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What Do I Need To Do If I Need Credit Repair?

What Do I Need To Do If I Need Credit Repair?

If you need to repair bad credit, you will need to do a few things. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the most important thing that you need to do is try to avoid scams. There are many companies that claim that they can help you with a credit clean up, but unfortunately many of these claims are part of a scam.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, you should look closely at a credit clean up company before you agree to work with them. By law, they should not charge you for their services before they actually fix your credit. If they promise to increase your score immediately or if they refuse to tell you how they will do your credit clean up, they may be part of a scam. In spite of the many scams that exist in the marketplace, there are legitimate credit clean up companies.

These companies are upfront about their practices, and they should be upfront about the fact that it may take several months or even years to repair bad credit. Most of these companies work in the same way. They pull a credit report for you. Then, they closely examine the reports looking for errors. If they find any errors or negative marks, they write a letter to the reporting agency. If worded correctly, the letter will place the burden of proof for the negative mark on the credit reporting agency. After receiving these letters, the agency should amend your report and eliminate the negative marks. This will increase your credit score.

There are many companies that promise to give consumers credit clean up services. It is important that consumers try to distinguish the legitimate companies from those who are running scams. Consumers who are confidant about the process can even take these steps on their own. All of the credit bureaus are required to give every consumer at least one free credit report per year. In some states, they are required to give consumers a free report every time something negative is noted on their account. Once a consumer has their report, they can start working on removing the negative marks and improving their score.

Image by: Mike Reys