Credit Repair Agency – Should You Use One?
A credit repair agency may appear to be your saving grace, with the promise of improving your credit score by removing negative information and bankruptcies from your credit report.
If a bad credit report is standing between you and a loan approval it is tempting to use one of the credit repair agencies who guarantee removal of negative information.
However it all depends on whether that negative information on your report is accurate or not, as any accurate negative information on your credit report is only removed with the passage of time.
A credit repair agency that promises the removal of bankruptcies, judgements and other negative information that are accurately stated on your credit report is breaking the law by making false and misleading statements.
If there is inaccurate information on your credit report, then yes, it can be disputed and removed, but anything negative on your credit report that is accurate cannot be removed, no matter what a credit repair agency may say to the contrary.
As far as the removal of inaccurate negative information, this can be done by yourself or a credit repair agency.
If you want to do it yourself it’s not difficult and there is plenty of information on this site that tells you how to do it. However, if you don’t feel comfortable doing it yourself then you may want to enlist the services of a credit repair agency.
If you choose to go that route, be aware of the following.
A credit repair agency is not allowed to charge you any fees before they do any work for you. So if they attempt to charge you an advance fee for their services they are breaking the law.
They cannot remove accurate information from your credit report, only time can remove accurate negative items from it.
If they suggest anything illegal, like applying for an Employer Identification Number for you to use instead of your social security number in order to create a new identity, do not deal with them, the credit repair agency is doing something illegal and should be reported to the Federal Trade Commission.
