You need to raise your credit score quickly. You understand it didn’t go in the hole overnight and it takes time to resuscitate it. But you don’t have a lot of time. Perhaps an impending divorce or other big change in life circumstances means you need credit to become independent. What do you do?

My adult son and I spent time researching credit repair because he needed to improve his. His need wasn’t dire or urgent, but we still learned what worked quickly and what didn’t.

SAVE YOUR TIME AND MONEY

We started out with a DIY mentality. We bought a pricy book on credit repair – so you don’t have to. Don’t bother. You can find the same information free online. Books on credit repair simply consolidate it for you. The next reason to skip the book is that the main advice it offered – to contact creditors and request a settlement – didn’t work. At least not for my son. Of the 10 letters sent, he only got one response and that was a rejection.

 

RAISE YOUR CREDIT SCORE QUICK SUCCESS

While I was emotionally regrouping from the disappointment of being ignored by the creditors, my son kept plowing forward. He did something he probably thought I wouldn’t approve of. He hired a credit repair company.

My son knows me well. I had to stifle a gasp when he told me. Credit repair companies are notorious scammers as I mentioned in this article. But what was done was done.

After years of learning lessons the hard way, my son assured me he’d really researched the company he hired. It was a credit repair law firm and the online reviews from customers recommended it highly.

This firm (Lexington Law) charged $100/month. After just one month, 15 items were removed from his credit report and his score shot up 100 points. They earned that first $100. (This is NOT a sponsored post. They didn’t pay me to mention them. I mentioned them because they did what they said they could do.)

Giddy from the first month’s results, my son decided to pay for a few more months, but the progress of that first month was essentially stalled. So he dropped the program and used that money to keep raising his score the old-fashioned way – with responsibility and time.

Moving your credit score from a 500 to a 600 can mean the difference between getting an apartment or not, getting a decent credit card to pay for baby needs, or not paying a loan-shark rate for a used car. 100 points can be a big deal. For my son, using a credit repair law firm was a great way to make that jump happen.

2ND STRATEGY TO RAISE YOUR CREDIT SCORE QUICKLY

Another strategy to raise a credit score by (another) 100 points depends on the goodwill of someone who has great credit and LOOOOVES you. Maybe that’s a parent or grandparent.

If they’re willing, they can add your name to 2-3 of their well-established credit accounts as an authorized user. (That doesn’t mean they should give you a card for those accounts to use. They probably shouldn’t.)

But if someone with great credit and no late payments on these accounts adds you as an authorized user, it can have a quick and dramatic impact on your credit score. Perhaps 100 points or more.

KEEP RAISING YOUR CREDIT SCORE

Another thing you can implement right away is to set up auto-payment of your bills. 35% of a credit score is based on payment history. So set up everything you possibly can on autopay so you’re never late on those bills. Don’t sabotage your repair efforts with counter-productive mistakes.

There are many more credit score-raising strategies, but to implement or not implement really depends on your situation and the details of your debt. Keep researching and make the best decisions based on your circumstances. But the first two strategies can give you the quick boost you may urgently need.