Quite a number of people are still lost as to what steps they need to take if they have to improve their credit ratings and score.
Reality is hard to swallow but the loose financial life that some of us have led in the past haunts us like a ghost today.
If you make a thorough check, you might be surprised to find that an unwise decision you made several years back regarding your finances is what troubles you today and has thus prevented you from having a smooth ride with creditors.
Ordinarily, this should trouble you knowing that it is not easy to remove an account such as a collection because of its life span of 7 years which it has to spend on your file.
However, there are options to sorting this out in a matter of weeks instead of waiting endlessly for the collection to expire its time on your file while watching your rating go bad at the same time.
One good option is negotiating with the collector on exactly how much it is you can afford to pay them.
But that's just part of the process.
Since your goal is to remove the bad account from your file, your move should be to strike a deal with the collector to equally remove the collection from your report in exchange for your resolve to pay them.
The effective way to do this is to get the collector to sign a written agreement to do this.
Another strategy you might want to employ, which is a popular one, is to dispute the account with the credit bureaus.
A good way to get around this is to notify them that the bad information isn't yours if you're sure of that.
They'll have to investigate your claim and if unable to arrive at a conclusion, they'll have to delete it.
A good and easy way to settle with collectors and increase your score is to use a self-help or a credit repair agency restoration method.