Credit Repair

Credit repair is an essential process for people who have low or less-than-perfect credit and credit score. Credit repair is a process where either you or someone on your behalf disputes the negative items on your credit report. If you are struggling to get a house mortgage, a car lease, or anything else that requires a good or excellent credit, then you need credit repair services.

How It Works:

First, you will need to request and go through your credit report at each of the 3 consumer credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion and Equifax). Every person is entitled to a free credit report from each of the bureaus, once a year. You can request this report yourself, or have a credit repair company do it for you.

Next, negative items on your credit report need to be disputed individually. While it is time consuming, this process has to be done separately at each of the 3 credit bureaus. Each credit bureau is legally required to look at the dispute and respond, which typically happens within 30 days of the time you filed it.

There are certainly benefits in hiring a credit repair company compared to doing the credit repair yourself. Because credit repair companies have gone through the credit repair process many times, fixing your credit using such a service will most likely be much faster than doing it yourself. While credit repair companies do charge monthly fees for the duration of your contract with them, which can last anywhere from 4 to 12 months, at the end of the day having a better credit score should be worth the price.

Beware of companies that promise to improve your score by a certain amount or to definitively remove negative items from your credit report. Such practices are not allowed. All credit repair companies have to operate within the constraints of The Credit Repair Organizations Act, which sets out specific rules as to what a credit repair company can or cannot do. In addition, many states have enacted their own credit repair laws that credit repair companies have to follow if they want to provide services in a particular state.

Who Is Credit Repair For?

Credit repair is a process for anyone who wants to have a better credit score than what they currently have. You may be a good candidate for credit repair if:

• You noticed false, negative items on your credit report
• Your score has dramatically gone down recently and you are not aware of any valid reason why that could be
• You are thinking about purchasing a house, condo, coop or other real estate and want to get the best possible mortgage rate
• You are considering getting a car lease or finance
• You’ve recently been a victim of identity theft which has ruined your credit score
• You simply believe that your credit score is not where it should be and want to have a credit repair company attempt to increase your credit score

No matter what your reason for wanting to fix or improve your credit is, it’s always a good idea to review your credit reports periodically to make sure that your reports are accurate and there isn’t anything on them that should not be there. Get in touch with a reputable credit repair company today to see how they can help you with your credit. At Credit-Repair-Companies.org, we try to bring you detailed reviews of credit repair companies, their pros, cons, the services they offer, their pricing and how you can contact them to begin the credit repair process.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you are thinking about repairing your credit, you probably have certain questions, for which we’ve tried to give you the best answers possible.

• Is credit repair guaranteed to fix my credit?

  No. Going through the credit repair process will not guarantee that you will have a better credit or credit score than when you began the process. If everything on your credit report is accurate, or you simply do not have any negative items that could be fixed or disputed, then your credit report and scores will remain the same.

• Is credit repair free?

  It depends. If you go through the process of repairing your credit yourself, then you do not have to pay anyone to dispute the negative items on your credit reports. However, if you hire a credit repair company to help you through the process, you will have to pay them a monthly fee. In addition, there is typically a one-time “first work fee” that companies charge when they just begin working with you.

• How long does the credit repair process take?

  The process from start to finish could take up to a year, but typically can be done sooner than that. Some people are able to fix their credit in as little as 4 months, while others may need 6, 8, 10 or even 12 months to go through the process fully. The number of items on your credit report that need to be disputed will determine how long the process takes. In addition, if you are doing the repair process yourself, it is likely to take much longer than when it is done through a credit repair company.

• Can a credit repair company promise me specific results?

  No. Stay away from any credit repair firm that will promise you that they will either fix your credit, improve your credit score by a certain number of points, or give you any other claims of specific performance. Credit repair process is what it sounds like – a process, and it is different for every individual. Once you go through the entire process, you will know how much you can improve your credit score and how many items can be removed from your credit reports.

• Do I need a lawyer to do credit repair?

  A: No. Anyone can do credit repair and they do not have to be a law firm. In fact, many credit repair companies are not lawyers at all, but simply firms that have knowledge of the credit repair process who can streamline this process for you.

• Does the credit repair company I work with have to be located in my city or state?

  The credit repair company you choose to help you with the credit repair process only has to be licensed to operate within your state. It does not have to have an office or any other physical presence in your city or your state.