Everyone really needs a car if they live outside of a big city and have to make a living. The problem that a lot of people have is that, when they have bad credit, getting a car loan is about as easy as getting to the moon. The good news is that there are some finance companies that specialize in car loans to people with less than excellent credit. You may have to pay a bit more in interest rate if you do but it’s still possible.
Before you do this however you’ll want to clean up your credit report as much as humanly possible and make sure that any debts that have been paid have been taken off and any mistakes that were made have been cleaned up and taken off too. By doing this you’ll get a better interest rate which could save you literally hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars over the life of the loan.
In order to do this first you need to go to the 3 credit reporting agencies and get a copy of your credit report from them. All 3 are required by law to give you a free copy once a year. TransUnion, Equifax and Experian are all together on AnnualCreditReport.com and will get you your free reports with very little hassle. (The federal government sees to that, in one of the few instances of the federal government actually helping us out.) Remember to order directly from the designated website of all 3 found on AnnualCreditReport.com because if you order on their commercial site they will charge you.
Once you have your reports you need to look them over carefully and slowly to check and see if there are any mistakes or bad debts that should have been take off. (If you paid something and/or if the statute of limitations has expired they shouldn’t be there.) Federal law allows you to dispute practically ANYTHING if it’s not correct so look for dates, numbers, addresses, names or whatever that is wrong in any way. If you find any go back to the web and fill out the dispute forms that are there for all three credit agencies, depending of course on the one where you found the mistake(s).
Once that has been done and the mistakes have been fixed it’s time to go and get that car loan. Selling your old car online to reputable companies is a great way to reduce your loan amount. If there were a lot of mistakes and your new credit score is higher you will have a much better chance of scoring a loan. If your score didn’t change too much you may still want to go to your credit union or local bank first to try. Good luck!