Shayne Sherman

Having a judgement on your credit report can be devastating. The impact it has on your credit score and your over-all ability to obtain financing is daunting to say the least. A judgement can stay on your credit reports for up to 20 years! How did you get the judgement in the first place?

A judgement is basically a court verified debt. Failure to make payment on a contract led to being sued from a creditor. Once the judge verifies that the debt is owed, he or she places judgment against you for the amount owed plus reasonable fees. The judgement is recorded publicly and also on your credit reports.

Even after you have paid off the court ordered judgement, the mere fact that you had it in the first place will remain on your credit reports. Let's face it; having a judgement on your credit reports is less than ideal. You have a right to dispute the judgement with the credit bureaus, if it is not verified; it will be removed from your credit reports!

Usually the best way to dispute a paid judgement is to dispute something in particular about the way it is reporting such as incorrect date, balance is wrong etc. The credit bureaus must verify by law, that the information they are reporting is 100% accurate. Once the judgement is paid off, it is much easier to have it removed as usually they will not be as easy for the bureaus to validate.

Removing a judgement on credit reports happens all the time. If you feel that this is all too hard or would rather just have a professional handle it for you, I suggest hiring a professional credit repair company such as Lexington Law Firm. Their years of experience with credit law will more than pay for their small monthly fee.

NCO Financial is a notorious collection agency operating in the United States and Canada that has gained a strong foothold in the collection business. Unfortunately, if you have ever had any experience with NCO Financial, it probably was not very positive. Consumers have complained about the collection tactics of this company; there are possibly more complaints about this company than about any other collection company in the country.

Complaints about NCO Financial range from consumers reporting harassing phone calls to reports of collection actions against already paid debts. Once this collection company takes charge of collecting your debt, you should proceed with caution. While not all of the claims have been substantiated at this time, there have been multiple complaints about NCO Financial processing electronic payments and credit card payments for more than the amount authorized by the consumer.

According to the Better Business Bureau, none of the branches of NCO Financial in the United States are members of the BBB. Several of the branches have unresolved complaints against them; at least three of the branches have the BBB's lowest rating of "F." The consumer complaints are predominantly in the categories of billing complaints and customer service complaints.

If NCO Financial contacts you and wants to make payment arrangements, proceed with caution. If possible, pay by postal money order so that they do not have access to your account information. Maintain a phone log to record every conversation you have with them. Do not call them from your home phone or cell phone; use a pay phone or a calling card; if you use your phone to call them in response to a collection letter they have sent you, they may use caller ID to obtain the number and begin calling you. Consumers have made several complaints about phone harassment from this company. Mail all payments certified, return receipt so that you have proof of the mailing.

One of the biggest problems with NCO Financial is having them appear on your credit report. Several consumers have complained about false information being reported to their credit report by this collection agency; while the reports may or may not be true, there are enough complaints to warrant your extreme caution when dealing with the company. Their appearance on your report can cause nearly irreparable damage to your credit score; your best bet is to contact a credit advocacy center and let them help you straighten out the report and rebuild your credit score.

If you have filed bankruptcy in the past and are looking to get a mortgage there are a few things you should understand. The days of getting a mortgage for bankruptcy have changed quite a bit. Before the mortgage meltdown it wasn’t unheard of for you to be able to get approved for a zero down mortgage as little as one day after your discharge! Boy how things have changed. Currently in order to be approved for an FHA mortgage you will need to have your bankruptcy discharged two years prior to your loan application. A conventional mortgage requires five years from discharge date now.

Waiting the two or even five years before you apply for a mortgage is just part of the picture. You will need to make sure that your finances and credit are in order. This is important to understand as if you do nothing after filing bankruptcy and then apply for a mortgage you might be shocked to find out that your credit scores are still terrible and your credit reports are choke full of errors.

The first step in your mortgage for bankruptcy plan would be to review your credit reports once your bankruptcy has been discharged. You will be shocked at what you will find. More than likely you will see tons of errors. What happens is after you file bankruptcy on a creditor they usually will not go back to the credit bureaus and update the status of your accounts.

What I suggest you do is hire a professional credit repair firm to go through your credit reports and fix all the errors. Amazingly enough most of the items will simply go away. Your credit scores will start to improve almost immediately. This is just the first step of your mortgage for bankruptcy action plan though. Your next step will be to establish new positive credit. You should apply for bankruptcy friendly credit cards. The positive history you will establish along with the removal of your old negative credit accounts is one-two punch to your low credit scores.

By the time your two year period for FHA or five year period for Conventional mortgages is over, your credit will be in tip top shape. I have seen people with 750 credit scores in as little as 18 months after filing bankruptcy. That is more than enough to qualify for a great mortgage rate with good terms. Terms that will hopefully not put you in a bad financial situation that leads to bankruptcy again.

I will leave you with a word of caution. It is possible to remove your bankruptcies from your credit reports before your two year period is up. However, when you apply for a mortgage the lender will ask you if you have ever filed bankruptcy and if so when? Lying on a mortgage application is mortgage fraud. I strongly suggest not doing this as you do not want that skeleton in your closet. For more information regarding my mortgage for bankruptcy plan please visit my top credit repair reviews website.

Is there such a thing as legal credit repair? Sometimes just mentioning the words "credit repair" can draw looks of suspicion. People think…"it's your credit, you should live with your mistakes.", "credit repair cannot be legal" or even "it’s a scam." The simple fact is that none of these accusations are correct. It is your legal right to repair any errors or unverifiable records on your credit reports.

The burden of proof rests with the credit report agencies. Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, and any other company that specializes in recording and reporting your personal data must verify that the data they have is true and accurate. If that cannot be verified, then it must be removed from your record.

Surprisingly, more than 70% of credit reports contain serious errors! If credit repair were not legal or it was a scam, then what should you do? Live with these errors on your credit reports? I once ran into a widow whose husband had passed away over six years prior. She had to let her house go to foreclosure because she no longer could pay the payment with just her income. Amazingly enough, the date of her foreclosure was being reported incorrectly. In fact, for some reason every month it was being reported that it had just happened that month! This had been going on for years.

Simply fixing this one major error improved her credit scores over 180 points in 1 day. Not only that, but it changed her life. She had been living without the ability to get any type of credit for that entire time. When I am asked if there is such a thing as legal credit repair, I simply bring up the story of the widow. It puts things into perspective rather quickly.

If you are in need of legal credit repair, I suggest you work with a professional credit repair company or law firm. I personally recommend Lexington law firm. Please visit my website for my complete Lexington law firm review.

A collection account can stay on your credit report for up to 7 years. The seven year period usually starts from the initiation date which is usually the date of first missed payment sometimes considered the delinquency date.

The single best way how to remove a collection is to negotiate with the original creditor or the collection company. You can usually manage to negotiate a payoff of delete which means you pay the account off and they delete it from your credit reports. If you do get the collection company or original creditor to agree to delete the account, make sure you get it in writing before making your payment as things tend to be forgotten once money changes hands.

If your collection is not paid, you can still try to remove the collection by disputing it with the credit bureaus, but there is a good chance that it will either be verified and continue to report or if you do manage to remove it, it can be re-inserted later or even sold to another collection company and re-reported!

If your collection is already paid, but still remains on your credit report then there is a great chance that you can have it removed simply by disputing the account with the credit bureaus that are reporting it. If it comes back verified, simply dispute something else about the account such as the date or the amount of the collection until it is gone. Eventually through perseverance you will get what you want.

Removing collections can make a significant impact on your credit scores and also your life in general as it can open you up to obtaining credit much cheaper. The savings on rate alone for a car loan for example more than pays for the time you spend working on removing collections.

If you are overwhelmed with the idea of writing letters, then I suggest hiring a credit repair law firm such as Lexington Law to assist you in repairing your credit. Their experience in how to remove collections alone far exceeds the expense of hiring them.