To get a good credit score the first tip is to pay your bills on time. It does not matter how bad your credit history is you must pay all your bills on time.

This will help build a positive payment history on your credit report. This is the second most important factor when calculating your credit score.

It also matters how much time has passed between derogatory items on your credit report and when your score is calculated. After an amount of time, allegedly four years, negative items on your credit are not weighed as heavily. Thus it is very important for you to build a positive payment history.

The second tip is to remove any marks that are unverifiable or inaccurate. The credit system in America has many short comings. It is your responsibility to make sure incorrect information is not being reported on your credit report.

A common reason for inaccurate information to be reported is due to a divorce. A judge will divide the debts and if an ex-spouse defaults on a loan, that they were court ordered to pay, it will still be reported on both of your credit reports.

You can also have bad credit due to a lender mistake. It happens all the time, where the amount due changes and due to a mistake on the lenders side you are never notified and keep making your regular payments. Yet the whole time your credit is being ruined with derogatory marks.

Stolen identity and credit reporting errors are common reasons for inaccurate information too. These are just a few examples of how easy your credit can be damaged.

You can dispute all these negative marks and have them removed. They are inaccurate listings and are bringing your credit score down.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act was passed to help you remove these inaccurate listings. This law states that inaccurate information must be removed from your credit report.

To dispute an inaccurate mark you can hire a credit repair service. They will draft a dispute letter and send it to each credit bureau that is reporting the inaccurate listing. Or you can do this compose a letter yourself, however you should know that credit bureaus often do not conduct investigations based on one dispute letter.

Credit bureaus will often respond to a dispute letter by asking for more information. If you have many negative marks then I suggest hiring a credit repair service.