Can you answer Michelle B’s question about Credit Repair?:

I am trying to raise my credit score quickly. Right now I am at 593-around 650 depending on agency. So, by paying off the 5 credit cards that I currently have(some with amounts ranging from 1,500-2,500), should that raise my credit score a great deal? If not, will a credit repair company help or are they just a scam?

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Can you answer John G’s question about Credit Repair?:

Do credit repair companies work? I want to build or buy a house for my family .This is no joke , I have seven kids . So it’s very important that I get a good P.M.I. and a good interest rate or I’ll never be able to afford it. I make about 60k a year , but one of kids had to have 5 brain surgeries right after she was born and this ruined my wife and my credit . Any suggestions would be appreciated. Please , serious stuff only.

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There are few topics as polarizing as credit repair. Depending on who you talk to, credit repair is usually thought of as impossible, illegal, something you can only do yourself, or something you need professional help to perform. Rarely do you find someone with a perspective on credit repair that is not at the far end of one of these extremes.

The fascinating thing is that in most cases, whatever people believe to be true will be true for them.

The poster on the Yahoo! Answers forum who states that “there is NO SUCH thing as Credit Repair….it’s a scam….” will never realize any benefits from repairing their own credit. By believing that credit repair is impossible, they are fulfilling their own prophecy by ignoring their rights to dispute their own credit. By not believing it can be done, they are proving their own point. This person, and every other person who ignores the possibility of credit repair, will fall into the category of people whose credit scores will only improve through the passage of time.

The same is true of people who believe that credit repair companies do not work. Another poster on Yahoo! Answers stated that

“There is no such thing as repairing your credit through someone else. If they can, they are doing this via an illegal way and be extremely careful, as it can end YOU up in jail and fined.

The ONLY way to repair credit is to do it yourself.

Pay your bills on time ;o)”

Along with being misinformed about how the credit repair process works, this person is letting their flawed knowledge keep them from so much as investigating the possibility that a credit repair company may be able to help them out. Once again, in believing that it is impossible for a credit repair company to provide any value, this person has assured that they will never receive any value from a credit repair organization.

It is truly astounding how many people out there believe that credit repair cannot work and credit repair companies are nothing but scams. It is also unfortunate that it is these voices that seem to be the loudest because not only are they making credit repair an impossibility for themselves, but they are convincing so many other people to not even attempt to repair their own credit.

What is equally astounding is how these people can be so passionate about outing credit repair as a pipe dream and a scam when there are so many other people out there who are living proof that credit repair does in fact work. These are the people who have allowed for the possibility that their credit could be repaired and realized the truth about their credit reports.

It is hard to believe that anyone could completely dismiss the idea of credit repair when there are stories like this:

“I signed up for [credit repair firm] a couple of years ago. They basically write a couple of letters a month on your behalf to either businesses or credit reporting companies asking for verification of debt, that kind of thing, or if you instruct them, actually challenging the debt. After a few rounds of this, negative credit items start to fall off your report. You can totally do this yourself, but it’s been worth the cost to me (something like $40/month) since I am too lazy to regularly write this kind of letter. I also like how when the credit bureaus do bother to write back, they’re always pretty whiny and pissy about it.

Some people seem to think this is some kind of scam (like, paralegals write the letters on your behalf instead of attorneys, and some people don’t seem to understand that when you give an attorney “power of attorney,” they can write letters as you), but I think it’s a fair price for something I was too lazy to do myself. Ultimately, they pretty much got rid of all the negative items on my report except for the ones that were at least semi-legitimate. (I’m not going to pay a parking ticket I got five years ago in a state I’m not going back to.) The ones they did get rid of were things like AOL continuing to charge a credit card after a) I had cancelled the AOL account, and b) I had cancelled the credit card! It just wasn’t worth my time to chase this down with AOL or the credit card company.

It’s annoying that I’m responsible for fixing something that this bogus industry screws up in the first place, but other than that, I’m a happy “credit repair” customer.”

People who believe that credit repair is impossible will never see any benefit from it. People who believe that credit repair can only be done by themselves will only see the benefits of their personal efforts. People who believe that credit repair companies do not work will never invite the opportunity to have a credit repair company work for them.

Ultimately, when it comes to credit repair, we all create our own truths. All anybody can ask of you is to perform your own research instead of letting others choose your truths for you.



Thanks to Stuart Hunter for contributing this article to our Credit Repair blog:

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If you have decided to fix your bad credit, there are credit repair companies that can help. This is a big decision and not one you should take lightly. On average, a credit repair company will charge you a few hundred dollars and their program usually takes a year to complete.

You don’t want to pick the wrong company and find yourself deeper in debt and nowhere closer to improving your credit. On the other hand, if you find a great company to help you that might be one of the smartest financial decisions you can make!

Let’s first of all take a look at what you should hope a credit repair service will do for you. Take a look at your credit and ask yourself what you think needs to improve. Credit repair goes beyond disputes with your credit companies and the credit bureaus.

Credit repair has been seen as something that is repairing the credit report. Now, working to repair your bad credit can also help to fix your credit report. You have rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to dispute any items that you feel are inaccurate.

This part of repairing your credit has been very beneficial to people who have incomplete or inaccurate information on their credit reports. This will of course only help your credit score once you get the items corrected.

This is just the beginning, repairing your credit. Although some people are not satisfied with just working to correct their credit reports. If you find a reputable credit repair company then they should also work with your creditors to have them stop reporting negative accounts.

Another thing they should do for you is contact collection agencies to have them stop reporting negative accounts. Some credit repair companies will even dispute some debts reported and find out how legitimate those claims really are.

Now, it depends on each individual credit situation just how well a credit repair company can help you. Some people might only want to get help on fixing their credit reports, while others need more extensive help and look for a company that provides full credit repair service.

Here is an important question most people ask, how can you tell if this is a reputable credit repair company? There has been a bad rep given to this industry because of many scams that have taken place. Fortunately, the fraudulent companies have been shut down. I think it is still necessary that you take some precaution and figure out if you have found a legitimate company before working with them.

Familiarize yourself with some of the laws that surround credit repair companies. The Credit Repair Organizations Act was drafted to protect you, the consumer, from any credit repair scams. They also protect your right to get any help with credit repair for your report.

There is always the Better Business Bureau (BBB) reports, they keep all complaint on file made against companies. If there are multiple complaints against a company or a low rating, proceed with caution.

Also, if you come across a company that does not list “credit repair” in their services on the BBB then also be wary of them. The nice thing about the BBB is that they have high standards for credit repair companies. If you have found a company that is possibly fraudulent, the give away is that they have not listed “credit repair” with the BBB.

As with anything you do, concerning your finances and credit, take the time to do some research. There are many reputable companies available and thanks to the internet you can find them within minutes of searching! Credit repair is possible for everyone and good credit is definitely in your future.



Thanks to Christina Costa for contributing this article to our Credit Repair blog:

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It may not be possible to provide you with everything you wanted to know about credit repair in this brief article, but here we attempt to give you the do-it-yourself basics and the facts about the many credit repair schemes that are being advertised and should be avoided.

Some companies advertise that they have a credit report repair Software and also they will teach you credit repair secrets, for a fee of course. There is a lot of free information here, if you know where to look. Before you take a credit repair course or sign up for credit report repair, read the facts and the laws relating to credit repair. In this way you may avoid some disappointment and save some money.

Credit repair is a popular subject. It seems that almost everyone wants learn about credit repair. Books and software programs that claim to contain everything you wanted to know about credit repair are being sold on the internet and in retail locations all over the country. There are some questionable credit repair schemes and some companies suggest action which is illegal. Consumers can learn to repair their own credit, but it takes time and patience. The safest bet when hiring someone to do the work for you is to hire a credit repair attorney. In this way, you can be sure that you will achieve results; they know everything there is to know about credit repair. You can also be sure that a credit repair attorney will not advise you to do anything that is illegal. Most of the popular credit repair lawyers do not charge more than the other credit repair companies and some offer money back guarantees.

One of the credit repair schemes investigated by the Federal Trade Commission involved a company that told their customers that they had a special valuable computer disc. This computer disc was supposed to contain everything you wanted to know about credit repair, when in fact there was nothing unique about the disc or the services offered by the credit repair company. They charged consumers, before results were achieved. In order to protect consumers from these credit repair schemes, companies are not allowed to charge customers upfront fees. In addition, consumers have three days to cancel any contract that they sign. Of course you may not enjoy the same protection when buying a book or software program that claims to contain everything you wanted to know about credit repair. So make your purchases carefully and look for money back guarantees.

The do-it-yourself basics for everything that you wanted to know about credit repair include reviewing and correcting the information on your credit reports. In response to a recently enacted law, the three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, created a website to allow consumers easier access to their credit reports. Until this law was enacted, the credit bureaus were allowed to charge consumers a fee for a copy of their credit reports. You are entitled to a free copy of your credit report once in a twelve month period. You are also entitled to a free copy if you have been denied credit recently, if you are unemployed and plan to apply for a new job within the next three months or if you are on public assistance. The companies pushing credit repair schemes will not tell you where to find the information that you need to repair your credit reports, before you pay them. One way to identify a legitimate credit repair company is to look at what they claim they can do. If they claim to be able to do things for you that you could not do for yourself, with time, patience and know-how, then they are credit repair schemes.

The first place to go for everything that you wanted to know about credit repair is www.annualcreditreport.com. The credit bureaus are allowed to promote other services and products on this site. These are not credit repair schemes, but they are usually credit monitoring services or newsletter subscriptions which may or may not be helpful to you in your current situation. Be sure to spell the website address correctly, this writer has written a number of articles about credit repair and has been advised that she occasionally misspells it. You can link directly to the site from Credit Fix Solutions or the Federal Trade Commission’s official website for consumer credit.

The Federal Trade Commission website is also a good place to visit for everything that you wanted to know about credit repair. Their advice is discouraging to anyone that hopes to attain immediate credit repair, because there is no such thing. But they do provide a sample letter that you can use as a guide if you are planning to dispute information in your credit reports. You can dispute any information on your credit report that you believe is inaccurate, misleading, outdated or unverifiable. Unverifiable means that the credit bureau cannot verify the information.

Disputing information on credit reports is the main topic of most books that claim to contain everything you wanted to know about credit repair. Credit repair schemes may also focus on disputing negative items on credit reports. In fact the company that claimed to own the special computer disc, simply advised consumers to dispute every negative item on their credit report. It is not illegal to dispute any information on your credit report, but it is illegal for a company to make false claims about their services.

This is probably not everything that you wanted to know about credit repair, but it may be enough to get you started. Before you buy a book or software program, visit your local library. Experts have been writing books that are supposed to contain everything you wanted to know about credit repair for a long time. The only information that may not be accurate, depending on the date the book was written, is information concerning fees charged by credit bureaus for copies of credit reports. But, this article provided you with that information. Remember to avoid the credit repair schemes, take your time and have patience. Good Luck.



Thanks to Mark Henry for contributing this article to our Credit Repair blog:

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