When Should You Really Hire a Credit Repair Company?
Like it or not, your credit score is one of the most important factors in your financial future. Without solid score things like getting a loan, securing financing, renting a house, and even buying a phone can becoming incredibly difficult and taxing. But what if you have bad credit because there are errors on your credit reports? Or there’s something that’s decades old? Or a single item that’s appearing multiple times? It seems pretty unfair to pay more interest on or be declined for a credit card, car loan, and mortgage because the credit bureaus have wrong information about you in their files. While you have the option to go through a dispute process with each of the credit bureaus on your own, the cost and time of doing so is something that many people do not have. This is when many consumers start looking into hiring a credit repair company.
Credit repair leverages your legal right to three standards: Credit reports must be 100% accurate, entirely fair, and fully substantiated. A good credit repair company will first pull your credit reports from each of the three major credit reporting agencies in order to figure out all of your potential credit issues. Why all three? All three of these standards matter because each of the three credit reporting agency has its own “data furnishers”. Data furnishers are lenders, debt collectors, credit card companies…etc… who report your credit information to them. And there may be errors that appear on one of your credit reports, but don’t appear on the others. Once those errors have been identified, you will then be responsible for giving a credit repair company any supporting documentation you might have or need.
Once the credit bureaus and data furnishers receive the dispute and supporting information, they will begin to work with the credit repair company to determine if the item should be removed from your credit report.
Having inaccurate and negative information taken off of your credit reports is one of the fastest ways to see a vast improvement to your score. This is because credit bureaus have to respond and resolve a dispute within 30 days- although there are a few exceptions that may extend this to 45 days. Realistically this is a short timeline that can help consumers who want to buy a house, get a new car or open up a new credit card soon and don’t have the time to wait to build good credit in other ways.
What Should Your Look for in a Credible Credit Repair Company?
-They know your rights and want you to understand them too.
-They are able to explain to you in detail how they can help sort and update your credit report.
-They know your story
-The company should have a strong and respected reputation of helping people that are both in your and in situations similar to your own.
-They are able to provide you with insight as to what the errors on your credit report mean, and how having them removed can mean.