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There are steps you can take to improve your FICO credit score, and you do not have to pay someone money that is making promises to fix your credit. Those individuals are just out there to get your money. It takes time and personal discipline to improve your credit score. It took two years to raise my credit score from 550 to 780. Do not fall for anyone who promises to improve your credit overnight and charge you big fees. The only person over time who can improve your credit is you. It took time to get in trouble and it will take you time to get out of trouble.

There are some simple and basic ways to raise your credit scores.

1. Pay all of your bills on time. I bought a small notebook and I kept a very accurate record of when all my bills were due and made sure that I paid them all on time. If you are delinquent in paying your bills, it will always bring down your credit rating.

2. If you are struggling to pay your bills contact the creditor and work out a reasonable payment agreement that you can maintain. Do not make promises that you cannot keep. If you are overwhelmed then seek the assistance of a legitimate credit counselor.

3, Keep the balances on your credit cards low. Try to keep them under the 50% range. If you carry high balances on your credit cards, then you will have lower scores. High debt to credit ratio will bring down your score.

4.Try not to open new accounts that you do not need. If you increase your available credit you can actually decrease your credit scores. Adding accounts in a short period of time will send a message that you cannot handle credit responsibly.

5. If you have a mixture of credit cards and installment loans which are loans with fixed payments, you can increase your credit score by showing that you can mange your credit responsibly.

6. Having too many installment loans can decrease your credit scores because payments remain the same until the balance is paid off. This can be looked at as negative by creditors. If you have credit from certain finance companies ( buying a product with retailers) this often will decrease your score. You will see a notation on your credit report that you have too many finance accounts open and too many finance loans on your credit report that is bringing down your score. This was an area that took me two years to pay off various finance companies, but it was after they were paid off that I noticed a significant jump in my score.

7. Another piece of advice that I learned is not to close unused accounts

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