Ten Greatest Myths About Your Credit

1. Credit Bureaus are empowered with governmental authority.
Credit bureaus are not associated with the government and have no legal authority at all. They are private companies who sell credit information to make a profit. 

2. The credit bureaus are required by law to keep derogatory items on your credit report for 7 to 10 years.
There are absolutely no laws requiring credit bureaus to report anything on you at all. In fact, the exact opposite is true: There are laws that require credit bureaus to automatically remove all derogatory items older than 7 years or in the case of a bankruptcy, 10 years.

3. It is impossible to get a bankruptcy off.
Bankruptcies come off just like any other derogatory that is incorrectly reported, obsolete, erroneous, misleading, incomplete, or that cannot be verified. Remember, the nature of the item has nothing to do with its removal under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

4. The information on your credit report cannot be changed.
The opposite is true under the Fair Credit Reporting Act; both the federal and various state laws REQUIRE that items be removed if they are not 100% accurate ore cannot be verified in a timely manner.

5. It is illegal or immoral to have the information on your credit report altered or removed.
You are absolutely entitled to have your financial life represented in as good a manner as possible. There is nothing illegal or immoral about trying to save yourself (or your family) money. In fact, the Fair Credit Reporting Act was created for exactly that reason. Congress enacted laws to protect consumers from the unfair intrusion of the credit bureaus into our lives.

6. Paying a past due debt removes it from your credit report. 
This is an especially nefarious one. Paying off old debt does not change or erase the fact that at one time you were not paying as agreed.

7. Inquiries are not derogatory and will not affect your credit standing.
Anything that erodes your financial credibility is damaging to your credit. One or two inquiries may not be too bad, but any more than that and they may be interpreted negatively. Prospective creditors will look at your credit report and think that you are desperate for credit.

8. If you get a derogatory item removed, it will just come back.
Not if it is removed legally. When it is removed with cause under the Fair Credit reporting Act it cannot legally be placed back on your credit report. The same law that required its removal prohibits the item from being reported again.

9. The past equals the future.
This is the biggest myth of all. The concept that once bad, always bad, or at least for 7 years is totally false. Anybody can run into hard times or an emergency situation now and then, but that doesn’t automatically mean that they are a poor credit risk for a magical 7 years. The simple truth is, no credit report can predict the future.

10. I can't repair my credit report myself.
Yes, you can and you should! This website has all of the information you need! The simple truth is you don’t have to live with bad credit or pay thousands of dollars to have it corrected.