Here’s a 100DayLoans.com review written from the perspective of an average web surfer. I’m not a customer of theirs.  That being said, this is an honest review. I don’t write fluff pieces or puff pieces disguised as reviews, and I think if you read this entire post, you’ll see that I’ve done a significant amount of research.

First Impressions

The first thing I did when I started researching for this 100DayLoans.com review was to visit the website. Here are my first impressions:

• They make it very clear that a loan application made through their site only takes 7 minutes to complete. That’s pretty fast and convenient. I hate filling out forms, and I assume you do too.
• I’m not overwhelmed with a bunch of flashing advertisements and animated banners as soon as I hit the site. That’s a good sign. It doesn’t mean everything, but it does mean something in terms of credibility. When I visit a site with a half dozen flashing banners makes me doubt the credibility of a site, and it demonstrates that whoever is operating the site doesn’t have a lot of good sense.
• The site doesn’t include an “About Us” page. That’s a bad sign. They do include an FAQ and a contact us page, but that’s not the same as an about us page that tells me things like where the company is located, how long it’s been in business, etc.
• The offer a toll free number. That’s always a good sign. I haven’t called the number, so I don’t know what the wait times are like. But I always prefer doing business with a company that actually offers a phone number.

Just based on my first impressions of the site, I’d be a little leery of doing business with them, but I wouldn’t put them in the definitively NO category, either.

The FAQ page has answers to some of the following questions:

• How long do I have to pay off a payday advance? Good question, and the answer was clear enough–you usually have between 8 days and 25 days to pay off a short term payday advance loan.
• How much money can I receive? Again, the answer was clear enough. You can receive up to $1000, but it might be less than that, depending on your circumstances.
• Why do I need to submit my banking and Social Security information? They use this information to verify your identity and send your funds.

There were several questions that were unasked and unanswered on the page. I would have liked to have seen them answer some of the following questions:

• Where is this company located?
  
• Is it publicly or privately held?
• What kind of interest rates do I pay on a loan through this company?

When I checked the WhoIS informaton for the site, it showed that the domain was registered privately. I was disappointed to see that. I think that reputable companies have no reason to keep their contact information private. How many legitimate businesses have an unlisted phone number? Private registration on a domain name is the Internet equivalent of an unlisted phone number, which is fine for an informational site. But for a site that conducts financial transactions, it’s not a good sign.

100DayLoans.com Complaints

A Google search for the phrase “100DayLoans.com complaints” in quotation marks only returns 42 results. That could mean one of two things. It COULD mean that the company doesn’t have many complaints about it posted online because they have a lot of really happy, satisfied customers. It could also mean that the site and business are really new and that there hasn’t been a lot of time to generate a lot of complaints yet.

Only about 12 of the 42 results for that search had any significant content on them. The rest of them were listed by Google as being very similar to the other results. So reading through all of those 12 pages isn’t too much of a chore, so I did just that.

The first result told a pretty harrowing story. The person who posted the complaint said that they filled out the loan application with the understanding that they could turn the loan down if they didn’t like the terms. According to the person who wrote the post, within an hour of filling out the form, they had received over 250 emails from companies offering secured credit cards and payday loans. They also said that they received a charge on their checking account for $48.88 from a company called Illustrious Perks.

Since this was an anonymous complaint posted on a message board site that exists for just that sort of purpose, you can only take the complaint so seriously. But at the same time, the complaint was detailed enough and clearly written enough that it had the ring of truth to it. You can read this 100DayLoans.com complaint yourself here on ComplaintsBoard.com.

My recommendation? If you’re going to try the 100DayLoans.com service, use an email address that you’ve created exclusively for this purpose. You don’t want to receive a ton of emails soliciting you just because you filled out a loan application.

My other recommendation? Read EVERYTHING carefully before submitting your loan application, and print out copies of everything you’ve read, and date them. Do this as you submit. If there’s a dispute over some kind of charge to your checking account, you can use this documentation to dispute the charge.

You can read more complaints about 100DayLoans.com at this link:  100DayLoans.com complaints at ComplaintsBoard.com

Based on that complaint, it seems that 100DayLoans.com is in the lead generation business, not the payday loan business.

Is 100DayLoans.com a Ripoff?

I’m not convinced that 100DayLoans.com is a ripoff, but I’d be cautious about doing business with their company. If you’re looking for a cash advance or a payday loan of some kind, it might be better to visit a local payday loan company in person rather than dealing with a potentially sketchy corporation on the Internet that you’ve never heard of.

Is 100DayLoans.com a ripoff? I don’t know enough about their company to say for sure, but the two people who wrote about their experiences with 100DayLoans.com at ComplaintsBoard.com probably think it is.

Is 100DayLoans.com Legit?

As I pointed out in the beginning of this review, I’m not a customer of 100DayLoans.com. So it’s hard for me to provide a definitive answer to the question, “Is 100DayLoans.com legit?” I’d be cautious about doing business with them. Payday loans and cash advance loans are usually a bad bet to begin with, but this particular company seems to have enough red flags to make someone question their legitimacy.

If you’ve had an experience with 100DayLoans.com, please feel free to post about it in the comments.

Many laws exist which govern credit. Because credit is so valuable, the government has seen fit to step in numerous times.

The value of how much credit you have and the way you use it effects where you live, where you work, and other major life details. That’s because employers, landlords, and even the local library may check your credit before doing business with you. Understanding how credit is denied and rewarded and the steps you can take if you feel you’ve been unfairly treated by credit bureaus is important.

Here are the four major pieces of legislation which regulate and control credit in America.

Fair Credit Reporting Act

The Fair Credit Reporting Act was meant to improve both the accuracy and privacy of consumer’s credit reports’ information. The FCRA also controls the use of credit reports and dictates that credit bureaus keep accurate files.

The two biggest pieces of legislation in the FCRA for consumers are the right to review your credit report and the right to have false information corrected on your credit report.

Credit bureaus are required by law to interpret your report for you. Also, they are prohibited from selling your credit report to people or entities without a legitimate business purpose. Basically, the only people who have access to your credit report are you, your creditors, employers, insurers, and a few government agencies.

By the FCRA, you have the right to have errors on your report fixed, but first you must report errors in writing. The bureau then has to investigate and correct or remove errors. The source of the error, a creditor or lender, has to report to all three bureaus that they made a mistake.You also have the right to add a statement of 100 words or less to your actual credit report.

Any time you are turned down for a line of credit, you have the right to a free copy of your report, including a reason why you were denied, within 30 days or your request. Along those lines, you have the right to have a copy of your report re-issued to lenders who checked your credit within the last six months.

The FCRA is also the reason why consumers in America are entitled to one free credit report a year for certifying in writing that you are either unemployed, on welfare, or that your current report is inaccurate due to identity theft or fraud. This is on top of the one free report every American consumer gets every year from the Federal Trade Commission.

Finally, the FCRA is the law that says that consumers are legally allowed to sue any consumer reporting agencies, users, and credit providers in either state or federal court for specific violations of the act itself.

Equal Credit Opportunity Act

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act says that all creditors must apply the same credit standards to customers fairly. It doesn’t mean that all creditors have the same credit standards and doesn’t guarantee loan approvals.

This law says simply that lenders cannot discriminate on the basis of sex, marital status, race, religion, national origin, age, income, or if you exercise your rights under the Consumer Protection Act. The only credit criteria to be used in judgement of your creditworthiness are a consumer’s ability and intent to repay a line of credit.

Credit applications that ask questions about gender, race, color, religion, or nationality are illegal unless you are applying for real estate assistance. You are not required to answer any question along these lines when applying for credit.

Also, a person’s marital status is not a legal question on line of credit applications, and creditors are prohibited from asking about your future family plans.

The only legal questions about age are those that help determine if you are of a legal age to enter into financial contracts or to estimate how long you will continue to work. But this law states specifically that your age cannot be used to deny credit, especially for people aged 62 or older.

This law also stipulates that lenders have to notify applicants of a loan decision within 30 days after the application is completed. If credit is denied, the creditor must provide a written statement that includes a valid reason for denial, a list of the applicant’s legal rights, and the name and address of various federal agencies charged with looking after credit companies.

Fair Credit Billing Act

The Fair Credit Billing Act is a simple law that allows the quick correction of any errors on open-ended credit accounts. These are accounts for department store credit cards or other lines of credit that have no ceiling. This law also protects your credit rating during the time of a dispute settlement. This law is meant as an addendum to the FCRA.

By the wording of the Fair Credit Billing Act, creditors cannot report a consumer’s account as delinquent while a dispute is ongoing. This applies to credit cards, revolving charge accounts, and even overdraft checking accounts. Consumers who put a question into writing have to notify their creditor within 60 days of receiving a bill for this act to take effect.

Fair Debt Collection Practices Act

This law applies mostly to debt collectors. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act makes it illegal for debt collectors to use unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices in trying to collect any debt.

Debt collectors can only contact people other than the debtor to find the original debtor, not to force them to pay someone else’s debt. Debt collectors are required to send written notice informing the debtor of the amount of the debt, the name of the creditor, and a statement reading that the consumer’s debt will be considered valid unless disputed within 30 days, as part of the Fair Credit Billing Act.

Debt and credit are a huge industry in America. Everyone has some amount of credit and probably some amount of debt. Thankfully, the US government has stepped in to provide some legislation regarding fair and unfair debt practices.

Credit repair services exist to help people turn their poor credit score around. These services use various tactics to turn their client’s credit scores around, usually some combination of debt consolidation, assistance with budgeting, and third-party intervention with creditors.

Some credit repair services operate outside the law, taking advantage of people’s poor credit and desire to improve their credit by making false claims about their ability to reverse credit or wipe out bad credit. These disreputable credit services charge high fees and do little more than take their client’s money in exchange for ersatz credit repair advice.

President Clinton signed the Credit Repair Organizations Act in September of 1996. This act was written in such a way that it prevents credit repair services from operating without informing their clients of all their options and disallows what the act calls “unfair or deceptive advertising and business practices”.  The act mentions specific practices that are now illegal, such as not disclosing the impact of various credit repair actions, not providing liability, and the act also supplies stiff penalties for non-compliance. Thankfully, there’s a government organization watching over credit repair companies who listen to reports of non-compliance and mete out punishment.

How to Tell If You’re Being Ripped Off

If you’re approaching credit repair services, there are some thing you can do to protect yourself. First of all, credit repair companies shouldn’t be charging you exorbitant fees. Whether or not the fee you’re being charged is exorbitant or not is hard to say–the credit repair service I used to help improve my score from a 535 to a 700 charged me a little over $50 a month for credit bureau disputes and third-party intervention.

A credit repair service that charges a flat rate is probably ripping you off. If you suspect you’re being ripped off by a credit repair company, look into the following aspects of their business:

1. Written Contracts

Legitimate credit repair services should give you at least two things before you sign up: a copy of the “Consumer Credit File Rights Under State and Federal Law” and a copy of their written contract including information on your rights as a client. Like any legal contract, you should read both of these before you sign on the dotted line.

2. Legal Restrictions

According to federal law, a credit repair company is restricted from doing certain things:

• making false claims about their abilities and services
• charging you a fee until they have completed providing their services
• performing any credit repair services until you sign their written contract and have completed a three-day waiting period.

That’s right–every credit repair company has to allow you a three-day waiting period during which you can cancel the contract without paying any fees. That time is there for you to read the contracts and consult a lawyer or other adviser to determine if the company’s services are legitimate.

3. Fine Print

Before you agree to any contract and before you sign your name, make sure that you’ve worked out some specifics with the credit repair service you’ve chosen. The fine print on your contracts should specify:

• the total amount of payment and all payment terms for services including a total cost
• a description of all the financial services the company will perform on your behalf
• an estimate of how long it will take the company to achieve the desired result
• any guarantees your credit repair company offers
• the credit repair company’s name and legal business address

Credit Repair Companies

What do credit repair companies do? Unlike credit counselors, credit repair companies promise to do most of the work for you for a fee.

Companies who promise to clean up your credit report and intervene on your behalf are credit repair companies–most people turn to credit repair companies for help when they need to get a car loan, take out a home mortgage, or even when it is time to move to a new job. The big complaint about credit repair companies is that after you pay them huge fees there isn’t much they do that consumers can’t do for themselves. The big danger is that you’ll get involved with a fraudulent credit repair service who will literally take your money and run.

Credit counselors offer consumers guidance on improving their own credit reports and scores and teach people to manage their finances. Credit repair services on the other hand offer to remove incorrect information from your credit report and deal directly with your creditors to improve your credit score.

What Do Credit Repair Companies Do?

Credit repair services take pretty much the same three steps no matter the name of the company.

1) You are asked to forward the company copies of all three of your credit reports, those from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Reputable credit repair services can access that information themselves, rather than ask you to forward them.

2) Credit repair services then recommend specific items on your credit report that should be disputed, such as old information, invalid reports, and instances of identity theft

3) Credit repair services then offer to contact the specific credit reporting bureaus to challenge the questionable items they  found on your credit reports.

Act As Your Own Credit Repair Service

Remember, as a consumer you can dispute anything on your credit report that is inaccurate or incomplete, simply by virtue of being the consumer. All credit reporting bureaus have to investigate your dispute at no cost to you. Everything that these credit repair services claim they can do for you for a fee, you can do for yourself at no charge. It will take a little time and effort, but shouldn’t cost you a dime.

Your credit report contains lots of sensitive information–your current and past addresses, lots of financial and banking information, whether you’ve been sued or arrested, whether you’ve been divorced, and plenty of other sensitive information. Credit reporting companies are allowed to sell the information in your report to creditors, insurers, employers, and other businesses as long as they use it for a legitimate business purpose like opening a line of credit, insurance, employment, or even renting a home. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (or FCRA) was drawn up to make sure that credit bureaus are ensuring the accuracy and privacy of the information in these files.

To make sure the information in your credit report is fair and accurate, you should check your credit report before you apply for a loan or before any other major purchase like a house or car, before you buy insurance, or apply for a job or an apartment.

Getting Your Free Credit Report

An amendment added to the Fair Credit Reporting Act allows for two means of getting a free credit report. First and foremost, all three nationwide credit reporting companies–Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion–have to provide every American consumer with a free copy of their credit report, at the consumer’s request, once every twelve month period.

Consumers can get another free credit report if they are unemployed, applying for welfare, or if they feel there has been fraud or identity theft that their credit report can verify.

Disputing Your Credit Report

Tell the credit reporting company, in writing, what information you think is inaccurate. Include copies (NOT originals) of documents that support your position. In addition to providing your complete name and address, your letter should clearly identify each item in your report you dispute, state the facts and explain why you dispute the information, and request that it be removed or corrected. You may want to enclose a copy of your report with the items in question circled. Your letter may look something like the one below. Send your letter by certified mail, “return receipt requested,” so you can document what the credit reporting company received. Keep copies of your dispute letter and enclosures.

Credit reporting companies must investigate the items in question — usually within 30 days — unless they consider your dispute frivolous. They also must forward all the relevant data you provide about the inaccuracy to the organization that provided the information. After the information provider receives notice of a dispute from the credit reporting company, it must investigate, review the relevant information, and report the results back to the credit reporting company. If the information provider finds the disputed information is inaccurate, it must notify all three nationwide credit reporting companies so they can correct the information in your file.

When the investigation is complete, the credit reporting company must give you the results in writing and a free copy of your report if the dispute results in a change. This free report does not count as your annual free report. If an item is changed or deleted, the credit reporting company cannot put the disputed information back in your file unless the information provider verifies that it is accurate and complete. The credit reporting company also must send you written notice that includes the name, address, and phone number of the information provider.

If you ask, the credit reporting company must send notices of any corrections to anyone who received your report in the past six months. You can have a corrected copy of your report sent to anyone who received a copy during the past two years for employment purposes.

If an investigation doesn’t resolve your dispute with the credit reporting company, you can ask that a statement of the dispute be included in your file and in future reports. You also can ask the credit reporting company to provide your statement to anyone who received a copy of your report in the recent past. You can expect to pay a fee for this service.

Tell the creditor or other information provider, in writing, that you dispute an item. Be sure to include copies (NOT originals) of documents that support your position. Many providers specify an address for disputes. If the provider reports the item to a credit reporting company, it must include a notice of your dispute. And if you are correct — that is, if the information is found to be inaccurate — the information provider may not report it again.

When negative information in your credit report is inaccurate, only waiting a few years will make sure that is it removed for certain. Credit bureaus can only keep negative details of your credit history on file for seven years. Some pieces of information on your credit report can last for even longer–for instance, there’s no limit on how long credit bureaus can report criminal conviction, high-income job applications, or details on applications for huge lines of credit. Credit bureaus use the same standard for calculating this seven year grace period and other grace periods, usually they start from the date of the inciting incident. Make sure your credit report is accurate by communicating regularly with all three credit bureaus.

Understanding what credit score is considered bad means understanding what a FICO score is and the ranges for FICO scores. Different kinds of loan or lines of credit require different credit scores. Taking out a small personal loan secured with collateral from your bank won’t require as high a credit score as getting a new mortgage on an expensive home. Whether or not your credit score is good or bad also depends on the person. I’m perfectly happy with my credit score of 700–I worked hard to improve it from a 535. You may be shooting for a credit score in the neighborhood of 800 or 825. There’s no such thing as a good or bad credit score, just different credit scores.

Having said that, no one wants a credit score of 300 (the lowest possible) and who wouldn’t like to have a perfect 850 credit score? Here is the range of possible credit scores and a little about how each score affects your personal finances.

FICO Score Ranges

FICO scores (FICO stands for Fair Isaac Credit Organization, the people who invented the credit score) range from a low of 300 to a high of 850. That means a FICO of 300 is like a 0 in school and a FICO of 850 would be like getting a 100 on a test.

FICO Score of 850 to 760

Any FICO score above 760 is considered an excellent FICO score. Consumers who have FICO scores of 760 and above are considered to be the least amount of risk for creditors and lenders. If your FICO score is 800, for instance, you’ll enjoy the best possible financial offers and loan terms. To get a FICO score this high, you have to have a near-perfect payment history and proven that you are worthy of credit by taking out loans and other products and paying them back. Only about 18% of Americans have a FICO score above 760.

FICO Score of 759 to 700

About a quarter of all Americans have a FICO score between 700 and 759. A credit score in this range is considered good, just one step below excellent. People whose FICO score is above 700 but below 760 hardly ever have trouble being approved for loans and may still get the best possible interest rates. Most consumers who score above 700 but below 760 on the FICO have a decent payment history and have taken out some credit, but may not have a long enough credit history to prove their ability to repay lines of credit.

FICO Score of 699 to 660

Consumers with FICO scores between 660 and 699 are rated as having fair credit. A credit score over 660 can still be called a good credit score, but it doesn’t qualify a person for the best possible interest rates. You may have a little trouble qualifying for some loan products. Expect to pay a slightly larger down payment on things like homes and cars. There’s nothing bad about a FICO score above 660.

FICO Score of 659 to 620

A FICO score between 620 and 659 is considered an average credit score, even though the majority of Americans have slightly higher FICO scores than 620. Many consumers have a FICO score somewhere between 620 and 659, and won’t get the best loan offers or be automatically approved for most loan products without some form of security. Though this isn’t yet a bad credit score, it needs improvement. People with FICO score in this range have some bumps on their credit.

FICO Score of 619 to 580

Now we’re getting into bad credit. Any FICO score below 620 can be called bad or poor. A FICO score below 620 means you have consistently missed payments to creditors or have even defaulted on debt. Often, people without much credit history at all find themselves in this range. If you have a FICO score below 620, you’re going to have to go out of your way to be approved for lines of credit.

FICO Score Below 580

If your FICO score is below 580, consider yourself a bad credit risk. If your FICO score is below 580, you’re going to have a lot of trouble taking out any kind of loan or line of credit. You won’t be able to get a credit card without a secured account attached to the card, and you can forget about any kind of financial product with an advantageous interest rate. At this level, you may even have trouble moving into a new apartment.

Bad Credit Score

A credit score below 620 is usually considered bad by creditors and lenders. Raising your FICO score to 650 or above will make a world of difference when it comes time to apply for jobs, apartments, lines of credit, or any kind of loan. If your credit score is below 620, creditors see you as a risk. They have no reason to think you’ll pay their debt back when you’ve had trouble paying it back in the past.

How Do Bad Credit Scores Happen?

Many reasons exist for bad credit scores–it may be that a person has never had a line of credit before. This is especially true of young people, like college students. When college students first apply for lines of credit, they’re shocked to learn that they have little or no credit at all.  Building credit by taking out student loans and credit cards is a good idea, as long as the student can be responsible with those new sources of credit.

Your FICO score is important–it determines everything from what kind of job you get to the apartment you move into to the amount of interest you pay on your car note. Having a firm idea of your FICO score before you go after a new line of credit makes you an informed consumer and prevents any credit surprises.

When you get stuck with a poor FICO score, it feels like there’s nothing you can do to make your financial situation better. A FICO score below 650 is like a kiss of death when it comes to taking out lines of credit. It’s difficult to get approved for lines of credit or loans of any kind, and the credit you do get approved for is usually offered at an interest rate you’d rather not pay.

Improving your FICO score means improving your credit report. Changes to your credit report take time to make, and even longer to show up in your credit history. Credit counselors will tell you that the best methods of improving your credit report are simply paying bills on time and waiting–most negative items on credit reports have time limits. After seven to ten years, many of your bad credit history is wiped from the record, instantly improving your credit score.

Here are other ways of improving your credit.

Fair Credit Reporting Act

You can use the Fair Credit Reporting Act to help you on your path to improving your credit report.

Under the FCRA, credit reporting companies and the creditors who are providing information about you are actually responsible for correcting any inaccurate or missing information in your credit report. To learn more about your consumer rights under the FCRA, contact any of the three credit reporting companies and your creditor to begin the search for inaccurate or incomplete information.

Your first step is to contact the credit reporting bureaus in writing including what information on your consumer credit report you think is inaccurate. You should include copies, not the originals, of documents that prove your opinion.

Your request should include your full name and complete mailing address, and the accompanying letter should identify every part of your report that you dispute, with details about the facts of the case and why you’re disputing them. Then, most importantly, you have to request that this information is deleted from the report or corrected.

Do as much as you can to help the employees at the credit bureau, including printing out a copy of your credit report with the fault items on the report circled or highlighted. You should also deliver this letter by certified mail and request a return receipt so you can prove the date that the bureau received the letter.

By law, credit reporting companies have to investigate your claims within 30 days and report back to you about the results of their investigation. If the investigator agrees that the disputed information is inaccurate, he or she then lets all three nationwide credit bureaus know so they can correct your report as well.

Fixing Your Debt Problem

Once you’ve removed any false informati0n from your credit report, it is time to solve your debt problem. If you find yourself falling short of your bill payments, getting letters from lawyers, collection agencies, and creditors, or worrying about losing your home, it may be time to fix problems you have with debt.

There are many reasons for personal financial crisis–illness in the family, losing a job, going through a divorce, or simply overspending or not knowing your budget can cause these crises and these problems often seem totally overwhelming. If your financial situation is currently bad, there are steps you can take to keep it from getting worse.

There are four options for out of control debt–proper budgeting, long-term credit counseling from a respected credit counseling organization, debt consolidation, or legal bankruptcy. The option that will work best for you depends on your circumstances–your amount of debt, your financial discipline, and your financial future.

Developing a Budget–The first step for you to take control of your financial life is to assess how much money comes in and how much goes out. The first step is to list your income, then list your fixed and regular expenses. Fixed payments can be mortgage payments or rent, payments for a car note, insurance premiums, etc.

Next, list your varying expenses–entertainment, recreation, groceries, clothing, etc. Putting all your expenses down on paper, even your expenses that seem insignificant to you, is the best way to track your spending habits. This budgeting process helps you identify your necessary expenses and build financial priorities. Budgeting is a process of making sure you can pay for your basic needs–housing, food, health care, insurance, and anything else you need to pay to maintain your standard of living.

Contacting Your Creditors–When you are having trouble meeting your financial commitments, you have to contact your creditors right away, tell them about your situation, and work together to plan a modified payment schedule that reduces your payments to a level you can manage. The only alternative is to have your payments sent to a collection agency. This will negatively affect your credit and could put you in worse condition than you started in.

Credit Counseling–Credit counseling is the final piece of the puzzle for people who have had problems putting together a financial plan that keeps their heads above water. Most credit counseling organizations are nonprofit and work with consumers to fix their financial problems, no matter how dire. Beware of credit counseling services that charge high fees or put pressure on you to make what they call voluntary contributions to their company in exchange for credit counseling and advice.

No matter what kind of financial situation you’re in, there’s probably a way out. If you want to improve your credit report, you’ll have to act with discipline. Over time, your new good credit habits will improve your credit history, which in turns improves your credit score.

People with bad credit wonder just how long it takes to repair a bad credit score. Technically, you don’t repair a bad credit score, you repair your credit history. That improved credit history results in a better credit score.

How long does it take to repair bad credit? The specific length of time it will take you to rebuild your credit history depends mostly on the reason behind your negative credit or bad credit score. Most often, negative changes in a consumer’s credit score happens because a piece of negative information is added to the credit report. Delinquencies, credit accounts being moved to collection agencies, and too many credit inquiries are the most common causes of bad credit. All of these common negative elements on your credit history continue to drag down your FICO score until they hit a certain age.

• Account delinquencies remain on your credit report for up to seven years.
• All information of public record (bankruptcies and other legal problems) stay a part of your legal credit report for seven years. Remember that some bankruptcies stay on your report for up to 10 years, and unpaid liens thanks to tax problems are on your credit report for fifteen years.
• All credit inquiries remain on your credit report and effect it negatively for up to two years.

That basic information doesn’t cover every possible reason for bad credit, and it doesn’t take into account steps that consumers can take to improve their bad credit. The major credit reporting bureaus are required by law to respond to any requests involving incorrect or old information in 30 days or less, and sometimes that bad information is removed from your credit history pretty quickly, resulting in an improved FICO score in as little as a month.

Steps You Can Take to Improve Your Credit Score

Remember that your credit score is based on your credit history, a group of details about your financial life that reflect credit account payment patterns over time. Credit scores take the most recent information into account, though old negative marks still impact your credit history.

Though it may take five to seven years for these tips to really impact your overall credit history, you have to start to improve your credit somewhere.

• Pay all of your bills on time. Remember that accounts with your local power company and your cable TV service are still credit accounts, and your payment history with these accounts affects your credit as well. Delinquent payments to your power company and even collections accounts with the local library often have a seriously bad impact on your overall credit score. Starting to make current payments now can improve your credit score in just a few years.
• Keep all of the balances on your credit cards and other kinds of revolving credit as low as possible. That means making more than the minimum payment on all lines of credit. Having high outstanding debt on revolving lines of credit has a nasty impact on your credit score.
• Don’t apply for new lines of credit you don’t need. Hard credit inquiries, the kind caused by lots of applications for credit accounts, affect your credit score for two years. Ignore the advice you’ve heard about having a credit mix–the positive impact of a mixed bunch of credit will be counteracted by the number of hard inquiries on your credit report.
• Avoid moving debt around from credit line to credit line, and pay it off instead.
• Don’t cancel unused credit cards or credit accounts. When you pay off a credit card, cut the card up but don’t close out the account. Having fewer open credit accounts might actually hurt your score in the long run.
• Be on the lookout for identity theft. That means tracking your bills and reading your credit history more than once a year, especially when you’re trying to repair your credit history.

Paying Bills On Time to Repair Bad Credit

You can improve your credit score in as little as twelve months by starting to pay all of your bills on time. Credit counselors say that paying all your bills when they’re due is the most important factor in people who have good credit scores. Here are the other positive effects of paying your bills on time:

• Minimize outstanding debt–paying bills down to a zero balance every month reduces the amount of debt you owe that shows up on your credit report
• Avoid overextending yourself–if you pay your bills on time now, you’re less likely to take out a line of credit later to consolidate debt or pay overdue bills. This also helps you to keep from applying for credit needlessly and racking up hard credit inquiries that lower your score

All of the negative information on your credit report–late payments, bankruptcy, divorce, too many hard inquiries–can be solved through time. Paying your bills on time and waiting for the negative info on your credit report to age out is the best attack plan for improving a poor credit history. In seven to ten years, all of the negative stuff on your credit report will be gone, and your on time bill payment history and reduced credit inquiries will make a drastic change to your FICO score.

Put simply, there is no quick fix to credit problems. The Federal Trade Commission goes out of their way to remind consumers that there’s no such thing as a credit repair–only corrections to credit report errors and long-term lifestyle changes can improve your credit over time.

How Specific Changes to Your Credit History Affect Your FICO Score

For example, if you pay off and close two credit cards, it reduces your revolving credit which can be a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, closing those two accounts also decreases your total line of available credit. Without getting too deep into the credit bureau’s financial algorithm, closed accounts result in a higher credit utilization rate. This rate, also known as the balance-to-limit ratio, causes a reduction in your credit score when you close out lines of credit.

Credit repair is a big business. Even though about half of all Americans have a good to excellent FICO score, that portion of the population with a credit score below 650 is vulnerable to credit repair scams because they want their credit to improve badly enough to try anything.

Credit repair attorneys are lawyers whose main business is credit repair. Because they’re members of a bar association, people think they’re all operating above board. The reality is that there are just as many lawyers offering fraudulent credit repair as there are independent credit repair companies.

Some credit repair attorneys are doing good work for clients. The trick to hiring credit repair attorneys is weeding out the credit repair lawyers who are just trying to take advantage of your credit situation.

Credit Repair Lawyers

Here are ten questions to ask credit repair lawyers before you agree to do business with them:

1. What specific credit repair services do you offer? You should find credit repair lawyers that offer a wide range of services, not just credit repair. Good credit repair lawyers will offer you budget counseling through a partner in credit counseling, as well as information on savings and debt management classes. Avoid credit repair lawyers that try to sell you a DMP or debt management plan as the only credit repair option before they do any work analyzing your specific financial needs.
2. Do you offer educational information? Are educational materials available for free? You should avoid any credit repair lawyers that charge for basic information.
3. Besides just helping me fix my immediate credit problem, can you help me develop a plan for avoiding future problems? Good credit repair lawyers and attorneys work closely with credit repair counselors to fix their client’s long term financial issues.
4. What are your fees? You should know if your credit repair lawyers charge set-up fees, monthly fees, or any revolving fees at all. It is best to avoid using credit repair lawyers that don’t charge a specific price and offer it in writing.
5. What happens if I can’t afford to pay your fees or make contributions? If a credit repair lawyer won’t help because you can’t afford to pay up-front, keep looking. Many credit repair attorneys have payment plans or other systems to help people who can’t pay right off the bat.
6. Will I have a formal written agreement or contract with you? If you’re being asked to start a credit repair program with a lawyer before you read and sign a written contract, you could be in danger. Also, don’t sign any contracts without examining them first. Ask your credit repair lawyer to put all verbal promises in writing.
7. Are you licensed to offer your services in my state?
8. What are your qualifications? Ask your future credit repair lawyer if they are accredited and/or certified by an outside organization in your state. Find out the names of these organizations, and ask about any specific training your credit repair attorney has received.
9. What assurance do I have that my personal information will be kept confidential? Your personal information should not be for sale or shared with anyone. That includes your address, phone number, and financial information. All of that information should be guaranteed secure.
10. How are your employees compensated? If a credit repair lawyer is paid based on how many services you sign up for or for their client’s financial contributions, you might be in danger of getting scammed. This last question can be a big red flag for credit repair lawyers looking to take advantage of your credit situation.

Debt Settlement Attorneys

One of the more dangerous trends in credit repair these days are attorneys promising debt settlement at a low percent of what you currently owe. These offers can be dangerous because of the exorbitant fees charged by lawyers for this service and for the service’s impact on your future ability to take out lines of credit.

Debt settlement lawyers claim they’ll negotiate with creditors to drastically reduce the amount of your debt. It sounds promising because these lawyers offer to deal with the creditor and get them to accept a much smaller amount to settle the debt. I’ve heard offers of debt settlement as low as 70 percent off the original balance. I once owed $10,000 on a discover card, and got offers in the mail from debt settlement attorneys who claimed they could help me pay off the debt for just over $3,000, as long as I signed up for their revolving fee service and paid a one-time fee on top of that.

These lawyers are also dangerous because they instruct their clients to stop paying their monthly payments and send your payments to them instead. Often they claim that they’re holding your payments in a savings account until it is time to pay your creditors the reduced debt amount.

Unfortunately, most of these claims are false. Creditors have no obligation to deal with credit repay lawyers offering debt settlement, but they do have an obligation to report the fact that you stopped making regular payments.

Some people who have dealt with debt settlement attorneys have been sued by their creditors for the balance of their account. These people have found that their credit repair attorneys have not been saving their payments in any account, and they’re deeper in the hole than when they started.

The key to dealing with credit repair attorneys is asking the right questions, not signing any contracts or agreements until you read them, and checking into their credit repair business’ past and future. If something doesn’t feel right, move on down the road to the next attorney. There are plenty of legitimate credit repair attorneys doing business, no reason to sign on with the first lawyer you contact.

The first credit cards appeared in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Flash forward to 2011, and people around the world spend more on their charge cards than they spend in cash. According to the Federal Trade Commission, more than $2 trillion worth of credit card transactions take place in America every year. That’s why consumer credit reports are becoming more important than any other single piece of financial information.

Consumer’s personal credit worthy status is tracked via credit reports. The overall score on your credit, known as a FICO score after the company that developed it, is a way for creditors to evaluate the value of a line of credit extended to a consumer. FICO scores can be as low as 300 (representing a high risk to lenders) or as high as 850 points ( representing a low risk) and these score are the ultimate factor for 3 out of every 4 credit applications, from loans to insurance. In 2010, half of all Americans had a FICO score between 700 and 800.

How Are FICO Scores Determined?

Credit bureaus use a complex mathematical equation that analyzes your credit history and credit report to spit out a FICO score. There are five basic factors that go into determining your FICO score–previous credit history, current level and amounts of debt, the length of time credit has been in use, kinds of credit available, and the amount of new credit you’re applying for.

Consumer credit reports are divided into seven sections.

Personal Data

The first section of your consumer credit report contains basic information about you. Your current and previous addresses, your social security number, and your reported employment history are the most important for creditors. This is the most lucrative section for people looking to steal your identity, which is why your credit report is so valuable to identity thieves and why you should shred documents that contain these details.

Credit History Summary

Your consumer credit report’s second section shows a summary of your recent credit history. Going back seven years, this section shows your number of credit accounts (both closed and open), the kind of credit accounts you have (be they a personal loan, home mortgage, revolving credit, or whatever), the number of new credit inquiries for the past fiscal year, any credit accounts that are past due, and credit accounts you have in good standing. In general, the more credit accounts you have in good standing, the more credit you have available.

How does this second section affect your ability to get a loan? The bank offering you a loan will look at your available credit and assume that you’ll use all credit sources you can to pay your loan note. If you have ten credit cards even with a zero balance, the bank will factor in payments to those accounts. That means the bank sees more of your money tied up in those credit accounts, and may not approve you for as much credit as you have available.

Detailed Credit Account Info

The third section of your consumer credit report shows detailed credit account information. This section shows the names, account types, account numbers, dates opened and closed, and the balance and status of each credit account on your credit record. This information also shows your payment history, the date of your last use of the credit account, and detailed contact info for the creditor.

All of your past-due accounts and negative credit history reports will show up in this section. This is the section of your report most often challenged by consumers for false information. After you file a report, the credit bureau has up to 30 days to act, either removing the information or verifying it.

Credit History Inquiries

Many people overlook the section of their consumer credit report that show credit inquiries. Any time a creditor or potential lender queries your credit, it is reported here. Inquiries are classified as either hard or soft.

Hard inquiries are when you apply for something and the creditor looks at your credit report. These hard inquiries affect your credit negatively, and can even drop your FICO score.

Soft inquiries are when your current creditors look at your credit report, or when credit card companies query your report to see if they can offer you a credit card. Soft inquiries don’t directly affect your FICO score.

Turned-Over Accounts

The fifth section of consumer credit reports shows any credit accounts that have been turned over to collections. This happens when you fail to make timely payments and the creditor reports you to a collection agency to get their money back.

Liens, Garnishments, and Financial Judgements

The smaller sixth section of your consumer credit report shows potential creditors and lenders detailed information about any liens, wage garnishments, or other financial judgments that have appeared against you in court. That counts for federal, state, or county court records. There’s no way to dispute or remove anything from the sixth section without judgement by a court.

How to Dispute Consumer Credit Report Details

The final section of your consumer credit reports tells you how to dispute any of the information on your consumers credit report.

The only way to avoid these kinds of problems on your consumer credit reports is to make your payments on time and don’t ignore negative credit information from your creditors.

If you’re searching for information on real estate classifieds, then you may be ready to enter the thrilling and often nerve-racking world of home ownership. While the process can be an arduous one, having access to classified ads will allow you to quickly make a survey of a given area to determine if any of the properties there meet your needs (and price range).

In addition to quality sites for real estate classified ads, we’ll examine what the average ad contains. And for those of you who sell or rent real estate, we’ll also discuss a few of the leading products when it comes to real estate classifieds software.

What to Expect from Classified Ads for Homes

Whether you’re opening up the Sunday edition of the newspaper or searching for an online real estate site, here are some of the things you can expect to find in classified ads for potential homeowners:

• Price – The cornerstone of any real estate classified ad, the price lets you know how much you’ll have to pay to get the property.
• Age – How old the home is. Newer homes should be relatively free of problems, while older models may require some fixing up.
• Photos – One of more pictures of the property from various sides and angles.
• Square Feet – The overall dimensions of the home. This is especially important if you’re moving with your family or plan on having one in the future.
• Multiple Listing Service – Also known as an MLS, this number allows real estate brokers representing sellers to share information with real estate brokers representing buyers.
• Beds – The number of beds in the house.
• Baths – The number of bathrooms in the house.
• Contact Agent – The realtor you need to contact in order to set up a viewing and possibly purchase the home.
• Location – The city the property is located in, as well as the physical address.

It should be noted that not every real estate classified ad will contain all of the above information, while some will include additional details.

Where to Find Classified Ads

• Yahoo Real Estate – A massive website dedicated to helping folks find a home in any price range. You can search for houses by city, state, or zip code, as well as price range and number of bedrooms or bathrooms. Information about neighborhoods around the country is provided, plus the Find a Realtor feature allows you to find someone to sell you a home. National mortgage rates are listed, plus article on how to refinance your home, increasing the property value, and how escrow works.
• Newspaper Classified Ads – While it may not be as exciting as searching online, major newspapers still have a massive section devoted to classified ads for real estate.
• Online Classifieds – Sites such as Craigslist will include homes among their classified ads, but there are also many sites specializing in buying and selling property. An increasing number of realtors have an online presence, an you can frequently take virtual tours of homes from the comfort of your current residence.
• Magazines – In addition to standard newspapers, you can also find free real estate classified ads in a magazine format. These can often be picked up for free inside the entry area of local businesses, while those willing to pay a subscription fee can read periodicals devoted to everything from mortgage banking to farms and ranches for sale.

Real Estate Classifieds Software

Most people seek out real estate classified ads to find property, but what about those in the business of selling homes? There are a number of real estate classifieds software available on the market, and these allow real estate agents to print flyers, keep track of clients, and even post reminders to take up for-sale signs. Here are three of the best:

• iRealty – This web-based real estate software package allows real estate agencies and independent realtors alike to create their own eye-catching websites. The standard edition of the software costs in the $450 range, and it’s available in languages ranging from Greek to Slovenian (over 14 in all). Other features include: SEO optimized web browsing, the ability to compare listings, user data import, multiple photos and videos per listing, PayPal integrated, and the ability to post everything from polls to news articles.
• Realty Juggler – Compatible with Windows, Macintosh, iOS, and Android, this software is designed for the busy real estate professional on the go. A 12-month subscription is $99, although you can test out the product by ordering a 90-day free trial. Here are a few of the many features available: track clients and upcoming showings, over 250 form letters, secure online information sharing, automated task reminders, four different real estate calculators, and 49 PDF flyer templates. I also like the fact that the subscription cost is locked in and won’t increase over time.
• Property Minder – If you’re a real estate agent looking to grow your business through the power of the Internet, check out this site devoted to real estate website design. You can sign up for a 30-day free trial and test out features such as: interactive Google Map searching, email marketing campaigns, online visual tours, flyer designs, and comparable market analysis.

Real estate classifieds can come in all shapes and sizes, from tiny classified ads in the local newspaper to sprawling websites packed with available properties. But no matter what form they take, real estate classifieds are dedicated to one common goal: helping you find and buy the home of your dreams.