If you have been denied credit, a credit repair company may be able to help you.
If you do not qualify for “special low interest rates” because of you credit score, a credit repair company may be able to help you. If you cannot buy a house or purchase a car, because you have bad credit, then bad credit repair may be the answer.
A credit repair company specializes in removing inaccurate, misleading or questionable items from your credit report. No one knows exactly how your individual credit score is calculated. It is a well guarded secret. Companies are vague about the criteria that are used to determine an individual’s credit score, but one thing is definite, negative items on one or all of your credit reports will lead to a lower score. Professionals that specialize in bad credit repair are aware of this. The credit bureaus are aware of this. The government is aware of this. But of these, the only one that can help you correct the problem is a credit repair company.
Consumer Credit Counseling Services can help you plan a budget and pay off your lenders. They can even negotiate with credit card companies and sometimes stop late fees and lower interest rates. They do not do bad credit repair. Once you have straightened out your credit problems and gotten yourself out of whatever situation created the bad credit issues, then it is time to contact a credit repair company.
All credit repair companies are not the same. Fees vary. Services vary. And, regretfully, competence varies. Some companies that advertise bad credit repair will only give you information. Often, this is information that is free, if you know where to look. The Federal Trade Commission provides consumer credit information, free of charge. They can not help you repair bad credit; in fact they will tell you that the only thing that will repair bad credit is time. This is not exactly true.
A legitimate credit repair company with legal professionals who specialize in credit issues can request that damaging information be removed from your credit report. If you only have a couple of items that are causing you problems, then you may be able to accomplish this on your own. It really depends on how much time and patience you have to devote to bad credit repair. Sometimes it is just a matter of knowing how to ask. The credit bureaus will ignore requests that are incorrectly worded. The credit bureaus are not government agencies, they receive hundreds of requests every day and the easiest way for them to shuffle through the paper work is to disregard requests that are improperly worded. They do have a tendency to pay more attention to requests that come from a law firm.
Not every credit repair company is also a law firm. Even the thought of contacting a law firm scares some people. They think it will be expensive. Bad credit is expensive. Bad credit repair is priceless. The difference between good credit and bad credit can be the difference between owning your own home and renting for years, as you wait for the bad credit issues to correct themselves. And, they do not always “go away” on their own. Sometimes information that needs to be removed is simply outdated.
If a credit repair company does not consist of a group of lawyers who specialize in bad credit repair, then they may not have the expertise needed to correct your problems in a timely and effective manner. By: PATSY ROSE