A credit report is a powerful piece of paper. Lenders look at it closely when deciding whether or not to give you a loan. Insurance companies can use it to determine your rates or whether they will cover you at all. Employers can access it and use it as a factor in offering you a job or promotion. With that much significance placed on your credit report, it is absolutely essential that the information it contains paints you in a good light.

According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, consumers can dispute mistakes in their credit report for free. It can be a little time consuming to pull your report, document the error, type up a letter and send it in, so many people hire credit repair agencies to do the boring work for them. There is no real reason, other than the issue of time, to pour out money for work that you can easily do yourself.

If you have any "proof" that the information is inaccurate, (statements, cancelled checks, the "proof" depends on the individual item) list it here and enclose a copy (not the original). Online credit repair services, as the name suggests, help customers improve their credit ratings by removing inaccurate, false or misleading information from their credit reports. Consumers have the right to dispute any information contained on their credit reports that they believe to be inaccurate, misleading, outdated or unverifiable.

Don't fall for the ads that claim an agency can erase bad credit from your report. The only thing by law that can be changed on a credit report is inaccurate information. If you have had a bankruptcy, the only thing that will legally remove it from your credit report is time. Credit repair agencies charge anywhere from $400 to $2000 for their services and the reality is they are not doing anything that you can't do for yourself. For $30 you can obtain a credit report that lists your history with all three credit bureaus. The rest of the investment in cleaning up your credit report is in the value of the time it requires.

If you really don't want to repair your credit by yourself, you can pay a credit repair company to do it for you. Be careful though. There are many credit repair scams out there that you need to watch for. I don't recommend paying a credit repair company, because you are at a higher risk for identity theft by giving strangers your personal information. If you really want to pay a company, make sure you do proper research and investigate these credit repair companies before diving into it too fast.