Debt Consolidation Credit Counseling In Phoenix

Bankruptcy can be very harmful to your credit report, but there is a way to fix your credit report and improve your score. This will not take place right away and will take some action on your part. However, it can be done and with great results if you pay attention to the following steps.

What can you do about a bankruptcy on your credit report?

Any derogatory accounts that were discharged during bankruptcy will appear as either "BK Liq Reo" or "Charge-off." The bankruptcy will itself appear under the public record section as a Ch. 7 or Ch. 13.

The only way to eradicate the bankruptcy itself from your credit report is to dispute it directly with the credit reporting companies. You can usually find some mistake in the reporting of the bankruptcy, since the information is entered by a human being.

One of the major potential problems you can dispute in a bankruptcy is the dollar amount of each account in question. Many times creditors will round up the account balance number to the nearest dollar for accounting purposes. This can be challenged since the number is technically not accurate. In many cases, the bankruptcy is ordered eliminated.

Often, bankruptcies are easier to eliminate than other items on your credit report. This is because bankruptcy files contain a plethora of information, so the possibility of mistakes is extremely high as items are usually entered by busy or overworked court employees.

Working with a municipal office is markedly different from working with private subscribers. Getting the government to cooperate will make it difficult for the credit bureau to react to your dispute letter within the allotted time, and the government's bureaucracy can work in your favor.

When sending your dispute letter, make sure that it is addressed to the three major credit bureaus, not to the local court that maintains the bankruptcy file. The credit reporting companies must correct or verify any errors within a certain amount of time (usually 30 days) or remove them from your credit record. It is not difficult to find some inaccurate information in all the bankruptcy papers, so use this to your benefit.

A bankruptcy is not a death sentence for your credit history, and often it is much less complex to remove a bankruptcy record then a bunch of small miscellaneous accounts on your credit report. Examine the bankruptcy records thoroughly, find an error, then file a request to have it removed from your credit file, so that you can start building your credit again.