People looking for ways to clean up their credit reports sometimes turn to credit repair services because they promise to dispute your bad credit and have it taken care of for you in no time.  What a lot of them don’t realize is that many of these services will simply take your money and dispute every negative account in your profile, in the hopes that one of them might fall off.

As you can imagine, this isn’t exactly the best way to go about improving your credit score.  Disputing every account on your credit report not only is a waste of time (unless the account you’re disputing is actually inaccurate), and in some cases can land you in a world of trouble.  If there’s a collection on your report, and you dispute the account information, you’ll not only have wasted time and money, but you could open yourself up to lawsuits by claiming an account isn’t your own.

So what’s the better method for cleaning up your credit history?  If you’ve got accounts and debts on your file that you don’t recognize, don’t dispute them – validate them with a debt validation letter.

Rather than claiming information about an account is inaccurate and refusing to take care of it, find out the creditor or collector’s contact information (usually listed in the report) and write them a letter requesting verification of the debt, and that the collector provide proof that you owe the money, and that they have the right to collect it.  If the collection agency is unable to verify the debt, problem solved.  If they are able to verify it, your next course of action should be to set up some type of payment plan to get rid of the debt (and put an end to those annoying phone calls).

Remember that debt validation letters are only a means of verifying an existing debt, not a way to eliminate the debt entirely.  You shouldn’t try to validate a debt that you know for a fact is yours, as it could land you in deeper trouble with collectors.

The other day, I made my bi-monthly trek down to my mailbox to collect my mail, and was more than a little bummed to find that most of the mail that wasn’t a Penny Saver or flyer offering to buy my unused gold was composed entirely of bills.

Yeah, I know, welcome to the club.  This is certainly nothing new for me; but having so many unpaid debts piling up all around you (in my case, medical bills, car insurance, credit card bills, and more) can be more than a little daunting when the debt collectors come demanding payment NOW.

So what are some of your best options for taking care of your mountains of unpaid debt?  Take a few tips from the leader in San Diego credit repair services for the best way to find debt relief:

Pay it yourself

If you’re feeling up to tackling the giant all on your own, you can certainly do so.  Gather up all the necessary paperwork for the bills and work on a payment plan tailored for each outstanding debt you have.  Don’t be afraid to call your creditors to try and work out a payment schedule that works for the both of you.  Most creditors can be pretty accommodating – especially these days, with so many people facing financial troubles.

Hire a debt settlement firm

If the very thought of even looking at your bills causes you to involuntarily shudder in disgust, consider contacting a debt settlement firm to help you set up payment arrangements with your creditors and lenders.  Our own service is quite skilled at settling unpaid debts for as low as 50 cents on the dollar, as well as successfully setting up agreements such as pay for deletions.

If you’ve already fallen behind on your debt payments, and want to learn how to get back on track, give one of our specialists a call to find out how you can get your finances back on track and under your control.

Before we get into the topic at hand, I have a story to tell that actually ties into said topic; so if the four or five people who may read this will indulge me for a moment…

A couple of weeks ago, I drove over to my parents’ house for dinner.  My mom had sent me a text message early on in the day stating that she’d be making fajitas, and since my only alternative for dinner that night was a couple of hot sauce packets from Taco Bell that I’d stumbled upon in a kitchen drawer, so my decision was clear.

Five o’ clock rolls around, and I’m pretty much starving.  I make a mad dash for my car and tear down the freeway like a madman on a mission (I like to think that if I’d been pulled over for speeding, all I’d have had to do was mention I was on my way to Fajita Central and I’d have gotten a police escort to my parents’ house).

By the time I get there, I’m ready to ravage a plate.  I load up a flour tortilla with chicken, steak, assorted greens and beans, and healthy heaping of hot sauce.  I sit down to begin appeasing my taste buds with the monstrosity I’ve created, take a pretty massive bite out of the beast….and immediately have trouble swallowing it.  I take a gulp of soda to help smooth the process out and, whoops THAT was a mistake, I think as I rush to the sink and heave some of it back up.

As some of you can imagine, things didn’t really get any better from there, as the food remain lodged in my throat and refused to go down or come up.  I’ll skip many of the gory details and cut to about 6 hours later, where I was waiting in the ER with my dad, holding a Princess and the Frog bucket to catch any wayward saliva that crept its way out of my mouth (swallowing it was completely out of the question).

Fast forward to today.  I’ve learned the value of chewing your food thoroughly before swallowing, and have started receiving medical bills in the mail for my visit.

Now that that’s all out of the way, let’s get to the point of this blog – namely, how to deal with medical bills before they deal with you.  Here are a few tips:

Don’t ignore it.

No one likes the thought of paying off medical bills, especially if you have no health insurance to help cover the outrageous costs, but pretending the bills got lost in the mail isn’t going to help matters much either.  Hospitals typically only care to try and collect on a bill for a few months before they send it off to collection agencies, and we all know you don’t want to deal with THAT hassle.

Make sure the procedure is covered by your insurance.

Medical bills make about as much sense as student loans; they can be pretty hard to navigate if you don’t know what you’re looking at.  Make sure to follow up with your insurance company and make sure all the right paperwork is in the right place.  No sense in having to pay more for a simple procedure because one hand didn’t talk to the other.

Make sure you set up payment arrangements.

Like I said earlier, medical bills are a lot like student loans in the sense that they can be pretty confusing, and can keep you paying for years to come if the bill is big enough – which they typically are.  Unless you plan on paying the bill off in one lump sum (you lucky SOB), you’ll want to go out of your way to contact both the doctor’s office and your insurance company to set up a workable payment plan.  Again, the last thing you want is a bunch of medical collections showing up on your credit report to drag down your credit score along with your spirits.

Want more advice on how to tackle outstanding debts and repair your credit?  Speak to a specialist at My Credit Group.