Are There Any Legitimate
Credit Repair Companies?

Are there any legitimate credit repair companies? That is a good question. Yes, there are credit repair companies that are legitimate. The real task is trying to sort them out from the huge number of scams. Let’s explore the answer to the question -- are there any legitimate credit repair companies?




There certainly are legitimate credit repair companies. However, they are far and few between. You need to be able to sort out the good from the fraudulent. How does one do that? The key thing to look for is what they promise. Nobody can remove a legitimate item from your credit report except the original lender. The only exception to this is items that are at least 7 years old that you no longer are making payments on. If you have an outstanding debt that you never paid, and you never made any payment arrangements on, this will “fall off” in about 7 years. Sometimes this does not happen and you can request that it be removed due to its age. Bankruptcies, tax liens, foreclosures, judgments, and repossessions are the exception to the 7 year rule. These can remain in your credit file for 10 years or longer. Now, back to sorting the good from the bad. The scams will tell you they can give you good credit or they will tell you they can help by working with your creditors to pay off the debts. Most of these are scams. So, it seems the answer to the question --are there any legitimate credit repair companies, is actually no. Not quite, let's look at what the good ones do.




What separates the good from the bad? We discussed what could be a scam in the previous paragraph. Now let’s look at what legitimate credit repair companies can do. First of all, they will tell you up front exactly who they are and what they do. If they tell you that they are going to work with your creditors and make payments to them for you then they are acting as a collection agency. If this is the case they need to disclose that to you -- the legitimate ones will. If they promise to remove items from your credit report, ask them what items and how will they know what is correct and what is not? The legitimate companies will tell you that they will look over your report with you and will only dispute the items that you state are there in error, or ones that are reported incorrectly. Some will immediately request that all old debts be removed. You can do all of this yourself, but if you are pressed for time perhaps it is better to have someone do it for you.




So what it comes down to is this, there are legitimate credit repair companies out there. However, there is nothing they can do that you cannot do for yourself for free (outside of the cost of getting your credit reports). This being said, there are times that it may be better to have someone else working for you. Be very careful and choose your credit repair company wisely. Are there any legitimate credit repair companies -- you betcha, they’re just hard to find.