Credit Repair, Is it a Scam?

Credit Repair, Is it a Scam?

Many people will argue and tell you that all credit repair is a scam, but if you know your facts then you can see that honest, legitimate companies can assist you in doing credit repair.

Credit repair is not a way to change falsely change information on your credit report. No one can promise you a great credit score because Credit Repair does not work that way. Can you improve your credit score by doing credit repair? Generally, most people find that their credit score does improve with proper credit repair. So let’s start off by explaining what credit repair is and how you should go about it.

Everyone has a credit history report. This report is built upon information that is sent to the credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion). The information is then added to your credit history and works to build your credit score.

Most Americans have credit history reports that have inaccurate or misleading information on their reports. Approximately, 79% of all credit history reports have information that is inaccurate. Inaccurate information causes your credit score to be incorrect. Credit Repair is when you dispute the inaccurate information so that your credit report is as accurate as possible. When correcting the information that is inaccurate your credit score will change. Since you are disputing information that is being reported to your credit report that is negative, you will see changes in your credit score in a positive manner. This change in a positive manner will raise your credit score.

Information on your credit report should be reviewed very closely. Dates, balances, payment history can play a huge part in determining what effect that is having on your credit report. For example, if you opened an account in 2000 but it shows on your credit report that you opened that account in 2002, then your credit score will be lower because your score is based on credit history. The longer you have had an account, the more it helps your credit score. If you have an account that shows your balance as $1000 but it actually is $2000 then your available credit ratio is wrong and that will lower your credit score. This is why it is so important to review your credit history report very carefully.

If you have reviewed your credit report and found that you have inaccurate information on your report, then you have the right to dispute that information. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) gives you that right. You can review the FCRA at www.ftc.gov website. This will help you to understand your rights. You should know that no one can remove information from your credit report that is accurate. Any company that guarantees they can is not a legitimate credit repair company.

You have the right to dispute any information without the assistance of anyone. You can take the time to review your report, go over what information is on that report and then determine if it is accurate or not. If you have never reviewed a credit report before then you might be in for a headache as they are extremely difficult to read and determine if the information is accurate or not.

Most legitimate credit repair companies will break down the information on the report and show you what is negative on your report. The best place to start is to review the negative information and determine what is inaccurate. This is where you should begin to dispute the inaccurate information. Again, you can do all of this yourself but it is very time consuming. Now once you have found the inaccurate information on your credit report and begun the dispute process, be prepared for resistance. Most companies don’t want to go back and take the time to review the information closely. This causes them to just verify the account. You might get a letter back from the credit bureau telling you that they verified the account. But you know that the information they verified is still wrong. Most people will stop disputing here and that is why there is still so much information being reported that is still wrong. Sometimes, you have to dispute information on your credit report several times before the company sees that you won’t stop disputing inaccurate information. Then the companies will take a good hard look and generally find the errors. Once they have found the errors, they will correct them.

Don’t dispute too many items at one time. Think of it this way, if someone walked up to you and gave you a pile of things that you were told to fix, you may be overwhelmed and not sure what to do next. Credit Bureaus will “flag” an account that gets too many disputes at one time and may not go forward with any dispute. It is best to dispute a few things at a time so that you don’t “flag” your account. Working at a slow steady pace generally will give you much better results than if you try to get everything cleaned up all at once.

If you dispute an item on Experian, it is best to dispute a different item to the other bureaus. This might help your process of Credit Repair to move more quickly. When a dispute goes to a company for review, if they find an error, they will report it to all three bureaus. So if you dispute one item at all three bureaus and the company reports the changes to all three bureaus, you did not work the system efficiently.

So remember this:

1. Take the time to review your credit report closely
2. Determine which items on your credit report are inaccurate.
3. Dispute the information that is inaccurate.
4. Don’t be discouraged if the bureau reports the information as verified.
5. Don’t dispute too many items at one time. Large disputes will trigger flags at the bureaus.
6. Dispute different things at different bureaus. This might speed up the process.
7. Determine if the problem is small and manageable. Get assistance if necessary.

A legitimate Credit Repair Company can help you by doing all of the day to day work. It could save you a lot in postage if you have huge amounts of disputes to handle. Ovation Credit Services can show you how they process your credit information and how you inform them as to what needs to be disputed. Then your responsibility is to update and simply monitor what disputes are being processed for you. To get the best credit score possible, you will need to start with the most accurate report possible. Then by paying your bills in full and on time, your credit score will get better each and every month.