Can A Credit Repair Company Really Help?
It is possible to repair your credit on your own, going through your reports line by line for wrong information and then submitting disputes on your own. Hiring a credit repair company to handle all of the legwork for you can be a lot less of a hassle. Learn why hiring a professional credit repair company might be useful, and how legitimate companies go above and beyond to improve your credit report.
How Do Credit Repair Companies Work?
Step 1: Free evaluation
When a company starts working for you, they pull your credit report from all three credit agencies right away (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion). A repair specialist will evaluate your report with you during a free appointment to see whether they can assist you. If you have unfavorable information that may be linked to a low credit score, you are a good candidate for credit repair.
Step 2: Determine Items For Dispute
The company then thoroughly examines your reports to discover any mistakes and inaccuracies. This can take many days to finish because they look for things like errors in your payment history, duplicate accounts, and expired negative items.
If they find problems in any of your reports, they will gather any documentation you have to back up your claim. Once they obtain the documentation, they transmit it to the three bureaus and work with them to evaluate whether or not the item or items should be deleted.
Step 3: Do the Same Thing For Each Bureau’s Report
Because they may not all have the same information, the best companies go over all three reports from each of the three agencies. Each credit reporting agency has its own “data furnishers,” which are banks, credit unions, savings and loan institutions, mortgage lenders, and credit card issuers, as defined by industry experts. Not all furnishers are required to submit reports to all three bureaus. Errors may be overlooked if the company fails to evaluate all three reports.
To be clear, credit repair agencies do nothing that you can’t do yourself. Everything a third party can do for you, you can do yourself for free. However, doing the task on your own might be time-consuming. You may also have less success resolving disputes on your own, which means unfavorable information may remain and continue to damage your score. Hiring a competent credit repair company often improves your chances of success.
Can A Credit Repair Company Really Help?
In a word, absolutely. These companies hire attorneys who are either licensed to practice in multiple states or only provide services in one. These lawyers are well-versed in the intricacies of the profession and the law. Their experience allows them to be more effective when contesting negative information on your behalf. These attorneys will also use provisions in federal consumer protection laws to assist you in improving your credit history.
The best companies will assist you in:
- Identify and examine your credit reports
- Understand how your credit scores are calculated.
- Determine strategies that will help you improve your credit score over time.
But let’s be clear about one thing: credit repair may or may not repair a low credit score. If you have incorrect information in your credit reports, there is nothing a credit repair company (or you) can do to change it. So, if the unfavorable items are correct, you’ll need to rebuild your credit instead of fixing it.
You hire these companies with the expectation that they will correct any inaccuracies from your credit report. And, sadly, such errors can be multiple. Everyone’s credit repair needs are different. A consultation is one of the best ways to see if it’s the appropriate solution for you. That way, you can ask all of the important questions and get a sense of what services and rates are most appropriate to your needs.
