Cleaning up marks on your credit report is one of the most important ways to strengthen your overall credit rating. Negative entries can come in the form of late payments, charge-offs, collection accounts and bankruptcies to name a few.

The good news is that these negatives can be removed with the a little work and the right information on your part. For example, collection accounts should not remain on your report for no more than seven years from the date of last activity.

So if you have a negative that has gone past this time frame you want to contact the credit bureaus that have it listed on your report and have it deleted. It is important to give them the reason why it needs to be deleted or you might not have much success.

The other way to have similar accounts removed without waiting for that time frame would be to challenge the account with the bureaus as well. This involves you writing a letter and also giving them a reason why you are disputing the account.

At this point they are supposed to look further into your claim for proof of what you are saying. If they cannot find any evidence then the account would also need to be deleted regardless of how long it has been on your credit reports.

There are three main credit bureaus, Equifax, Transunion and Experian and each of them maintains a different credit file on you. You want to make sure that you check each of these reports for negatives when you begin your restoration efforts.