60 Day Credit Repair Guide

By Rory Ackerman •  Updated: 08/24/22 •  11 min read
Filed under: Credit Repair

If you are like most people, you probably have a few credit issues that you would like to fix as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, fixing credit problems can be a difficult and time-consuming process. That’s where our 60 day credit repair guide comes in! 

Keep reading to get actionable steps on how to repair your credit score and correct any errors on your credit report by filing disputes. You’ll be on the fast track to getting credit and loan approvals again in no time!

How Do Fast Credit Improvements Work?

It’s possible to fix your credit score fast with methods that instantly affect your credit reports. Some of the most efficient ways of achieving this include paying off existing debt and removing negative items from your reports.

On the other hand, you can accumulate the positive influence of several methods over 60 days, to gradually improve your credit score. Overall, credit repair takes time, but you can fast forward the process by taking the right steps over the next 60 days.

Fast Score Improvement With Credit Repair Companies

If you don’t have the right knowledge on repairing credit on your own and don’t mind paying for the service, credit repair companies can help. A credit repair company is an entity that tackles negative information on your credit report and interacts with credit bureaus to remove it.

This is usually the case with negative information that can be disputed, or shouldn’t be in your report in the first place. Unauthorized hard checks, double accounts, and debt accounts that you’ve already paid off are just some of these occurrences.

This information could hurt your credit score drastically, and credit repair companies act to remove it from your report. They interact with credit reporting agencies and work to find the legal solution for disputing the listings.

Once the dispute letter has been submitted, the credit bureaus have 30 to 45 days to investigate and remove the listing. So, you can start noticing changes in your credit rating in as little as 45 to 60 days.

How The Credit Repair Organizations Act Helps Protect You From Scams

This regulation ensures fairness in the business that a credit repair company conducts, and it’s similar to the Fair Credit Reporting Act that the bureaus have to follow. In this case, the law regulates the work of credit repair companies in the following situations:

Scam organizations might offer you a fraudulent solution by claiming to be able to remove entries associated with your credit debt, but it’s illegal to do so and might only make things worse. That’s why the CROA act works to prevent such fraudulent activity that scam companies might offer to you.

Credit Repair Organizations Act Helps Protect You From Scams

Credit repair companies are forbidden to guarantee any rating improvements. It’s just impossible without taking a look into the negative listings and your credit report overall.

As for the fees, only make payment for the services that have been explained and planned for with your approval. So if they come at you with some specified amount before even considering your situation and needs, that is the first red flag about the company.

A credit repair company will present a credit repair plan to you with the details on how it will approach boosting your score. Finally, there’s never a guarantee that the process will work and that your credit score will be improved.

Sadly, in some cases, the negative information can’t be legally removed, so you might have to wait for the information to be drop off after the specified amount of time goes by.

Ultimately, you should still do thorough research to see if a credit repair company is actually legit. I’d recommend looking them up on BBB and TrustPilot as a good starting point.

How A Credit Repair Company Approaches Fixing Your Credit Report

Credit repair companies go over your credit report in pursuit of any removable negative listings. Of course, this must be done accordingly to the Credit Repair Organizations Act, and the best credit repair companies should find a legal basis for removing the listings.

Next, a credit repair company will interact with a credit bureau and provide evidence that a certain listing should be removed from your report. If the mentioned period for investigation passes, and the bureau still can’t prove the entry, they should remove the item from your credit report and your score will jump instantly.

Credit repair companies can also act as intermediaries in some situations. The best credit repair companies have a reputation that allows them to negotiate better terms for your repayments. Also, they can help you extend your lines of credit with some creditors that initially wouldn’t allow this if you sent an inquiry yourself.

Ultimately, credit repair companies could also negotiate lower interest rates for debt consolidation loans that you can use for easier debt repayment. By consolidating debts you can often lower your overall credit utilization which will also help your credit score increase. 

Best Tactics For 60 Day Credit Repair

Relying on a credit repair service to fix your score is not always the best option. You could fall into a shady credit repair company trap if you don’t have any experience or recommendations to lean on.

While the best credit repair companies could possibly help, it’s also a solid option to try some quick fixes yourself. This way you can avoid the chance of being scammed by a credit repair agency, and you can save up some money by doing it yourself.

To get you on the right track, here are some 60 day credit repair steps that could show results ASAP:

Start By Getting A Free Annual Credit Report

Thanks to the FCRA regulations, you have the right to ask for a free annual copy of your credit report from credit reporting agencies. You can get one free copy from each credit bureau every year to get insight into the causes of your credit score on each.

You can go over the entries and try to find any suspicious items that you weren’t aware of. 

Perhaps, you’ve applied for a loan and the creditor ensured you that just a soft credit score check would be conducted but really a hard credit pull was performed.

In case the creditor actually ran a hard pull inquiry on your history, it could hurt your credit score without you knowing it. You might be able to prove this and remove the entry from your credit report by filing a dispute letter.

It’s essentially the same thing that credit repair agencies would do, as they also go over your credit reports in detail, and find items that could be legally removed.

Try To Repair Credit Scores With Disputes And Goodwill Letters

Filing a dispute letter is always worth the effort, as you can send it directly to the three credit bureaus and ask for negative item removal.

Filing A Dispute Letter

Sending a regular dispute letter is a formal request to the credit bureau to remove the credit report entry based on reasons provided by you. If you can prove that the listing is inaccurate, the credit bureau will have up to 45 days to investigate the matter.

If this period goes by and neither the bureau nor the creditor could prove the entry was legit then the listed item should be removed from your credit reports.

You can send a 609 dispute letter that requests documentation of the reasons why a certain item is listed on your credit report. So, you will not be asking for a dispute at this stage, but only for the credit bureaus to provide documentation regarding a listing on your credit reports that you suspect might be inaccurate.

If they fail to provide the authentication, it indicates that the information might be inaccurate and you could be able to remove it from the report.

On the other hand, goodwill letters can be sent to your creditors, and not the bureaus. With this letter, you will ask for a certain debt listing removal based on your good history with a creditor.

For instance, if it’s only the first time that you missed a payment, you can offer to settle the debt and the creditor will remove it as a bad listing. Of course, it’s a long shot, but there’s no reason not to try this approach if you have a positive payment history with the creditor.

Extending Your Credit Line And Lowering Utilization

We already discussed how credit repair agencies might help you get an extended line of credit, but let’s now deal with ways you can do this on your own. Your credit scores are drastically affected by credit utilization.

Lowering Utilization

That refers to the amount of revolving credit that you are using at any moment compared to your overall combined credit limits. 

However, getting an extended line of credit will also help you since you will have more credit at your disposal with the same amount of debt against it, improving your credit utilization ratio.

Using just under 30% total of your overall available credit will positively affect your credit scores. The best thing is that you won’t even have to apply for a new credit card to do so. You can simply ask for an extended line of credit with the existing credit card issuer you are using.

Deal With Your Newest Negative Impacts First

Your credit report includes items that are active in the previous 7 years because negative entries mostly drop off once this period is over. Therefore it makes more sense to focus your efforts on any newer derogatory impacts to your credit reports first.

Especially with lower overall debt like credit card charges and utility bills, you can settle a smaller portion of your debt and get a higher positive gain on your credit rating. Dealing with existing debts that are on your credit reports for years won’t influence your rating as much.

A credit repair service might also advise you to deal with your negative entries by strategically closing one smaller account at a time after the debt has been settled. 

You also might be able to get a free consultation with a credit counseling agency to plan your budget and repay recent debts.

Handling recent late payments will boost your credit rating instantly, and your credit scores will begin to improve within 60 days from starting with the repayments.

Consider a Secured Credit Card As An Option

Using a secured credit card to rebuild your credit is a great and fast method, and you can achieve a credit boost within 60 days to a few months. It all depends on the conditions and the deposit amount since these cards vary from $100 to $200 or even extended limits up to $1000.

Secured Credit Card

They are different from regular unsecured cards since you make the first deposit that the creditor can take if you don’t make regular payments. Once you prove your responsibility with the card, you can earn your deposit back and boost your credit score at the same time.

Moreover, some secured card issuers allow you to upgrade the account to an unsecured credit card after the repayment. This can also benefit your credit boosting within 60 days since you won’t have to risk it with further hard pulls when applying for a new credit card.

Try To Remove Third-Party Collections From Your Report

Part of the 60-day credit repair process concludes with trying to get any third-party collections removed from your credit reports. These are the collections that are sold by your creditors if you missed your payments for more than 180 days. Basically, it means your creditor gave up on trying to collect from you and turned it over to a collections agency.

The good thing is – you should be able to contact the collection agency that bought your debt and work out a pay-for-delete scenario to remove it from your report. 

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, pulling off a 60-day credit repair might be a tough process, but it’s not impossible. 

With the right approach and some DIY tricks (or help from credit repair agencies), you can count on improving your credit scores, though it may slow down the process a little bit using one of those credit repair services.

Doing it yourself should be quicker and if you feel like tacking your credit repair head-on, we have given you the next steps you should start working on right now.

You should now be prepared to deal with your credit reports item by item while searching for disputable entries. And you should also know the importance of settling debts on time and trying to remove as many negative items from your credit report as possible.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):

Is it worth paying a credit repair company to fix your credit?

While a credit repair agency might be able to dispute some of your negative listings, it’s not always the most convenient thing to do. It might not be worth it if you know how to go through your credit reports, since most of the undertaking done by a credit repair agency can be done on your own with the right knowledge and a little time invested.

Can you really improve your credit reports in just 60 days?

While it might sound like that isn’t enough time to improve your credit, you can rely on credit repair services or go through your reports to dispute items and boost your credit score in as little as 60 days. The first changes on your credit report should be visible within 30 days from getting your first disputes resolved.

How do credit repair companies work?

A credit repair agency will interact with credit bureaus to remove negative information based on regulations they have to follow. Also, they might be able to help you get extended lines of credit to boost your credit rating this way. This service can often come with a hefty fee and may even slow down the process.

Rory AckermanRory Ackerman

Rory Ackerman

Hi, I'm Rory! I've worked in the banking industry for quite some time and wanted to help provide my expertise with all things credit related. In my spare time I like to play video games and collect sports cards.

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