Credit Repair Agencies
What to Look For When Selecting a Credit Repair Agency
Credit repair agencies are all over the place. They make promises to take your undesirable credit and turn it into gold. However, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Credit Repair or Empty Promises
Many credit repair agencies capitalize on your desperate desire to improve your credit. They promise that they can give you a new credit identity (which is illegal) or remove all negative information from your report (which IS possible but cannot be guaranteed). In most cases they’re offering you empty promises or they’re operating illegally.
Agencies that are reputable can help you to remove negative credit information. However, that’s something you can do for yourself for free using the information here. Typically, these firms are owned and operated by attorneys.
The agencies that aren’t operating on the up and up use illegal tactics to remove accurate information from your report.
The Infamous New Credit File Scam
One tactic that’s often used is to have you apply for an Employers Identity Number. Then they’ll tell you to use it instead of your Social Security number to apply for credit as well as have you use a new address. This allows you to apply for credit for a business rather than your personal credit. However, this technique is also illegal.
What Credit Repair Agencies Can Do
The same process that’s used to remove inaccurate information can be used to remove accurate information by credit repair agencies. As you already know, if you dispute information on your credit report, a credit bureau will have to verify the accuracy of the information on the report within 30 days, or delete the item.
Credit repair agencies work to overwhelm the credit bureau with multiple requests. This makes it difficult for them to verify the information and causes many accurate but negative entries on your credit report to be deleted.
The basic thing that you need to remember is that if a company is promising to do something that seems to be a quick-fix or impossible, then they’re probably doing something illegal or that doesn’t always work.