending on how bad your credit is at this time, things take a lot longer to repair than they do to break, I have been in volved with repairing my credit for about 4 years now and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, I could help you with ways to start off if I knew more about your situation if you would like you are more than welcome to email me and I can try and help get you off on the right path for starters, Best of Luck

Answer 4

I disagree. Cancelling a credit card will not make it "disappear" from your credit report. It will just show up as closed. In fact, it will lower your credit score since your available credit is lower. There's no magic solution, just pay your bills, don't incur any inquiries, and keep a good cushion of available credit.

Answer 5

Well Bank of America has a really good Secured card program. All you do is open up a svings with a minimum of $300 and that will be your line of credit on your card. What ever you put in the saving is going to be your credit limit. Here is the website that talks about it. You can automatically enroll in the program by going to one of your local branches.

http://www.bankofamerica.com/creditcards/?context_id=marketing_detail&offer_id=ECOMM090XFEQ00400800121983EN001&state=IT#top

Answer 6

There are many good ways to do it, all of which revolve around a central theme: ways to manipulate the FICO credit scoring model to our advantage.

The FICO credit scoring model consists of the following components:
35% payment history
30% debt-to-credit limit ratio
15% length of credit history
10% types of credit
10% hard inquiries

I cannot give you specific advice because I do not know your specific situation, but I can tell you this much...I'd recommend paying all your bills in time from here on, paying off any pastdue credit cards so that they're brought up to "current" status, get some new lines of credit if you have no open accounts at this time, and avoid applying for new credit(unless it is a "sure bet", like a secured card, that you know you'll be easily approved for).

Do you have a few credits cards and loans already open? Remember, 10% of your score is based on "types of credit." The credit scoring model looks for a healthy variety of credit cards, store cards, personal loan, auto loan, mortgage, student loan. You don't necessarily need to have 1 of each, but at least get 1 credit card(Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or AMEX), 1 store card, and 1 loan. DO NOT close out credit cards...pay them down to $0 over time, but then leave the account open. Keep these accounts open, pay down the balances to <30% of the cards' limits(10% of the card's limit is optimal), and make new purchases on your card here and there so that it shows activity on the account.

If you currently have large credit card balances, I'd suggest paying them off...but not all in one shot. For the sake of showing a consistent payment pattern on your credit report, I'd suggest paying off the cards gradually over a period of abotu 6-10 months. If you pay them off in one shot, then there won't be any payment history established...and that is one of the most important things that you'll need to demonstrate via your credit report. The "don't pay it all off in one shot" ESPECIALLY applies to loans.

If you've closed out all loans/credit cards, then you will need to get new lines of credit to reestablish your credit! What else will creditors have to base your credit worth on, other than a few accounts that got messed up in the past? For credit cards, I'd recommend a student card, since they're easier to obtain than normal cards but work the same exact way. Or, get a secured card from a credit union, which requires an upfront deposit...but you get your deposit back after ~12months, plus you will be establishing credit history. (Isn't the credit establishment the thing that matters most?)

But don't stop with just one credit card! I'd also recommend getting a "store card" to show well-roundedness. Go to Crown Jeweler's website. They give credit cards to ANYONE who makes a jewelry purchase from their website. You make a small purchase for say, a cheap bracelet, put the bracelet on the newly opened Crown Jewelers account, then pay it off by the due date.

If you don't have any loans, get one! I'd recommend student loans if you're still a student or looking to go back to school. There's no credit criteria necessary to get them...just financial aide(you fill out a FAFSA form the year prior) and you must have no current student loan defaults to your name. I'd also recommend getting a secured loan(works the same way as a secured credit card).

If you're the athletic type or looking to shed a few pounds, I strongly recommend getting a Bally's gym membership. They give you a membership contract for ~1-3yrs, but they report the membership as an installment loan on your credit reports(although they only seem to report to 2 bureaus...Experian and Trans Union). Essentially a Bally's membership is a 0% loan, and you can work on your physique as you're also working on your credit. All you need to qualify, is a checking/savings account(so they can make electronic withdrawals for the monthly membership payments), and no money currently owed to Bally's for pastdue memberships.

So I've already told you to pay your bills on time, keep current accounts open and in good standing, and to get new credit if you don't already have an existing/open credit card and loan. There's a few more things. You'd want to obtain free copies of your credit report from www.annualcreditreport.com. Check the report for inaccuracies or errors, and dispute those. But only dispute the "bad" errors lol! Also try disputing the accurate "bad" stuff, because if the creditor doesn't verify/prove that the account is yours, then it will be removed from your credit report...even if it *was* your fault! So it's worth a shot. The only time I wouldn't recommend doing this, is if it's for a large-sized collection item(>$1000) and you haven't paid on it. If you dispute an unpaid collection, then it might draw attention from the collections agency to it, and they might take you to court and sue you for the amount(which would cause further damage to your credit). But if you've already paid the collections, then by all means please try to dispute it!

Hope this info helps!

Answer 7

Well to fix your credit, it would help to know what you're trying to fix:

35% Payment history
30% Total debt vs. Available Credit
15% Length of time establishing credit
10% Types of credit
10% Inquiries (credit apps) and New Accounts opened vs. Total open accounts


Well from the looks of this, the biggest factor is payment history. It makes up more than a ⅓ of your score. Any time that you're late on your current accounts and you let something do to collections, this tears your score up more than anything. A suggestion is to try to settle with items in collection that are the most recent, within the past 2 or 3 years. Sort them by least to greatest amount. It helps when you negotiate if you're able to pay the amount in full on the spot or pretty quickly (within a few days to a week) so that you can negotiate for a "deletion payment" which is they remove it from your report if you pay in full. When calling the collector, request to speak with the MANAGER directly about this, and nobody else. They would be the one to make the judgement call to have it removed. If you're able to get them to do this, have them send you something in writing on their company letterhead by fax, mail or both stating the terms of the agreement before sending them a dime. Get their address to have a cahsiers check sent certified mail. You NEVER want to give them your checking account information for any reason. On the debts that's closer 3-5½ years, you may want to check the statute of limitations(SOL) for collecting the debt in your state (I posted the link below) I forgot to mention that there's 2 SOL, the federal one for reporting debts and the one for collecting debts which vary by state. The SOL would apply to where you opened the debt in. If the SOL is expired for the debt, you can use this many ways. You can simply ignore the debt and allow the 7 year federal SOL for reporting to expire, it stops reporting and it falls from your report, or you could contact the collector and make them aware that although the SOL has expired for collecting on this debt, you're still willing to reconcile with a payment of 40%(you should already have this calculated and give them this specific amount) in return of removing it from your report. They may or may not agree to this so be prepared for anything. If they agree, make sure you get everything in writing before sending that cashier's check. And if they don't, simply remind them that the SOL has expired and you wish to no longer have any contact with them and let that be the end of it. They can't restart the clock becuase of a phone call. If they report it, so what? It's not going to hurt your credit anymore than it has already with it being that old, so you really don't have anything to lose in regards to that.

The next thing you have to take into consideration that affects your score is how much you owe altogether. "dead"(collection) debt and maxed out cards tank your score the most. If you're able to negotiate those deletion payment that helps not only by removing the negative payment history, but it removes that "dead" debt that doesn't help your credit. With the active accounts you do have left, pay those down to where it's no more than 25-30% of your available credit. Now if you're lucky to get a good number, or hopefully all of those delinquencies off your record, your score should rise some. But you're not done yet. Several months after you pay your cards down and get rid of that collection debt, request a line increase on the credit cards that you have. "What if I don't have a credit card?" You say? Well, the easiest way to get a credit card is by applying for a secured one. You do however have to put a deposit upfront to get the same amount in a line of credit. This security deposit gains interest in a savings account while you're building credit. It helps if you have extra money to put away for a while into this savings account to boost the credit line. It helps increase that ratio between the debt you owe vs. your available credit. Also, you're going to have to use this to secure another type of loan that I'll talk about here shortly. As long as you pay the account on time and keep the balance low and manageable, usually after a year the deposit isn't needed anymore, you'll get that back with some interest and the card become unsecured. Depending on how much you put into the deposit while you're building credit you should be able to not only keep that credit line but increase it a bit as well.

Now that money that you used to secure a credit card, you can also do to secure a small installment signature loan with where you bank by putting it in your savings account and using it as collateral. You'll still draw interest like normal, you just can't touch the money. Next you can take the proceeds of the loan and place that into a 6-9 month certificate of deposit(CD). Reason why you're doing this is that you want to make certain that you're able to repay the loan and this is the perfect way. You pay on the loan 6-9 months long enough for it to report on your credit, and once the CD matures, withdraw it, and pay the remainder of the loan off. You can repeat this process as many times as a you want but 2 shoulf be fine. It's important that you can demonstrate handling different types of loans, as it will make a better mixture of credit usage.

Another thing you can do is if you have a friend or family member with excellent credit, ask them to add you as an authorized user on one of their oldest credit cards that's in good standing. It's a possibility that if you're able to get those derogatory items off your report, while it takes off the bad, there's no good credit to replace it. The activity from that account will reflect on your report once you're added.


Finally, comb through your report to make sure that there's not any incorrect accounts or erroneous information. 7 in 10 credit reports have some sort of inaccurate information of some sort. You will have to file a dispute process with all 3 agencies to make sure that it matches up.


Well, I know that I gave you a lot of information, and you may see results as early as 6 months, after 2 years you'll really reap the benefits


Good luck!

Answer 8

Pay off all bills and don't incur any more debt.

Answer 9

pay off all your debt and any other bills pay on time

Answer 10

Pay all your debts.