All good things in life take time - like watching all 18 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, receiving your ASOS order, and improving your credit score. 

Unfortunately, there’s no silver bullet when it comes to how to improve your credit score, but there are some tried and tested methods to increasing your score over time. 

These include:

• Paying all your bills on time - including your buy now, pay later instalments
• Only applying for loans when you actually need it (yep, applying for loans for fun doesn’t look so good)
• Paying off your debts and closing your credit card accounts

But sometimes, just sometimes, your bad credit score is not your fault. Ya know, if there is a mistake… or even fraud. In that case, it’s important to get on top of the errors ASAP.

My credit score has a mistake - what do I do?

If you’ve checked your credit score and there’s something on there that doesn’t look quite right (like a loan you never applied for, or a default that never happened), then you need to take action.

There are a few simple steps you can take:

1. Contact your credit provider

If there are errors like:

• An incorrect default
• Unpaid debt that you were never notified about
• A default that you’re currently disputing
• An account created
• by mistake or as a result of identity theft…

Then, you can contact your credit provider and ask them to get the incorrect listing removed.

If the credit provider agrees that the listing is wrong, they’ll contact the credit agency to remove it from your report. Baddabing, badaboom.

If they don’t, you can contact the Australian Financial Complaints Authority to make a complaint, and get free, independent dispute resolution.

2. Contact the credit reporting agency. 

If there are errors like: 

• A debt listed twice
• The amount of debt is incorrect…
  

Then, you can contact the credit reporting agency. They may be able to help you straight away, or advise you on the best way to get the mistake fixed.

I think my identity has been stolen and it has impacted my credit score - what do I do?

If you reckon you’ve been the victim of identity theft, then you’ll need to report it to the police.

Then, contact your credit providers and inform them that the crime has occurred, and the credit was applied for illegally. Your credit provider may take immediate action to close the accounts, and try to retrieve stolen funds.

After that, you can contact the credit reporting agencies to let them know. They’ll also investigate the errors to remove them and repair your credit score.