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The FICO (credit score) formula is not a secret and there is no need to hire an expert or buy an expensive e-book in order to discover how to raise credit scores.



There are five areas that go to make up your score, and they are weighted differently - some areas are more important than others and have a bigger effect on hurting or improving your FICO score:



1. Payment History = 35%



2. Amounts Owed = 30%



3. Length of Credit History = 15%



4. New Credit = 10%



5. Types of Credit Used = 10%



So, the 10 best things you can do for raising credit scores are:



KEEPING A CLEAN PAYMENT HISTORY



1. Pay on time. At 35%, payment history is the largest area of concern to lenders. The only thing that will damage your score more than late payment is total non-payment.



2. Did I mention pay on time?



AMOUNT OWED - NOT TOO MUCH (BUT NOT TOO LITTLE)



3. Ideally keep your debt to credit ratio to 30% or less. This means only using 30% of your available credit per card.For example, if you have a card with a credit limit of $1,000, keep the balance at $300 or less.



4. This holds true per individual card but also for your debt to credit ratio overall. This means you need to pay down debt - not just move debt around. This is a frequently misunderstood aspect of how to raise credit scores. You will save money by doing the 0% APR balance transfer dance, but you will not improve your FICO score.



LENGTH OF CREDIT HISTORY



5. A longer average account age will boost your score. This means that opening new accounts can lower your score because a new account will bring down the average age.



6. Point 5 above has a rider - if you have poor credit you need to re-establish your credit and rebuild your credit. This means taking a hit in the short term by applying for as much new credit as you can get so that in the long term your score will improve.



NEW CREDIT DOs AND DON'Ts



7. Don't constantly apply for new credit. If you are shopping around for credit, try to squeeze the applications into a short time frame. FICO scores distinguish between a search for a single loan and a search for many new credit lines, in part by the length of time over which inquiries occur. If you are just starting out building your credit, a lot of inquiries will lower your score more than someone with a longer history.



8. Do request a copy of yor credit report regularly. Requesting a copy of your own credit report does NOT damage your credit score. This is an Internet myth. Requesting your own credit report or credit score from an authorized provider does not set off alarm bells the way that multiple requests sometimes does.



TYPES OF CREDIT USED



9. Mix it up. A combination of revolving credit such as credit cards and installment payments like a car loan is ideal.



10. Avoid store cards such as Target, Home Depot and so on. These count as lines of credit as opposed to revolving credit like regular credit cards. Store cards are not given much respect by credit scorers. In the long run, the convenience or in-store discounts will not make up for being refused a VISA card or a prime mortgage rate later on down the track.



If you still want a reliable e-book on how to raise credit scores, go to the site referenced and download the wonderful e-book 101 Powerful Tips for Legally Improving Your Credit Score for free! (Don't worry - they ask for your email - you won't even need a password.)

There are no secrets or special letters.



If you are carrying balances on your credit cards, pay them off. A large part of your score is based on the ratio of debt to available limit. Carrying balances of more than 30% hurts your score. Pay off the balances and get a quick boost to your score.



If you have derogatory items, you can negotiate pay for delete in some cases. This works best for single entry items like cell phone, medical and utility bills. It doesn't help much for regularly reported items like credit cards. The collection agency can only remove what they reported. The original creditor's charge off stays.



It takes at least a 24 month consistent, on time payment history to improve your score. The longer the history, the better the score.

To raise your credit score you need to do two things:

1 - add positive things to your credit records. Such as paying your bills on time!

2 - Remove negative things from your records. These may be mistakes made by the credit report companies or bills you haven’t paid!

If your problems aren’t too bad or too complicated than you can do this yourself. This review site gives you e-books to explain the process and guide you through it:

<>http://www.onlinebestinformation.com/cre...



if your problem is complex - or you just don’t have the time or patience to do it yourself then you will want to use a credit repair company. This review site will guide you to the three best companies to use:



<>http://www.onlinebestinformation.com/cre...



Good Luck!

First, get current with all of your accounts. Second, pay down debts. A significant portion of your credit score is the amount of debt you have relative to the amount of credit available to you (ie, having near-maxed out credit cards will give you a low score). Then, keep paying on time. It will take at least a month for any of these changes to affect your score at all.

If your accounts are in good standing then the only way you probably could increase scores eventually would be to have your credit limits increased. But if you accounts are not in good standing, settling the accounts and asking for a Pay to Delete would help to increased your scores.

Pay for deletion is probably the biggest "secret" as far as credit repair goes.



As far as websites go, I think mine is pretty good

you should go to http://www.cellsware.info/restorecredit . they have a great service to people that need to fix their credit score.

Go to eHow and search "xrayness" --- there are good financial articles there. Good luck.

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