Author Bio : This is a Guest Post by Marc Brown. A Senior Financial Writer associated with Oak View Law Group. Besides publishing articles on various sites, he provides extensive guidelines on debt settlement questions.

Have you recently failed to make a timely payment on your credit card bills? Its impact won’t be good on your credit score. But can we deal with this problem? Yes! We can solve this issue if we follow four basic steps in order to improve our credit score.

Steps to repair your credit score:

Pay your credit card bills:

You can immediately improve your credit score by making payments by the due date. Bills like credit card bills mortgage loan or car loan needs to be paid on time. Your score won’t escape from the negative effect of failing to make the required payment on time.

Evaluate your credit report:

If you have a good credit record then you can easily apply for another loan. Evaluation is an important part of maintaining a positive track record. This would help to erase the wrong entries that might have ruined your credit report that determines your credit score. Your loan application would be negated on the pretext of poor credit score.

You can visit this site www.annualcreditreport.com that would help to get a free credit report. If you want any information on rectifying the errors then go through the Federal Trade Commission’s “Building a Better Credit Report”.

Result of a bounced Check:

Bounced check has a negative effect on your credit report. It can be a source for some massive issues on failing to control this matter. Your banks can get hold of the clients who have a poor credit report even if it does not appear on it. Penalty fee on the overdraft along with the bounced check would compound the adverse effect on the credit report.

Keep the old accounts active:

Keeping the old accounts open would help to boost your credit score. If you are unable to manage the accounts then it might lead to debt. If your older accounts are inactive then it might affect your credit score. Instead of closing the accounts try to include the present balance to your active account. If your account is old then it is an evidence of your credit worthiness. Therefore make small purchases with your older cards and pay back immediately with the arrival of the bill.

These four tips would improve your credit score and teach you to be responsible while dealing with your credit card.

There are many different meanings for the term consumer credit counseling.

In it’s simplest form, credit counselling is the process where you meet with a credit counselor and they give you advice on managing your money. They will help you deal with credit card debt, and they will explain how to improve your credit score on your credit report.

In addition, if you are planning to file for personal bankruptcy in the United States, they will conduct the mandatory credit counseling before filing bankruptcy, and the post bankruptcy filing credit counseling session. In Canada, the credit counsellor will conduct the credit counselling during the bankruptcy process.

Finally, a credit counselor will actually negotiate with your creditors on your behalf through a Debt Management Program where you make one payment each month to deal with your debts.

For more information, consult a local credit counselor.

When you attend your first credit counseling session, your credit counselor will explain the importance of your credit report.
Your credit report is a summary of your credit information, prepared by an independent credit reporting agency.  They get information about your past payment history, your current debt levels, your employment status, and various other personal information, and summarize it into a report that is then used by lenders to decide if they will lend you money.
A clean credit report, with no bad debts and late payments, is important, because it allows you to borrow money, and it will get you the best possible interest rates, and that is why a clean credit report is so important.
If your credit report is not in perfect shape, make an appointment with a credit counselor to review your options.