This is a follow up to my previous article titled How To Rebuild Your Credit After Bankruptcy. Step one involves ordering your credit report from all three credit bureaus. The information may be correct on the credit report provided by Experian, but incorrect by Expedia for example. And you never know which bureaus a particular creditor relies upon to get their information on you. Hence the need to order and go over all three to ensure accuracy.
How do go about ordering your credit report?
In today’s society just about everything is done online, and while www.annualcreditreport.com is the only legitimate site out there, do not be tempted by the ease and convenience of downloading your credit report from this site. DO NOT ORDER YOUR CREDIT REPORT ONLINE!!! Instead, obtain your credit report the old fashion way by filling out this very simple one page form (which you can find here http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/pdf-0093-annual-report-request-form.pdf) and mail it in. The credit reports will be mailed to you in about two weeks.
Why you should never order your credit report online after your bankruptcy?
Well, that’s because if you do so you will be walking in to the credit bureau’s trap. That trap is called Arbitration. Once online, before you know it, you will inevitably hit “I accept.” As in, in the event that I decide to sue you, the credit bureau, in order to “force you” to fix my credit report after bankruptcy, I will have to take my case before an arbitrator (Latin for referee in case you are wondering) instead of before a judge or a jury. What’s the problem with that? The arbitrator is supposed to be fair and impartial, but he won’t be. Why? Because the bulk of his business and his income comes from the credit bureaus, that’s why.
So again, after at least 60 days have passed since obtaining your bankruptcy discharge the first thing you should do is order your credit reports from all 3 credit bureaus. Just make sure you order your credit report by mail and NOT ONLINE!