There are different ways to clean up your credit report. According to leading credit counselors, fixing credit requires financial effort, careful budgeting, perseverance, and most importantly, time. The popular formula has been shown to increase credit scores in the long run. However, there is a major problem with this recipe for credit success: TIME is a luxury that not everyone can afford. Most of us want to take advantage of the fantastic housing market, favorable auto or business loans NOW and not later. And this is where little-known shortcuts and credit secrets come into play.

Here are 3 tips that will help you clean up your credit report in a short period of time.

1 Know your enemy.

Your triple-digit FICO score measures your ability to repay a loan. Determine if creditors will label you “reliable” or “risky.” However, just knowing your score is not enough if you want to come up with a winning credit repair strategy. Request a copy of your credit report from the three major credit bureaus. Do not assume that the information provided by the bureaus is identical. Since different creditors report to different bureaus, there can be significant differences in reporting. Once you have your credit report, examine it carefully. Look for any outdated and incorrect information. Outdated information includes adverse information that is more than 7 years old (late payments, collection accounts, tax liens, lawsuits, lawsuits, etc.), bankruptcies reported more than 10 years after the date of last activity, credit inquiries ( requests by businesses for a copy of your credit report) that are more than 2 years old. Inaccurate information on your report includes incorrect personal information (name, address, phone number, date of birth, SSN, employment information), accounts that are not yours or lawsuits you were not involved in, incorrect account history, accounts closed that are listed as open, etc.

2 Dispute, dispute, dispute.

Once you identify outdated or inaccurate information, start to dispute. Under the FCRA, both consumer reporting companies and the information provider (that is, the person, business, or organization that provided the information about you to the credit bureaus) are responsible for correcting any inaccurate or incomplete information on your archive. If you are correct, or if the creditor who provided the negative information about you can no longer verify it, then the credit bureau must remove the item.

3 Paradoxes in the world of credit.

There are many little-known paradoxes in the world of credit. The more you know about them, the better your chances of achieving fast credit repair. In theory, negative items are supposed to drop from your credit after 7 years. However, some of your debt may be sold to various collection agencies and illegally reposted to your account as a new bad debt on the date the debt is sold to the collector. In such cases, the old debt may “catch up” and continue to have a detrimental effect on your credit score. Another paradox is debt collection. Paying off an old collection account can lower your score, why? Because now the account is updated to “current”. The negative item (although paid for) will still lower your score due to its current status. Another interesting paradox is “paid” and “deleted” accounts. Paying a negative bill in full may not have the beneficial effect you expect. On the other hand, removing the account from your record will always increase your credit. How do you do that? Just negotiate with the collection agency that they will pay for things ONLY if they agree to remove the account from their record.

There are many little-known secrets that can help you clean up your credit report in no time. The only thing you need to achieve the desired results is to know the loopholes and shortcuts in the system.