The first thing you should do to repair your credit is to obtain your credit report from all three credit-reporting agencies. If you are denied credit, you are entitled to receive a free credit report. There are some sites online that offer free credit reports and others where you can get all three for a small fee.

Once you have the reports, go over each one meticulously. Find every single negative entry on each report. Identify all bad items on the report. Dispute the items you find with the bureau. All disputed items must be verified or corrected and removed.

Talk to the creditors who turned in the bad items on your credit report. Try to come to some kind of negotiation with these companies. After meeting the terms of the negotiations, ask that the creditor remove the negative entries from your report or change them to positive marks.

Using forms that the bureau provides will speed up the dispute process. Never verify accounts with incorrect information. Never use letterheads with your correspondences. Never copy a form letter.

Send in disputes during the busiest time of year for the creditors. If the information is not verified in a timely manner, the negative item must be deleted, even if it is authentic.