You’re ready to make some major moves in life that require the best credit report you can muster. Well, you now have decisions to make. To wit, you can try to shine up your credit yourself or you can hire a credit repair agency. But is credit repair good or bad? Let’s take a gander.
The Issue
It’s difficult to move forward with too many negative marks on your credit reports, so it’s understandable that you’d want them removed. However, what you need to know is that, if you have the time, patience, and persistence, there’s nothing a credit repair agency can do that you can’t.
However, if the unfavorable items on your reports are accurate, they technically cannot be removed, and if you wait, they’ll fall off naturally in due time. Now, some companies can sometimes gum up the works to such an extent that the negative entry is extracted. However, this is a poor strategy and hardly ever works.
Let’s take a holistic look at credit repair.
Just What is Credit Repair?
At its essence, it’s hiring a credit repair organization to get info expunged from your credit reports. Most such firms tout themselves as being able to help you make unverifiable or incorrect info on your credit reports disappear.
The real deal, though, is that most companies try to also get negative, albeit correct, data off your reports before they, at length, drop off by themselves. Check out lexington law reviews to see what’s said about that leading credit repair company.
How Do I Know I’m Getting a Legit Company?
That’s a good and proper question, since scams abound in this industry. There are bad actors out there who seek to take advantage of existing financial and emotional vulnerabilities of people like you. The good news is that you’re protected by the federal Credit Repair Organizations Act, which sets forth what credit repair agencies can and cannot do.
For example, such companies may not:
- Counsel you to make erroneous statements to the top credit reporting agencies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.
- Suggest that you alter your identity to block the credit reporting agencies from linking you with what’s on your credit reports.
- Charge you up front, before they’ve performed services on your behalf.
- Guarantee that it can get info from your reports removed.
Likewise, credit repair outfits are required to disclose to you the following:
- You do have the right to, for free, dispute information in your credit report.
- You can file a lawsuit against it if it breaches the Credit Repair Organizations Act.
- While it will do its best to act reasonably to make sure the info on your reports is correct, mistakes are sometimes made.
How Much Does Credit Repair Cost?
It depends on the company, but credit repair companies generally either bill you at month’s end for services rendered during the past month or charge you per delete.
With the former, a kind of subscription service, you can expect to pay $50 or $100 monthly. Here, such companies are incentivized to keep you around for as long as possible. With the latter, “pay for delete,” the company doesn’t bill you until it gets an item removed.
So, is credit repair good or bad? The answer mostly depends on what you truly want. If you’re looking to have inaccurate or unverifiable information removed from your credit reports, but aren’t inclined to tackle the task yourself, then, sure, hire a firm. However, paying a company in hopes that, somehow, it can get adverse but accurate info removed is frankly a fool’s errand. If you can’t wait for the item to drop off by itself, perhaps you need a different financial strategy.
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