Fact is: You Can Fix Your Credit Report. But before you can fix your credit report or credit history you will need to review what the 3 major credit bureaus have on file for you. You should start with getting a free copy of your credit report from each office (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion). Review the credit reports in detail and take notes of what information is wrong. Make sure your address is current and correct it if necessary.

Make sure all credit accounts that you have are listed properly. If old accounts that no longer exist have not been closed they might have a negative affect on your credit score. Contact the bank or credit card company and get them to a) close the account if it is still open (even though you think it is closed) and b) request to have the credit bureaus updated quickly. Always point out that you have been declined credit because of their short-comings to speed things up. Otherwise you might be sitting there for months waiting.

If you find incorrect information on your credit report, send a letter of dispute to the credit bureau. When you dispute an item with the credit bureau and the creditor does not respond within a reasonable period of time, then the disputed item must be removed from your report. If the disputed item is found to be false or unable to be verified, it must be deleted, too.

Once your credit report is cleaned up it is time to add positive items to the report. That is a whole different topic though and will be covered in a different series of articles soon.