Credit repair advice is a highly sought after service these days. Good credit repair advice, however, is getting harder to come by. With all the programs claiming the ability to ‘fix’ your credit, finding advice is easy; but beware the many credit repair scams. Not all credit repair services are disreputable, and there are many professionals who honestly help repair your credit. When selecting a company to help you in bad credit repair, first do some research and avoid any credit repair service that claims to ‘fix’ your credit.
The best way to repair your credit is by doing it yourself. But if you need help, be careful where you place your trust for credit repair advice. Some services aren’t helpful but instead produce negative results by promising to get you out of debt when in reality they can’t improve or repair your credit. They may require you send them a check every month from which they are to pay your creditors. They, in fact, make late payments and your account is rated R2 - which mean that payments were made after 30 days lowering your credit score even further.
Certain service providers, posing as ‘debt negotiators’ further ruin your credit rating by suggesting not paying your credit card bills. They, of course, charge you upfront fees, maintenance fees, and monthly fees, etc. After months of non-payment, they negotiate with the creditors to settle for a lesser amount. This ruins your credibility, by your account being tagged R4 or R5 - payments delayed beyond 90 days, and beyond 120 days. Further, the money you considered as having saved, by paying a lesser amount, is actually considered ‘income’ by the IRS and you pay income tax on that.
Watch out for credit repair services that, promising to remove listed information in your credit reports, will write on your behalf to the credit bureaus, stating the information as false. The credit bureaus will remove the said information while conducting investigations. In the meanwhile you receive a clean credit report, which gives you a false sense of having improved credit. After investigations, the negative information reappears in your report.
Some agencies do perform a reputable job and help you remove incorrect items, such as children’s items on parents’ reports, double items, paid-off items that still show on your report, and items that should rightly have been removed after a bankruptcy. Such reputable credit repair services can be helpful for people who are uncomfortable or unable to handle the issue on their own.
Credit repair is an issue that has reached enormous heights in this country and should be taken seriously quickly to make corrective actions if possible. However, keep in mind that only the incorrect items, if proven to be false, can be removed from your credit reports. If the negative items are correct, they JUST cannot be removed, regardless of what anyone tells you. Do your research before allowing any credit repair service to take actions on your behalf. What you don’t know can do additional harm to your credit.
About the Author: Sherry Frewerd publishes 'How to Consolidate Credit Debt' http://howtoconsolidatecreditdebt.com where you can find free information to help you repair and improve your credit history and reduce credit debt.
