Are you looking for professional help to improve your credit score? We have reviewed 42 credit repair companies and have selected 7 that could help you challenge credit inaccuracies, dispute negative items on your credit report and raise your credit score.
Are you getting denied credit every time you apply? Perhaps your housing application is getting turned down even if you have the income to pay the rent? If so, chances are your credit score is to blame. A lot of people are walking around with low scores or outright bad scores simply because they don’t know how to fix their credit reports. There are so many tools and resources available to help you get back on the path to financial health if you know where to look. Two of the best resources in Oregon are a professional credit repair and credit counseling services. If you are tired of living your life under the threat of denial, then consider credit repair as a way to get back on track.
Unfortunately for Oregon residents, this state is one of the most expensive to live in out of all the US states. While it has a lot to offer its residents, housing prices and costs of basic necessities are not among the good qualities of the state. Surprisingly, despite its high cost of living, Oregon has lower than average credit card debt per person. The average person living in the state has $4,921 of credit card debt, more than $250 less than the national average.
Oregon has another surprise in its average credit scores. Despite the higher cost of housing, Oregon residents have an average credit score of 731, which is much higher than the average of 714 across the nation. If your credit score is lower than average or just lower than you want it to be, credit repair could be a way to increase your score if you have inaccurate or incorrect entries sitting on your credit report.
Oregon’s Debt Management (OR Rev Stat 697.602) laws put some specific requirements on companies that wish to offer credit repair in the state. This includes the following:
All companies doing credit repair in Oregon also have to adhere to federal regulations, including the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA). This act guides how companies are allowed to advertise their credit repair service, what they must disclose to customers, and how they can charge customers, among other things.
Professional credit repair in Oregon can help you fix various negative entries on your credit report. While there is no way to erase the legitimate debt, credit repair can get rid of mistakes, old accounts, and help you to consolidate your debts. Here at (company), we can help you with:
Credit repair agencies in Oregon are able to find discrepancies between the credit reporting agencies and have them fixed. For example, one agency may show a debt as paid while the other still list it as past due or in collections. Credit repair companies can also have old accounts that are more than 7 years of age removed, and this also includes delinquencies. A skilled agent will even be able to negotiate with your creditors on your open lines of credit to have late marks stricken from your record.
Your credit score and your credit report follow you wherever you go. Getting away from a bad relationship can be accomplished by moving to another city or state, but there is no way to get away from bad credit. When you have a poor credit history, it is nearly impossible to get approved for a loan. It is also hard to obtain a credit card approval if your credit score is low or if you have a history of non-payment. In addition to being approved for new lines of credit, your score will also determine the interest rates insurance companies and lenders offer you on their services. The lower your score, the higher your rates will be. A bad credit score can even keep you from finding housing in many areas. No one wants a tenant that can’t pay their bills, or who always pays late. One of the worst side effects of bad credit, however, is how it affects your career. Many positions require a good credit score so if you are looking to get promoted or even land certain jobs, your credit score will factor into the hiring decision.
Luckily for Oregon residents, there's no need to work with a lawyer or law firm to do credit repair in the state unless you want to. You have the choice of any company that's registered and following local and federal laws, regardless of whether or not they are lawyers. Technically, you can also do credit repair on your own, but it's often better to work with a reliable and reputable company that can help you make the process much smoother and quicker.
When you're going through the credit repair process in Oregon, you can expect it to involve these 3 steps:
Step 1: Requesting your own credit reports
there are three major credit bureaus in the US that all compile and maintain records of credit related transactions you make in any state. You're entitled to requesting a free credit report from each of the 3 bureaus every 12 months. To do credit report repair, you need to have all 3 of your credit reports ready to check for inaccuracies. Credit reports can be requested online or via the mail.
Step 2: Scrutinizing your credit reports
Look through your credit reports to see if all of the information contained in the entries is accurate or not. Credit repair can only be done when there are inaccurate bits of data in your credit report, which is very common in the US. Unfortunately, mistakes happen, even with something as sensitive as your credit information. If you find any mistakes, make a note of them and continue to the next step.
Step 3: Disputing incorrect or fraudulent entries
To initiate the credit repair process, you need to send a dispute letter to each of the 3 major credit bureaus that lists the inaccurate or incorrect entries on their credit reports for you. While you cannot dispute legitimate entries on your report, you have the right to dispute anything that is inaccurate and to request its removal or correction.
Note: Don't let the simple three-step process cool you. Credit repair is not quite as easy as it sounds on paper. When you’re making a dispute with a credit bureau, there’s a strict process you need to follow if you want to be taken seriously. This is why credit repair companies can be helpful to you, since they’re experienced in drafting appropriate dispute letters and presenting the right types of evidence to be considered by credit bureaus as legitimate.
Depending on how much your credit score is being impacted by inaccurate entries on your credit report, you can have either a large or small impact on your score by doing credit repair. Payment history makes up more than 1/3 of your credit score calculation, so having illegitimate entries in your payment history can be a huge negative factor. Removing those illegitimate entries will help you see a huge increase in your credit score very quickly.
There's a lot of variation in what companies will charge for credit repair in Oregon. It depends on what other services are included in a package deal, or if it's credit repair alone. On average you can expect to pay between $89 to $199 per month, but there are companies offering it in a wide range from $79 to $249 per month. Depending on the company, you will also be charged with a contract setup fee in the beginning.
While there's no way to accurately estimate how long credit repair will take for you, the average Oregon resident and expect the process to take between three to six months. It's an unfortunately long process, but there's no way to guarantee a shorter time frame.
It's not just residents of Portland, Salem, Eugene, or Hillsboro but get to access credit repair in Oregon. Any residents can get this service, as long as the companies are following Oregon and federal laws around credit repair. Even smaller cities like Warrenton, Boardman, Dayton, or Aurora can access the same credit repair companies as those in larger cities.
Getting denied any time you apply for a loan is never fun. The same goes for when you are passed over for a promotion due to your low credit score. When you have good credit you can get better financing terms and lower interest rates on loans. If you have a poor credit score not only will these rates increase, but chances are you will face multiple denials. Managing your money wisely is only one step in turning your life around, fixing your credit is the other.