Do you have any idea how seriously your bad credit score can impact your financial position? If you have a bad score, then you come in the high-risk boundaries of the lenders, and they may not be in favor of lending you money. If still you somehow managed to get credit, it will come to you with a price higher than the normal.
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The bad score makes your life hard, as even renting an apartment becomes near to impossible for you.
Such situations call for a high time where you should start thinking about fixing your credit score. There are different companies providing
credit repair services in the market with a promise to provide fast credit repair, but choosing the best one is still a task. Choose a company that has a few years of experience and goodwill in the respective domain.
What is Credit Repair?
Credit Repair is a process in which your credit health is rebuilt so that you can become eligible for loans. A
credit repair company will assist you in your credit restoration by fixing several factors that may have deteriorated your credit health. Credit repair services will deal even with the fundamental financial issues and also address legitimate concerns on the part of lenders to fix your credit.
When to seek the help of credit repair services?
The Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO) has provided a common rating system to the lenders so that they can provide credit scores between 300 to 850 to different individuals. Higher the score, the better the credibility. If in case, your score is less than 750, you must seek professional help to improve the same and to get an approval stamp on all your loan applications in the future.
How do credit repair services work?
If your credit score is a mess, quickly make a decision and resort to the best credit repair services that will help you achieve the required score, so you can easily qualify for a personal loan, credit card and renting an apartment. The services will be provided to you in return for a fee.
Best Credit repair services will help you by reviewing your credit reports after requesting a copy of them from the three main credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and Transunion) so that the wrong items can be corrected or removed to
boost your credit scores.
The methods to repair credit score may vary from company to company, but there are some tasks that are generally processed in all the top credit repair companies which are as follows:
Reviewing of credit reports:
A Credit Score Repair Company will first request a copy of your credit reports from each of the three main credit bureaus and review the same to pull out errors that are affecting your score such as:
- Duplicate accounts
- Accounts that do not belong to you
- Incorrect accounts
- False inquiries
The fast credit repair services will do not let these inaccuracies to take a toll on your credit score. They will review your credit report at the right intervals of time to find out the errors even before they affect your score.
Dispute Discrepancies:
The credit fixing companies will wash out the questionable credit report items and also initiate credit challenges for all the errors found in your report. Once the credit score repair company submits a dispute, the credit bureaus will review the accuracy of the information in your credit report. If in case they are unable to verify the data, the same will be either corrected or removed from the report.
The credit repair agencies help you by saving your time as well as the effort involved in identifying and gathering the evidence required. They also assist you in managing and crafting correspondence with the creditors and credit bureaus.
The time involved in credit restoration:
Credit Restoration Services take time. Scrubbing inaccurate and negative information from your credit report may involve some time. If the company is making a dispute, the credit bureaus will take as long as 30 days (a few exceptions can extend to 45 days) to render a decision as they have to gather pieces of evidence to verify your information in the reports. The best credit repair services have large systems that take time to build your credit organically.
How much best credit repair services cost?
Different credit fixing companies will charge you differently to fix your credit, and the cost also depends on the nature of the service you require. Before you get into a contract with a credit repair agency, evaluate how much work your reports need, so that you can determine the right service and pay accordingly.
As per the Credit Repair Organizations Act, the credit repair agencies cannot ask or receive payment until they deliver the promised results.
You can invest your time and money in a credit repair company to improve your score that will help you to save money involved in getting credit at a higher rate in the future.
Can I repair my credit without seeking the help of a credit repair agency?
Repairing your credit score can be an option if your situation is not that complex, or you have only one or two inaccuracies. But before stepping in, prepare yourself by conducting thorough research work, so you can be able to fix your credit score accurately. The process can be a little time consuming and complicated as you will find information that you were utterly missing on. Below mentioned are the steps that you can follow to
fix your credit score:
- Request credit reports for all the main three bureaus: First of all, you have to exercise your right to receive your credit reports from each of the three major bureaus. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FICO) allows you to get free copies of your credit statements from the three main credit bureaus (TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax) once in a year.
- Precisely review all the items: Review each and every information in your credit report precisely to correct or remove the inaccurate ones. As you will thoroughly navigate every item in your report, you will find areas with missing and inaccurate information. Ensure that all your open accounts are accurate, and if in case you find that your credit is being used fraudulently, contact the credit bureaus immediately in order to set up a fraud alert. You also have the option to freeze your credit reports until the credit restoration process is completed, and you have fixed your report to full correctness.
- File disputes: If inaccuracies or mistakes appear in your credit reports, file a dispute with all the three major credit bureaus, so they can review the same with the reporting agency and the company providing the information to correct or remove inaccuracies within the maximum time of 30 days. Mail a copy of your credit report with the dispute letter after highlighting the problematic areas to show your concern in a more precise way.
- Wait for response:The credit bureaus take up to 30 days to investigate and respond. Therefore, you should wait at least 45 days to receive documents via mail. The credit bureaus will provide one of the two responses: either they will remove the inaccuracies or disagree with your claim. If in case they disagree with your claim, do not lose hope and give one more attempt. If the inaccuracies are removed, then you will be provided an updated copy of the credit report.
- Stick to good credit habits: In order to maintain a good credit report, in the long run, you should create as well as stick to good credit habits. Pay your loans and bills on time, contact your lenders if you have any issues with debts so you can settle on better terms, and continuously use your credit by maintaining 30% of your overall credit limit.
Factors to consider to select the best credit repair services:
In order to rebuild your credit health, you will seek the assistance of a company that will provide you with reliable credit repair services. There are several credit fixing companies in the market, but choosing the best one that will efficiently stand on their promise to fix your credit can be a little tough. Here, we are listing down some of the factors that you can consider before rendering the services of a credit repair company:
- Know your rights: The credit repair agencies must have knowledge about your rights and should be willing to explain the same to you as well as address all your questions related to the rights. They should understand the reason why you want to dispute an item in your credit report and do the needful for removing all the errors and inaccuracies in order to fix your credit.
- Experience: Select a credit repair company with considerable experience (at least three years) in the respective domain. Experience act as an important factor to ensure that the company will offer reliable and fast credit repair services, as for the same reason, it is still in the business.
- Reputation: A company’s reputation is built with its customers and the practices they implement in their operations. Hire a credit repair company that complies with the best business practices and achieve employee satisfaction level. A company with a good reputation will keep your mind at ease as you will know that experts are handling operations to fix my credit score.
- An array of services rendered: Different credit fixing companies provide services that slightly vary from each other. You should select a company whose services match your requirements in order to avoid disappointments in the future. Hire a company that covers a vast gamut of services that will help you to regain sound credit health.
- Reviews: Before signing a contract with a credit repair company, check out what previous customers say about its services. You can read the reviews about the company on its website or other review-based sites and can also ask for the company’s testimonials to know about its success rate to make a wise decision.
- Fees: The charges for rendering credit repair services should be reasonable. Different companies have different fees for the services they offer. The company cannot ask you to pay upfront fees as per the Credit Repair Organization Act that states that the credit repair agencies cannot ask for the charges before completing the services they promised to offer. Beware of the companies that charge on a per-item basis as they will charge separately for correcting or removing each item from the report of each credit bureau.
- Address: Hire a company that has a physical location. Companies with no physical locations are illegal, and you will not be able to do anything if they run off with your cash.
Finding the best credit repair services is not as easy as it seems. Consider the above-mentioned factors before hiring a credit repair company to avoid regretting in the future. Choose a company that has an expert team with all the required know
how to fix your credit score with a well-planned approach and within the promised time frame.
Credit fixing services can help in fixing my credit?
By considering all the factors, credit repair services can fix your credit and increase your credit score. The best credit repair services will help you to understand as well as evaluate your credit reports, so you can get knowledge on how to determine the score. They will also assist in you identifying strategies that you can implement to boost your credit standing in the present and in the future as well.
But there is one thing a credit repair company can’t do, and that is to remove accurate negative information from your credit reports. So, if negative items in your reports are accurate, then you have to rebuild your credit instead of repairing it.
Legitimate credit repair agencies
There are numerous companies ready to provide the best credit repair services with a promise to fix your credit score immediately. Such promises seem so alluring to the individuals who want to fix their credit, but do you have any idea that it is illegal for credit repair service providers to promise instant results like that.
To ensure whether the credit repair agency you are hiring is genuine or not, refer to the below-mentioned things that a legitimate company won’t do:
- Ask for payment before completing their work.
- Request you not to contact the credit reporting companies directly.
- Raise a dispute for accurate information in your credit report.
- Provide false data or information on your applications to get a loan.
- Not reviewing your legal rights when they explain their services.
- Not disclosing how long the process will take.
If in case the company fails to deliver the promised results, you have the option to take it to court.
Ways to improve your credit score beyond credit repair
Your credit score can be just a three-digit number for someone else, but for you, it holds uttermost importance. It will help lenders to decide whether you will be able to pay your debts or not. The scores are provided on the basis of your payment history and ability to repay debts on time. You can improve your credit score by first knowing the factors that are affecting your score, so you can work towards improving the same. A credit score reflects your credit payment patterns, mostly based on your recent credit information. You can focus on the following factors if you want to improve your credit scores over time:
- Bill payment on time: Your past payment history is considered as a factor by lenders to provide you a credit score. You can improve your score by paying all your bills on time. Late payments can negatively affect your credit score. If in case you are behind on any payment, complete the same as quickly as you can.
- Monitor your credit utilization rate frequently: Using too much available credit can have a negative impact on your credit score. In order to maintain a good credit score, you should keep your balances below 30 percent of the credit limit.
- Maintain a record of timely and complete debts: Records of timely and complete payments can actually impact your credit score over time. Bad debts that have a negative impact on your credit score get automatically removed with time.
- Avoid closing unused credit accounts: Do not close unused credit accounts that are not costing you money. This thing will help you to maintain your credit utilization ratio.
- Frequent monitoring of credit: The credit reports provide you all the information about your financial accounts in one place. Reviewing your credit report every month will help you to identify fluctuations so that you can manage your credit more efficiently.
By getting a better credit score, you can improve your credit standing that will further help you to easily obtain low-interest loans, mortgage, insurance, and premium rewards credit cards. Now, as you know, what credit repair is, it is time to get into action to improve your credit score.
