A good credit rating has never been more important. Your entire financial life depends on your ability to get access to low-interest money when you need it. In these days of tightening credit, a few blemishes on your credit report will mean you will have to pay higher rates on car loans, credit card debt, and insurance premiums. An entire industry has emerged to help people repair their credit. In this article, we will address the new truth about credit repair.

Credit repair companies thrive in bad times. Take a rising unemployment rate, add in an economic recession, and then multiple the effect with record-high gasoline prices and you have the formula for financial disaster for millions of American families. Some credit repair companies have stood the test of time, and are a good value for their customers. Most, however, are less than effective, at best... and some are just outright scams.

Here are some tell-tale signs that a credit repair company may be scamming you:

• They want you to pay them before they provide any services.
• They don't tell you your legal rights.
• They recommend that you should not directly contact a credit reporting bureau.
• They suggest that you should create a "new" credit identity.

The truth about credit repair is that anything a credit repair company can do, you can do for yourself, at little or no cost. Even the Federal Trade Commission will tell you that. No one is impacted more by your poor credit rating than you. Doesn't it make sense that no one will be more motivated than you to fix the problem? If you take the time, and make a real effort, you can solve your credit problems without paying anyone else.

Start by getting copies of your credit reports from the three major credit reporting bureaus (Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian). Go to www.annualcreditreport.com – this is a website sponsored by the bureaus themselves, and the reports will be free, once a year. You can get all three reports at once, or stagger it out over the period of the year. Another good option for getting your credit reports is from www.truecredit.com

The first and most basic steps towards repairing your credit are to carefully review your credit reports for any incorrect, innaccurate, or incomplete negative information. You can dispute mistakes or outdated information, for just the cost of a postage stamp. Tell the consumer reporting companies, in writing, exactly what information you do not agree with. Be sure to include any documentation that backs up your claim (be sure to send a copy, not the original).

In a perfect world, that would be enough. But as you may well know, this world isn't perfect. The credit bureaus routinely ignore disputes and have systems in place to AUTOMATICALLY read them, route them, and even flag them as frivilous without a human being ever laying eyes on them.

There are ways to address these obstacles, of course. Many of these are covered in the Credit Secrets Bible or are discussed in detail on in the Credit Secrets Bible Forum. If you're wanting to handle your credit repair needs on your own, we highly reccommend checking out the Credit Secrets Bible + C.S.B. Forum combo that is being offered right now, as you can save hundreds of dollars on a great combo of products and services.

You can also find free credit repair videos and other useful information by looking around this site.