However, there are lenders willing to work with subprime borrowers, so don’t let it hold you back. Learn more by reading our guides on how to buy a car with bad credit and how to buy a house with bad credit. One approach to begin boosting your credit is simply to pay down your debts. Decreasing your outstanding balances or eliminating debt altogether can improve your debt-to-income ratio, which is used to determine if you can effectively take on more debt. An authorized user is someone added to an existing credit card account by the primary cardholder. If you need help creating a repayment strategy, reach out to a certified financial planner or a credit counselor.

Best Credit Card Consolidation Loans Of 2025: A Closer Look

If you’re looking for help repairing your credit, the key is finding the best credit repair services out there and choosing the one that aligns best with your needs. creditrepair has been in operation since 1989, so it’s one of the most established credit repair services in our ranking. This company also offers a transparent and affordable pricing model with a monthly fee of $79 for individuals or $119 per month for couples.

Get A Free Consultation With A Credit Expert

You can visit AnnualCreditReport.com to download a free report from each credit bureau once every 12 months. Through April 2021, you can access free weekly credit reports due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Debt can be overwhelming, and when bills pile up, many people look to credit repair, debt consolidation, or debt relief services for a solution. We also considered any additional features Credit Repair.com provides, such as credit monitoring, financial education, and identity theft protection services. As a result of the CFPB’s enforcement action, the companies were ordered to pay $2.7 billion in consumer redress and civil penalties and were banned from telemarketing credit repair services for 10 years.

Your credit history makes up 15% of your overall credit score and deleting an account that you’ve had for a long time, even if it’s negative, can result in lowering your average account age. If you find inaccurate details, follow the dispute process with Experian and the other credit bureaus to initiate an investigation. To figure out how much you’ll have to allocate toward the balance each month to pay it down in time, divide the balance by the number of months in the promotional period.

Credit utilization, the percentage of your available credit that you’re using, plays a significant role in your credit score (accounting for 30% of your FICO score and 20% of your VantageScore). It’s calculated by dividing your current balance by your credit limit and multiplying by 100. For instance, a $200 balance on a $1,000 credit limit results in a 20% utilization ratio. Regularly repeating this process, especially if you initially find many errors, is key to effectively repairing your credit. If you aren’t sure whether you want to use a credit repair company, the good news is that there’s nothing that a credit repair company does that you can’t do yourself if you’re willing to invest the time and effort.