Credit Repair Services

Credit Repair Services

With the influx of people who are worrying about their credit scores and their finances in general, it comes as no surprise that there are companies out there who are offering exclusive services to clean up or repair your damaged credit. While it may seem like such a simple solution to your credit woes, be warned – some of these companies are not what they claim to be.

Credit repair services claim to repair bad credit marks on your credit history. What you need to find out before committing to a service is how the company goes about making such repairs. There is a big difference between the items on your credit reports that make up a poor credit score and then there are items on the report that are genuine mistakes. If the company tells you then can remove all bad marks – walk away now. No one can remove information that show poor credit activities. To do so would be illegal.

On the other hand, you have the right to look at your credit report and file a request to remove any misinformation. If the credit reporting agency claims they can repair inaccurate information for you, know this – you too can do the same thing for free. All that is involved in this procedure is analyzing your credit report and noting all mistakes. You then have a right to file a complaint with the credit bureau that provided the report. The credit reporting bureau is then obligated to investigate the information from the original creditor within a reasonable period of time. If the creditor responds that the information is indeed correct, your report will not change. If the credit reporting agency gets no reply from the creditor, the incorrect information will be removed from your credit report.

While you cannot remove poor credit activity from your credit report, you can ask your creditors to work with you to improve the information being reported to the credit reporting agencies. They may not all be cooperative but it is worth a try in order to improve your credit score.

For those people who simply do not want to go through the trouble of repairing their own credit reports, there are reputable companies who can do the repair work for you. Be sure before you commit to any one company, be sure they are a company in good standing with the Better Business Bureau and will work with you to truly help you repair your credit score and not just take your money. A good first red flag – if the credit repair agency denies you can do the above-mentioned steps on your own – know that they may not have your best interests at heart as they are not being honest with you. Also be aware and clear of how much it will cost to work with a credit repair company before signing on the dotted line.

Here are some other points that may raise some alert flags:

· Speak to you in terms that seem confusing and “over your head” with no real concern if you understand

· Do not tell you honestly about what your obligations or rights are concerning your credit.

· Tell you that they can repair all bad credit marks on your report.

· Last, but not least, if a credit repair company tries to convince you to apply for a new identity using an EIN number for credit purposes. This is very illegal and is not repairing anything.

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Bad Credit – Repair Advice

If you need advice to repair your bad credit you have found a good place to start. It really isn’t as difficult as you might think, but it will require a little patience and a little time to find this bad credit repair advice on the internet. There is so much free advice on the internet and it is difficult to tell if the bad credit repair advice you are reading is correct.

Here is what to look for. You need to get your credit report. Don’t be fooled into buying everything else that the credit report companies offer you. You don’t need all that. You should think about Identity Theft protection though. I digress. Just get your credit report. That is all you need to start. Then, look it over and figure out what you need to dispute. Bad credit repair advice from an actual credit repair company might actually tell you to dispute anything negative on your report. You can do that if you are not sure that everything you are going to dispute is reporting 100% accurately. You don’t want to dispute anything reporting 100% accurately, but it would be difficult to prove that you knew it was 100% accurate. Once you have decided what to dispute, you need to write your dispute letters. This is a pain because it is time consuming and tedious. There is one website that can take a lot of the pain out of it because they allow you to use a free online application that is credit repair software. The site is creditblossom.com and it is completely free.

When you write your letters, you need to include the name of the account and the account number of the account that you wish to dispute in the dispute letter. You don’t want to dispute everything you are going to dispute with the credit reporting agency in one letter. You need to dispute 1 to 3 items per letter. That is all.

After you have written the dispute letters, you need to make sure you send them out correctly to the correct address. You can find these addresses in many places on the web and on the agencies’ websites. When you send the letters, make sure you include a couple forms of ID with the letters because the credit reporting agency wants to know for sure that it is you sending out the letters. If you don’t send them the proper ID, you will greatly slow down the process and you will have to follow up to the credit reporting agencies with your correct ID anyhow. So, make sure you send it correctly the first time. If you look on creditblossom.com’s site or blog, they have a good video that explains how to put together the ID you need to send with the letters.

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Since the end of 2006, you have the ability to place what is called a “Security Freeze” on your credit file. This will prevent the Consumer Credit Reporting Agency (Credit Bureau) from releasing any information contained in your file. This measure is designed to prevent criminals from applying for credit in your name, claiming to be you.

I can’t say enough about this technique, many people have no idea that this can be done, but it can. What happens is that you send a request letter to the credit bureau, all three is the most effective, and they will activate your freeze and issue you a PIN number for you to use when you want to cancel the freeze or release the freeze for a specific creditor (such as a mortgage lender).

When releasing or cancelling the freeze, you and/or the creditor will need the following items to execute the release successfully:

• The supplied PIN number issued to you when you placed the freeze
• Identification to verify your identity
• Complete info on the company that you want info released to
• Payment of any fees associated with the release or cancel (not much)

Keep in mind, placing this freeze on your file could slow down any credit approvals you legitimately apply for. The best thing to do is plan in advance, don’t just apply for credit and expect the freeze to be instantly lifted off. It takes a little time. These are all good things for you, they are all measures that the credit bureaus use to lower the chances of identity theft.

For a sample security freeze request letter, just look in the Sample Letters page on this site. There is a copy there for you to use.

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