1) Decrease the balance your credit cards. Paying off your loans can help your score, but typically not as considerably as paying down -- or paying off -- revolving accounts such as credit cards.

2) Use your cards modest. Racking up big balances can hurt your score, regardless of whether you pay your bill in full each month since is affects the balance/credit limit ratio.

3) Check your limits. Your score might be unnaturally depressed if your lender is showing a lower limit than you actually have. Most credit-card issuers will quickly update this information if you ask.

4) Dust off an old card. The older your credit history, the better. But if you stop using your oldest cards, the issuers may stop updating those accounts at the credit bureaus.

5) If you've been a good customer, a lender might agree to simply erase that one late payment from your credit history. You usually have to make the request in writing, and your chances for a "goodwill adjustment" improve the better your record with the company.

6) Dispute old negatives. Say that fight with your phone company over an unfair bill a few years ago resulted in a collections account. You can continue protesting that the charge was unjust, or you can try disputing the account with the credit bureaus as "not mine." The older and smaller a collection account, the more likely the collection agency won't bother to verify it when the credit bureau investigates your dispute.

7) Your credit score is calculated based on the information in your credit report, so certain errors there can really cost you. But not everything that's reported in your file matters to your score.

Here's the stuff that's usually worth the effort of correcting with the bureaus:
*Late payments, charge-offs, collections or other negative items that aren't yours.
*Credit limits reported as lower than they actually are.
*Accounts that are still listed as unpaid that were included in a bankruptcy.
*Negative items older than seven years (10 in the case of bankruptcy) that should have automatically fallen off your report.

Labels: credit score