Credit Repair Company
TweetShould I Hire A Credit Repair Company?
You do not need to hire a credit repair company to repair items on your credit report. Many people tackle credit repair on their own. There are plenty of resources available that can teach you what a credit repair company does. Be prepared, however; credit repair takes a great deal of time, knowledge and patience to produce effective results. Do-it-yourselvers fail to consider the amount of time and follow-up required to coordinate communication with all three credit bureaus. There is also the possibility of doing even more damage to your credit if you don't proceed with your credit repair efforts properly.
For thousands of others, hiring a credit repair company is the only way to go. After attempting the DYI approach to credit repair and having limited success in dealing directly with creditors and credit bureaus, they end up turning to a third party credit repair company.
A good and reputable credit repair company will do the following:
- Complete an in depth analysis of your credit report
- Identify which items on your report could be most damaging
- Create a plan of action to increase your credit score and improve your credit history as fast as possible
- Put your credit profile through a systematic audit
- Provide assistance regarding your future credit decisions
- Make sure that your rights are upheld
- Provide credit education
If you are considering hiring a credit repair company, here are a few things to be wary of: Don't be fooled by numbers. Some credit repair companies boast of serving hundreds of thousands of clients. That might be promising if the majority were satisfied clients. Many of these clients sign-up only to cancel within a few weeks due to inadequate and unsatisfactory service.
Claims of how long the credit repair process will take. Credit repair is not a quick fix. In most cases it takes 6-12 months, to get a credit report in top notch condition, sometimes a bit longer. If a credit repair company claims anything less than this, either they don't know what they are doing, are doing something illegal, or are just plain lying.
Companies that charge for services before any work is completed. It is illegal for a credit repair company to charge for services that have not yet been completed. Charging a "set-up" fee is legal, just not a "service" fee until after work has been done.
Be careful of "guarantees". Some companies guarantee the removal of all bad credit and that they can get anything deleted. No one can guarantee these results. Some offer a "full money-back" guarantee. A legitimate credit repair company would make no such claims.
A few other questions to ask yourself before hiring a credit repair company:
- Is the credit repair company overly anxious for my business and are they constantly promoting themselves?
- Does the credit repair company give little or no explanation of my rights?
- Does the credit repair company address fees more than my questions?
- Is the credit repair company's contract difficult to understand?
