If you have bad credit, you will be bombarded with many advertisements from various agencies that claim to offer efficient credit repair services, eliminating of bankruptcies, creating new identities and erasing all instances of bad credit.
But the fact is that these credit repair companies simply claim but fail to deliver. They swindle their clients and then disappear with their money. The only reliable method of repairing bad credit is to spend your time, effort and prepare a personal debt repair plan to which you will adhere.
Look out for these warning signs to determine if a credit repair company is sticking to legal norms or no. They are not authorized to charge you any upfront fee before giving any service. Be alert if the credit repair company deters you from getting in touch with the credit bureau or shies away from responding to your query about your legal rights as a debtor.
Some crooked credit repair companies will recommend you dispute all the credit information present in your report. Others will provide an illegal solution like applying for a new Employer Identification Number instead of a Social Security Number to generate a new identity. As these acts are unauthorized and criminal, you can be arraigned. This is because it is a federal crime if you provide false information when applying for credit like giving false Social Security Number or generating a new Employer Identification Number from the IRS with false information.
The negative information is retained in your credit report for 7 years and that for bankruptcy is kept for 10 years. People defaulting on US Government insured loans or student loans carry this sigma for 7 years.
Though nobody can erase the factual information from your credit report, you can opt for reassessment or reinvestigation of any credit that is erroneous or incomplete. The Fair Credit Reporting Act lets you dispute any error or old information without any charge. Just fill a dispute filing form available with the credit-reporting agency or send a letter detailing your points of dispute. Identify the information that you want to dispute, provide the reasons why you want to dispute and ask for a reinvestigation. Retain a copy of your points of dispute with you. If any mistake is found during the investigation, you can ask for the rectified form to be sent to the creditors who have asked for your credit report in the last 6 months. Get the credit bureau to include your dispute reporting in all the further reports, if the dispute continues after the reinvestigation.
Each state has its own laws that control the working of credit repairing companies. If you are swindled by an unscrupulous credit repair company, complain immediately to your local consumer affairs office or your attorney general’s office.