Don’t Fall For a Credit Repair Scam
You’ve most likely seen the ads in your daily paper, on cable TV, and on the world wide web. You can hear them singing on the radio. You find their ads stuffed into your mail box, and maybe you have enjoyed cold calls while eating dinner, offering you credit repair wonders. They tend to make these or similar claims:
“Credit Score Down? No problem!”
“We can delete all your bankruptcies, liens, judgments and repossessions from your credit file for ever!”
We can legally erase all your bad credit – 100% guaranteed.
We create a completely new credit file for you – 100 % legal.
It is not too smart to believe these claims: they are many times signs of a scam. Some authorities even state they have never seen a legitimate credit repair company trying to make those claims. In reality there is often not a fast fix for credit and creditworthiness. It is true, however that you can actually improve your credit report legitimately, but it takes quite some time, a persistent effort. And also it is advised that you stick to a personal debt repayment plan.
Warning signals that should alert you on a Credit Repair Scam
All the time, companies target uninformed consumers who have poor credit histories with promises to clean up their credit report so they can get a car loan, a home mortgage, insurance, or even a job once they pay them a fee for the service. The truth is, these companies cant deliver an improved credit report for you using the tactics they promote. No one can legally remove accurate, but negative information from your credit report. So after you hand them over thousands of dollars in fees, you are often left with the same credit report and someone else has your money.
If you encounter credit repair offers, here is how you can tell whether the firm that does it is crap:
The service organization does not tell you all your rights and what you can do for yourself to repair your credit for free.
The company insists that you refrain from getting into communication with any of the three major national credit reporting companies directly yourself.
The company tries to offer to create a brand new or false credit identity – and then get a completely new credit report – by applying for an EIN number, so that you use that instead of your old and “damaged” Social Security number.
The company wants you to pay for credit repair services that they supposedly want to deliver, before they provide you any services at all. Under what is called the the Credit Repair Organizations Act, companies that are offering to repair or improve your credit, are not allowed to ask for money up front. They have to wait until they have completely delivered the repair services they have advertised.