Your credit score. It could be a dream come true or your worst nightmare. But most of the time it is sort of like that rude mother in law coming to pay you a visit at your house. You are aware that she is coming to stay, and you are not looking forward to it, but you are too nervous to ask or even consider how long she might be paying you that visit. OK, so that analogy wasn’t that great. But anyway, read on to see just how long negative marks will stay on your credit history.

First, there are mistakes on your credit report. This happens when something that you didn’t do, or an account that doesn’t belong to you shows up on your score when you review it. These will be removed immediately. Finding and removing mistakes on your credit report are an important reason why we should check our credit scores at least once a year. If you do locate a mistake, or a negative account that isn’t yours, get in touch with the credit reporting agency and the creditor too. Within 180 days you should be able to have that negative mark taken off your record.

Anytime a creditor asks to see your credit report (pulls your credit report), something called a hard inquiry will be recorded on your credit score. If these hard inquiries are only occasional this probably won’t hurt. However, if there are a large amount of inquiries recorded on your record, this will generally make prospective creditors think that you need the cash and you need it fast.

If a potential lender looks at your credit score and sees that they are the tenth financial institution that you have asked for money, they will have cause to be wary. Although the credit reporting gods will concede that people shop around for loans and credit, and say you have, two weeks where you have a lot of inquiries, they will take that into consideration and not penalize you too much, the bottom line is that the more hard inquiries that show up on your report, the lower your score will be. Hard inquiries last up to two years.

However, keep in mind that not all inquiries will negatively affect your credit score. A soft inquiry occurs when you check on your own credit score, or when potential creditors check your credit without you knowing to you to see if they want to make you any unsolicited offers of credit. Actually, lenders see this as a good sign. If you are regularly checking your credit report, you are most likely fiscally responsible. To be continued in part two….

Mallory Megan works for Rapid Recovery Solution and writes articles about commercial collection agencies. Also published at How Long Will A Negative Mark Stay On Your Credit Score? Part One.

Bankruptcies can cling on your credit report for up to 10 years and can destroy your credit score by hundreds of points. But by fallowing these methods, you could raise your credit score and become creditworthy several years before the bankruptcy drops off your credit report.

Fixing your credit score after a bankruptcy is far from being simple. “Filing bankruptcy is supposed to be a fresh start,” says Stephen Snyder, credit expert and author of “Credit after Bankruptcy.”

After a bankruptcy discharge, make sure your credit report is meticulous. After all, your goal is to enhance your credit score rapidly, and inaccurate information will only extend the time it takes to score high enough for conventional credit. You are entitled to one free credit report every 12 months from each of the three national credit bureaus. Credit bureaus generally have 30 to 45 days to investigate your claim.

One of the most competent ways to boost your credit score after bankruptcy is to get a secured credit card, she says. Secured cards are credit cards secured by a deposit account (usually a savings account) owned by the cardholder.”Those cards were designed for people with bad credit to remain in very low-credit-limit situations for a long period of time at a high interest rate,” says Stephen Snyder, author of “Credit after Bankruptcy.”Having more than one type of credit line will help boost your credit score.

“The point is most people with great credit scores probably have two credit cards from well-known, well-respected banks, a house payment, maybe a boat payment, and they keep those balances below 15 percent [of available credit] every month.”About 10 percent of your credit score is calculated based on the types of credit you use (i.e., credit cards, mortgages, installment loans and retail accounts), according to MyFICO.com.

Another 10 percent is based on new credit accounts ” which can include credit lines established after your bankruptcy. Although the FHA program does not officially use credit scores to qualify a loan, individual lenders may. Some credit-repair and credit “doctor” companies make grandiose claims that they can clean the slate and repair your credit file, often for a substantial fee. Only time will cause those entries to drop off your credit reports.

Rapid Recovery Solution is a credit collection agency.

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A collection agency based in California produced a plot to motivate and educate employees to live healthier lifestyles in early January. There are twenty eight employees at the agency; more than half are currently participating in the initiative.

All of the parties involved have made a goal to lose ten percent of their total body weight by the end of June. Every Monday morning weigh-ins are scheduled and employees have an opportunity to win two cash prizes for losing five percent of their body weight by the end of March, and then another five percent by the end of June.

The Agency’s executive said that he had been thinking about the initiative for quite some time. He declares it perfect for the stereotypical office setting that is fraught with unhealthy eating, and employees taking breaks to get fast food. He made note of the fact that attempting to make employees lose weight was more cost efficient than actually getting health insurance for his workers.

In an attempt to get employees to live healthier, the agency holds sporadic lunches and “education track meetings” once a week. The meetings are crafted to assist employees target and plan for their weight loss goal. So far the program has been successful. The collection company has collectively lost 72 pounds to date. That’s the size of a small child.

The program strives to produce a better all around worker. It logically follows that a less stressed worker will be more efficient and motivated. While a really relaxed debt collector may not seem like they would be the most efficient worker, it all seems like an OK idea. As the government tries to sort out the health care system, perhaps it is time that more companies like this take this route. If employees cannot get health insurance, health initiatives and goals at work could be the next best solution.

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Everyone seems to be “going green” right now and collection companies are now following suit. Agencies such as Pacific Northwest Collections are now eliminating paper files and instead are using a piece of software called Document Locater. The shift from paper to paperless has benefited the company in many ways.

Collection agents can now use the document locater to access files for information and can use the data to answer debtor questions over the phone in real time. This is beneficial because it is more efficient. Before, payers often had to wait on the phone for information, or even for a call back from the company.

Because contacting debtors may prove to be difficult, the ability to quickly access information is a useful and effective way to collect. If a collector does get a payer on the phone, it can prove to be frustrating for the person to wait on questions and often times a they may not be able to answer a call back from a collections company.

Financially the new system has turned out to be profitable. With the new green system, hours of work are eliminated. No more typing, filing, or copying is required, leaving agents with more time to contact debtors rather than do clerical work.

The new system also makes the company seem more professional. It may give the impression that a collection agency is uninformed when they cannot access information in a timely fashion. After all, the more creditable an agency appears, the more likely payers are to take the company seriously. Although at first shifting the information to software and purchasing the software itself may be costly, the whole procedure seems to pay for itself. A manager at Pacific Northwest Collections claims that the company saves $2,000 with the new system.

In a bad economy, collection agencies may struggle with retrieving money from those in debt. Companies who are creative and can think outside of the box may very well turn out to be the most successful.

Mallory McGuinness-Hickey is employed by collection agency Rapid Recovery Solution and writes free lance articles on financial news and other subjects. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service