Credit Repair Services

It’s important to have an accurate
credit report. Your credit report
may contain errors and inaccur
acies. Some of these errors are
minor; other times the errors
can be significant – accounts
that are not yours, payments
that have not been recorded,
balances that are not owing. It
is your responsibility to ensure
that your credit report is correct.

There are many people
who have less-than-perfect
credit and believe the claims of
credit repair services who
advertise that they can remove
negative information from credit
reports. Be aware, be very aware - of any company that will promise to remove negative information in exchange for a fee. Sometimes the fees they charge can run into the hundreds of dollars or more. And no one can remove negative information from your report if it is true.

The Credit Repair Organizations Act was passed by the Federal Trade Commission to regulate how credit repair service companies do business. The act is designed to protect consumers from being taken advantage of by credit repair service companies. If the federal government thought it was important to protect you from credit repair service companies, then you should take it seriously and understand your rights.

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A few things you should know:

• Every adult can get a free copy of their credit report once every 12 months from each of the major credit bureaus – Experian, Equifax and Transunion – by phone, mail or at annualcreditreport.com. You do not need to pay someone to get a credit report for you. Once you have gotten your free report for the year, there is a nominal fee for each one after the first.
• Once you receive your credit reports, check them for errors. Make sure the accounts shown belong to you and that the amounts owing match your records. If you notice errors, there are methods at each credit bureau to correct your report free of charge.
• You do not need to pay someone to correct your credit report. If a credit repair service guarantees to remove negative information for a fee, this is not true. No one can remove negative information that is true (for instance, that you were 30 days late on a charge card account). If you can prove that an error exists on an item, then the credit report agency will remove it.

Not all credit repair service companies are out to separate you from your money. Most are legitimate and sincerely want to help individuals correct their credit reports and improve their credit ratings as a result. They provide an important service for consumers who do not want to deal with correcting their credit reports themselves. But it is up to you to choose a service wisely if you are trying to get help to correct your credit report.