FREE CREDIT REPAIR

September 1, 2009 by  
Filed under Debt Free

John Chase asked:


Free Credit Repair

Every consumer who uses credit has a credit record — and is it ever powerful.

Every time you apply for credit or a loan, creditors obtain your credit record to verify your worthiness. But, the use of these reports has broadened. Insurance companies have begun to use them to determine premiums or deny coverage. Potential employers may even want to check out your credit worthiness.

If you are hampered by a low credit score, you may do well to make use of credit repair service to improve your credit score.

Rising interest in credit scores

Today, a credit record is more than just a dry report on how many credit cards you have and whether you made every auto payment on time. Credit recording agencies often distill consumers’ reports into a three-digit number called a credit score — and that number alone can determine whether you get easy monthly payments or loan-shark rates. It’s not surprising that as credit scores become more important, consumers are taking more interest in these three-digit numbers. A high score saves you money, a low score costs you. This fascination with credit scores has led to more interest in repairing credit to increase scores.

Unfortunately, as the demand for credit repair rises, the opportunity for scams becomes more prevalent, says Marta Moakley, an assistant attorney general in Florida.

“As our economy becomes sluggish and debt levels rise, more people turn to companies that specialize in credit repair for help. Consumers need to be aware that there is potential for fraud.”

The need for such a service is obvious. Practically every consumer has inaccurate or outdated information on a credit report from one of the three major credit bureaus, says Steve Rhode, president and co-founder of Myvesta.org, a nonprofit agency that counsels people in financial crisis.

These errors can be costly, and it’s up to the consumer to get them corrected. The credit bureaus are not obligated to root out errors and provide accurate information. Their job is to record the information presented to them by creditors.

Call for help?

So, if your score is low or your credit report is inaccurate, what are your options? It’s like hanging wallpaper — do you call a professional paperhanger, or tackle it yourself?

The Fair Credit Reporting Act says consumers can dispute mistakes in their credit files for free. But it will take time. Correcting one error may average four hours, says Rhode. That includes applying for your credit reports, reviewing and highlighting errors, documenting the mistake, typing up your letter and mailing it.

Credit repair services offer, for a fee, to do this daunting legwork. They pull credit reports, review for errors and send out dispute letters along with documentation. They add professionalism. They save you time. Some promise to erase bad credit — 100 percent guaranteed. Others advertise they can remove bankruptcies from your credit file forever.

These repair services, however, don’t have any secret remedies for erasing bad credit. Neither you nor the credit repair service has the right to remove accurate and current information from your credit report. The bottom line is: Credit repair services can’t do anything for you that you can’t do for yourself, free.

The mysterious repair shops

Are credit repair clinics fulfilling their promises to improve credit scores? It’s hard to say. We contacted five credit repair clinics to learn about their guarantees and success stories, but not one was willing to talk.

The consumer service agencies were more than willing to talk.

Steve Baker, Director of the Federal Trade Commission in Chicago, says a prevailing myth about credit repair is that there are loopholes in the federal law that allows poor credit to be erased. It doesn’t exist.

He says that in the past four years the FTC has not seen a legitimate credit repair clinic. “It’s possible that these clinics are providing legitimate services to customers, but I’ve not seen it yet. When the law says that bankruptcy remains on your credit report for 10 years, just how can it be legally removed?” questions Baker. “And, later when you’re asked in a credit application if you’ve ever filed for bankruptcy, will you lie?”

He cites an example of one consumer who was told to steal his bankruptcy record from the county courthouse, so that the credit bureau could not verify its accuracy.

Dramatic? Yes. But it poses a good question — how are credit repair services removing bad credit?

“If the credit repair service offers guarantees within the Fair Credit Reporting Act,” says Steve Rhode of Myvesta.org, “then it’s doing the job. Credit repair services get sleazy when they promise to do a job that’s just not possible. They promise to remove accurate, but negative information.”

“Scams occur,” says Marta Moakley, “when consumers pay fees for services that are never performed, or the consumer is misled on the services provided. Too often the consumer can’t afford to lose this money.”

Worse yet, consumers have paid money upfront — and the company disappears.

“Credit protection and credit repair” scams are one of the top consumer complaints reported to the FTC. The actual dollar amount lost by consumers to these scams is difficult to calculate, says Baker, because many people are too embarrassed to complain. But, the FTC estimates the loss to consumers is easily in the millions.

“This is an equal opportunity scam. Everyone has a credit report; anyone can suffer from a poor credit history,” says Baker.

Steve Rhode knows of consumers who paid $400 to $2,000 for credit repair services. Do-it-yourselfers can expect to pay $30 for a consolidated credit report — a report that provides your credit history from the three major credit bureaus — plus the value of their time.

Finding a reputable company

You may still decide to go the credit repair service route. Here’s how to let your fingers cautiously do the walking through the yellow pages.

Do your homework. Research the company before your first visit. Contact the Better Business Bureau to see if the firm has had any consumer complaints. Check with your state attorney general’s office or other state consumer agencies to find out if there are any pending legal investigations. The FTC warns against relying on chambers of commerce or other trade associations where membership is based solely on a fee.

Know your rights. Credit repair services must follow specific guidelines from the Credit Repair Organizations Act, which are intended to protect consumers. You should receive an explanation of these rights before signing a written contract. Read them.

You should receive a contract with all of the following information:

The payment terms for services, including their total cost

A detailed description of the services to be performed

How long it will take to achieve the results

Any guarantees they offer

The company’s name and business address

Remember the grace period. The credit repair company cannot perform any services for you until you’ve signed a written contract and completed a three-day waiting period. You may cancel the contract without paying any fees during this period.

“There are no quick fixes in credit repair,” insists Moakley. “Common sense tells you that a third party doesn’t know your credit history better than you. Through contacting credit bureaus, making your own corrections, consolidating your debts and budgeting, you can improve your own score. You don’t need to pay someone to fix it for you. Apply that money toward your debt.”



Everyone Needs Credit Repair Help at Some Point

September 1, 2009 by  
Filed under Debt Free

Lee Beattie asked:


You Need To Find Credit Repair Help

Your credit history is a wonderful privilege to make and many individuals take it for granted until it’s excessively late and they have ruined their good credit and normally people find out when they least expect it. A sound example is when you have applied for a number of loans because your bills were collectible but realize it is too late. No one plans to ruin their credit but life occurs and we possibly have difficulties that limit our ability to stay above water but know on that point are credit repair services that allow you to modify a ugly situation and avoid bad credit. This is where credit repair help can be handy and in turn your credit score will reflect, if you take it upon yourself to repair your credit because you can’t merely wish it aside because it still needs fixed. There are many credit forms obtainable to you within a credit repair service to assist consumers to fix their credit history.

You may have fallen ill and every bit a result were unable to function so you could not pay your bills on time and those consumer reporting agencies will then report your delinquencies. Perhaps you were laid off from work or lost your job and learning the difficulties of getting a another job or let’s say you pull your credit report and find out in that respect are faults that need to be disputed based on the info you researched. Whatever the causes that put you in the spot that you are in now just don’t permit your credit to go down the toilet. The significant affair is to try to get your credit scores where you want them and it all starts with the credit report and how to fix it.

In order to rebuild your credit to good standing searching credit repair help and a strong hope to amend your credit rating by getting your life back in order will be a top priority. You can check with local credit repair companies that can walk you through the entire procedure of obtaining the correct legal credit services that will first accommodate you by cleaning up the errors you may have made by starting to rebuild it. They will help you to discover the right path to reach creditors so that you can negotiate improved terms and payback selections which will guide you with the particular tips to take for complete credit help and remember those credit cards may have to be dealt with first because numerous times those have the highest intrest rates. In numerous cases these credit repair companies can help you to lower your finance charges or even eliminate them all at once as long as you are producing your payments as agreed upon in the credit settlement.

You can also check credit repair help online where you can receive the choice of getting the help from the comfort of your house. You want to apply a bit of care going with an online credit repair help website although you should make a point to check the web site is credible. There are numerous internet sites out there that are fake and will want you to hand your paycheck in order for them to pay your bills for you and while that seems great make certain on that point are credit repair letters sent off on your behalf explaining this full settlement. You just require to be certain that the company is legit and are really performing what they say would be done and with that said make for certain your credit scores are reflecting these legal actions.

Everyone requires a little help every now and then so obtaining credit repair help is nothing to feel bad about because improving your credit is a very crucial issue and shouldn’t be viewed as a failure, it is really personal emergence that will generate good results if you follow all the steps that your credit counselor renders. It is a means for you to educate yourself and again bankruptcy is not the alternative here good credit is your supreme goal. Your credit is very important and you need to take good care of it by repairing this hard situation to complete the clean up of your credit history. If you find that you are suffering financial difficulties then search credit repair help to get back up on your feet again.

You can learn to set up a budget that will both help you catch up bills that are behind while preserving with the regular bills that you have to keep on that course of positive credit repair. You will discover that you can establish a plan and in time you will discover your credit problems start to get better and your credit score will simultaneously improve. Debt surely isn’t going away most everyone on this green earth has to deal with this so make sure to repair yours so you don’t have to find a company or yet a credit repair lawyer who has to deal with a possible bankruptcy. A good credit rating can be acquired with the right credit services offered so make sure not to permit your credit spot to decline from fair to bad.

Good credit scores can be a realization if you make a point to get the proper help. Merely keep in mind there are so numerous services out there that will assist you with personal credit repair. Bad credit isn’t one of those unbearable to get out of states of affairs so make a point to get the proper credit repair help that extends the personal services to better your credit history.

If you would like more information on this topic and Credit Rating Repair or if you are in need Free Credit Repair, Beatlands Credit Repair has many credit repair topics and tips that can be very useful.



Credit Repair - Prepare, Know How, And Get Results

September 1, 2009 by  
Filed under Debt Free

Jordan Hashem asked:


Credit repair is almost an essential tool for credit survival. In recenet years, credit repair companies have experienced a surge in business that amounted to billions of dollars in annual revenue. A Consumer needs his or her credit repaired and a new credit repair companyopens up in hopes capturing a fraction of this bilion dollar industry. Keep in mind, that you do not need any professional license to start a credit repair company. All you need is a simple credit repair eBook or credit repair software and you can call yourself a qualified “Credit Repair Representative”. With that in mind, think about why you would hire someone to perform credit repair services on your behalf? It boils down to only two simple answers; Knowledge and Tme. We will discuss how to overcome these two obsticles in more depth as we illustarate to you how easy and timelesss this process can be.

By definition credit repair is the right of a consumer, under the fair credit reporting act, to dispute any credit negative or positive history items appearing in their credit reports. A credit bureau must investigate, and delete any errors at the request of the consumer. However if an item in dispute is found to be correct, though negative, then the information shall remain on their credit report. Negative items and judgements taken against the consumer shall remain on their credit report for 7 years while bankruptcies shall remain for 10 years. Sounds scary right? Well it is true. However, we are cretain that as you have read the definition of credit repair you missed some major yet hidden loopholes that can only be translated as an “advantage to you”.

The first advantage we have found is “Your right to Credit Repair”. By that we mean your right to dispute any item appearing on your credit report whether it’s a known error or unknown. Your right to credit repair is your right to understand your credit and correct the items that youthat you FEEL are inaccrate. Get the phrase “credit repair” out of your head and look at it from this angle: you are not perfroming credit repair; instead you are simply trying to better UNDERSTAND YOUR CREDIT. With that in mind, who is to tell you what you can or cannot understand? You have every right to NOT understand any if not all the items on your credit report. As a matter of fact, we want you to not understand every single negative item on your credit report. The more naïve you become about these items the sweeter the outcome. Noone mentioned that you have to be a wiz at reading credit reports, credit scores, and specifically where a negative item came from or how it showed up on your credir report. Now, that is your right as a consumer.

Now that you understand your rights, we will move on to the second loophole in the under the fair credit reporting act and that is the credit bureaus duties towrds you as the consumber. Thses laws are intended to protect the consumer against fraudulent activites and/or innacurate information plcaed on theirr credit report. Since you are “naïve” about your accounts, especially the negative ones, you now have upperhand that will enable you to overpower the strong arms of any creditor. You, the consumer, have the right to repair your credit at any given time or any given point as frequently as you please. When you dispute an item, the law clearly states that the credit bureau has 30 days to respond to your dispute as well as the million of other disputes that other folks like you are sending. Do you really believe that every dispute will be investigated and responded to in a reasonable amount of time? The answer to that is a big NO. You and many others just like you are sending disputes left and right and these credit bureus and creidotrs are overwhelmed with credit repair inquiries (disputes). There is no way on that any credit bureau can keep up with everything sent to them. This is where you win. No response means deleted negative items.

Let’s suppose you know nothing about credit repair. How do you know what to do and what resources to use? You may also ask yourself, where do I get the credit repair letters? and how do I mail them out and when??? Follow the following exmaple and you will find all the answers to your questions. Let’s suppose you have a 60 day late on your credit report from xyz credit card Company. Yoy mail out a dispute letter to the credit bureaus and day 31 comes by and no response confirming the accuracy of that late payement. Gues what, you have just cleared that negative item by sending a request back to the credit bureau demanding its removal from your credit report. Yes, it is that easy and it is almost guranteed to happen to you. This example was just the beginning of many ways you can accomplish fantastic credit repair results. Credit repair does not require massive knowledge or even any software. It can be performed with a simple how to guide which you can obtain at no cost to you at www.restoremyowncredit.com . Using their credit repair instructions you have become more efective and efficient than 99% of the credit repair companies out there. That is truve because repairing bad credit is more effective you do the credit repair yourself. Noone can accompish better results than you, and not to mention how much money you have saved this way.

Now that youknow how to do your own credit repair, let’s talk about the time it takes. Credit repair is a commitment. Tto accomplish great results you will have to spend a little time cleaning your credit. You may be fooled into thinking that you don’t have the time, but if we told you that you will have to spend a maimum of 2 hours a month on credit repair would you hire someone at a credit repair company to do the work for you? No matter how many items you want to dispute on your credit report, you will never have to spend more than a couple of hours a month working on your credit. All you need is a PC, prionter and a book of stamps. Just follow the credit repair instruction at “Restore My Own Credit . com” and you are on your way.



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