A credit score is critical in every American’s life because it is the indicator upon which financial institutions decide whether to give a loan to a potential borrower. Because of this, it is essential to pay all credits on time, prevent bankruptcy, and avoid borrowing money if you are unsure you can pay it back on time.
However, what should you do if, for some reason, you have a low credit score? How can you remove the negative marks of late payments or debt collections from your credit report? You can do it all with the help of CreditRepair.
On average, the agency’s customers increase their credit score by 40 points within six months. Let’s understand how it works, whether you need to use this company’s services, and what users write in Creditrepair.com’s reviews.
Who Is CreditRepair.com?
In 2012, a team of enthusiasts and financial experts founded a company whose mission is to help millions of Americans improve their credit history, reduce their financial stress and teach them how to manage their money wisely. Since then, ten years have passed, and CreditRepair has evolved from a small company into one of the leading organizations in the financial services market.
The main feature of the organization is that it does not provide a one-time service but works with clients for a long time. This is proof of the team’s responsible approach and understanding that their goal is not only to remove negative marks from your credit history but also to help you change your lifestyle and relationship with money.
In 10 years, the CreditRepair team has made over 2 million removals from their clients’ credit reports and filed more than 20 million inquiries on behalf of their members with the credit bureaus.
If you know for a fact that you have marks in your credit history that are erroneous, you can contact this company and get expert help to remove them.
How Does CreditRepair.com Work?
To get help from the company, you must register your account at CreditRepair.com and provide basic information about yourself. This includes your first and last name, residential address, phone number, and email.
From this point, the company’s three steps begin.
Step 1 is to verify your credit account.
You do not need to submit your credit report; the team will find it in all three credit bureaus. Next, it will determine which of the marks are negatively affecting your credit score and which of them can be removed to increase it.
In addition, financial experts from CreditRepair will make a plan for what you can do on your own to improve your credit history. For example, how you can better pay off your loans, whether you should take out new ones, etc.
By the way, this is the stage that users at CreditRepair.com’s reviews praise a lot because often they can’t determine on their own why their credit score is the way it is now and what they need to do to change it. However, after help from the company’s experts at this step, it becomes clear what actions to take for the next 3-6 months.
Step 2 is challenge and dispute
First, at this point, the company experts have to verify the information lenders and credit bureaus entered into your credit report. Secondly, if they find any mistakes, they have to negotiate with creditors and dispute these marks on your behalf with the credit bureau.
According to customer reviews about CreditRepair, the organization employs professionals who know laws and how to interpret regulations in favor of clients.
Step 3 is monitoring. After the agency submits all of your claims, they must continue monitoring the responses to check for any changes in your credit history on time.
This process continues until all the negative marks that can be removed are gone from your credit report. The last unofficial 4th step is client education with helpful articles from the website about managing finances better to increase credit score even after cooperation with the organization.
Which Financial issues can CreditRepair.com help with?
A whole list of problems can be solved with the company’s services. However, you should understand that only incorrect marks can be permanently removed from your credit report. In all other cases, the company’s experts will do their best to find a way to remove them (for example, if the credit bureau cannot prove the mark is correct, it is obligated to remove it), but there may not be a positive result.
The company’s website has detailed information on removing each type of negative mark from your credit report. Let’s study these instructions together, so you can make a good choice whether you go this route yourself or use the help of CreditRepair.
Out-of-date Additions
Sometimes mistakes or new information may appear on your credit report that is not true. For example, a loan you didn’t take out may be put in your name, or you may have an outstanding loan that you paid off on time.
Any such mistake could negatively affect your credit score and prevent you from borrowing money in the future. However, there is good news; you can remove it or save time and resources by contacting CreditRepair.
What do you need to do?
- Determine what information was erroneously or untimely added to your credit report.
Be careful and read it entirely because there may be more than one error. Check for closed accounts still listed as open, debts older than seven years, or debts from old joint accounts.
- Gather evidence to confirm that the errors you found should be removed.
For example, if you found duplicate accounts on your report, it’s easy to point out the error to the credit bureau. But if you found an account that was closed long ago and is listed on your report as open, then you need to find more evidence, such as references and letters from banks.
At this stage, gather as much information and arguments as possible to convince the credit bureau to remove the mark.
- Send a credit dispute letter.
There is a specific structure of such a letter and its requirements; you can find them on CreditRepair.com in the training materials section (this is another advantage of the company, which is often found in reviews). Send this letter by physical mail.
- Monitor the situation and wait for the results of the investigation.
This process usually takes 30-45 days before you get any answers from the credit bureau. If it decides not to correct the errors in your report, you will receive an explanation for why the bureau made that decision. If your arguments are accepted, you will receive not just a notice to change your credit report but also a copy of the new version.
You can go through all these steps independently, but it can be difficult if you’re not a financial expert. That’s why you can turn to CreditRepair and delegate these complex tasks to experts for little money.
Collections
If you do not pay your debt on time and the creditor realizes that he will not get any more money from you, he can turn it over to the debt collectors (usually, this happens on day 181). Having such an event marked on your credit history will negatively affect your future ability to borrow money.
Let’s imagine you want to get rid of the debt record and ask CreditRepair for help. What will the company do?
- First, it will find out what is on your credit report.
Not all debt collectors report to all three credit bureaus, so if there is no such record, there is nothing to worry about.
If there is, however, the next step is to proceed.
- Company experts check to see if there are any errors in the credit report.
The creditors may have entered the wrong information about your account, the wrong amount, or the wrong dates.
- CreditRepair will then dispute the inaccuracies in your report.
They will write a letter on your behalf with all the evidence that the negative mark should be removed.
Ultimately, they will help you choose one option to remove the negative mark permanently.
The problem is that collections don’t disappear from your report when you pay them – they start appearing as paid. However, there are two ways to remove them permanently. The first is to remove the account from your credit account with a good deletion by writing a letter to the credit bureau. The second is to pay to have the mark removed by writing a pay for delete letter beforehand.
Judgments
Sometimes creditors want your money back so severely that they are willing to go to court. If the judge finds that you are wrong in this situation, he will issue a Civil Judgment to force you to pay back the loan. At this point, a Civil Judgment note appears on your credit report.
This mark negatively affects your credit score and will prevent you from taking out good credit in the future. If it is on your report in error, you can contact CreditRepair.com and get help removing it. We’ve seen several successful precedents in company reviews.
First, CreditRepair will verify your sentence under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Then, the organization will write a letter to the court on your behalf and ask them to prove that the verdict is correct and applies to you.
Next step, after receiving a response, the company’s experts will check to see if all the information about you is listed in the verdict documents. In 2018, because of a new law, courts stopped listing information such as Social Security numbers, and that could be the clue to dispute the debt as inaccurate and remove it.
If the court was conducted fairly and correctly, and you did not pay the loan on time without the lender’s violations, it is better just to repay the borrowed money. This way, CreditRepair can start the validation process and remove the record of the incident from your credit account.
Late Payments
Many factors affect your credit score, but the main one (35%) is paying your loans on time. If you fall behind on payments, a mark will be added to your credit report, and your credit score could drop by 100 points or more.
Let’s imagine that you already have such a negative mark; how do you get rid of it?
- Analyze your credit report and your credit payments over the past year.
You should ensure that if you have delinquent payment marks on your report, they are no older than seven years old and do not contain errors or inaccuracies.
- Write to the credit bureau to dispute the mark.
All loans older than seven years should be removed from your records. In addition, your lender may have made a mistake when filing your report with the credit bureau, which is also a reason to remove the delinquency mark.
- Follow the process and provide all the proof you need.
Essentially, you can do all of the above yourself, but we can tell from CreditRepair.com’s reviews that you will save dozens of hours if you seek help from the company. In the case of late payments, you may need to communicate with your lender, contact your bank for payment verification, wait 30 days for a response from each party, and not miss the correct deadline – all of which are easier to delegate to experts.
Charge Offs
If you don’t pay your loan on time, the lender can close your account, write that the money has not been paid back, and not pay taxes on it – this is a charge-off. To make sure the checkmark doesn’t negatively affect your credit score, you can simply pay off the loan, but if you think it’s wrong, you can contact CreditRepair for help.
Such a mark will not disappear from your credit report after you pay off your loan. If it is confirmed, you will need to negotiate with your lender to have that debt removed. This is where the experts at CreditRepair do a better job than their competitors and virtually no input from you. Instead, they analyze the entire process, find arguments for the creditor and bring the case to a successful conclusion.
Foreclosures
Suppose you took out a mortgage for a house and could not pay it off on time, which caused the place to be repossessed by the lender. At this point, a “defaulting on mortgage” mark appears on your credit report, a stop sign for any lenders who might lend you money in the future.
However, there are several situations where such a mark can be removed with the help of the experts at CreditRepair.com:
- It was in error.
The same principle applies here as in all the previous cases – if the lender has done something wrong, experts from the CreditRepair team will find any inaccuracies and challenge them to remove the mark.
- The lender has stopped operating.
If your creditor is no longer a mortgage lender, you can request that the foreclosure be removed from your report. The difficulty is that you will have to find information about this and provide the credit bureau with proof, but CreditRepair.com staff can always do this instead of you.
- The experts have arranged with the lender, and he has settled the foreclosure.
This method is the most effective for those whose creditors are still working and not making mistakes on their reports.
It is essential to understand that in either option, to remove the foreclosure mark, you will have to send a complaint to all three credit bureaus. In addition, you will have to communicate with the lender, gather information, and prove your case. If you’re doing it yourself, all of this takes too much time and effort, so it’s better to contact the experts at CreditRepair.com.
Bankruptcies
This mark may remain on your credit report for 7 to 10 years. It means that you have been unable to pay your debts, and the court has proved this. In fact, after bankruptcy, you start your life from scratch, but there is one problem -– no one wants to lend money to someone with this mark on his credit report.
You can only remove it if it is erroneous or inaccurate. The process looks the same as in the previous cases; namely, the company analyzes the information on your credit report, finds inaccuracies, and appeals to the credit bureau.
Repossessions
Many Americans with bad credit histories are willing to use their property as collateral to get a loan. However, the situation worsens when the new loan is not repaid. In such a case, the property used as collateral is taken over by the lender.
Whether you agreed to give up your property or it was an involuntary repossession, a new mark appears on your credit report, which negatively affects your credit history. It means that you are a bad borrower and are not paying back the money you borrowed on time, so it is not worth giving you credit.
If you wanted to get rid of this mark and asked CreditRepair for help, you should know that it can only be removed in two cases. The first is if the company manages to negotiate on your behalf with the lender in exchange for full payment of the loan. Then, the experts will be sure to sign an agreement with him and provide the credit bureau with written proof of the agreement between the parties.
The second option to remove the mark is to prove it is inaccurate. Then, the company’s experts can examine the information on your credit report, and if they find something that doesn’t fit the law or your situation, they can appeal it.
In both cases, experts from CreditRepair.com take care of everything, including making arrangements with the lender and writing letters to all three credit bureaus.
How much do CreditRepair.com services cost?
It is important to note that before you buy the company’s services, you can attend a free online consultation to see if CreditRepair experts can help you. We read a lot of positive feedback from users about this first interaction with the team.
Next, you’ll need to choose one of three packages:
- Direct
This option is best for those who know they have just a few errors on their credit report and want to remove them. It costs $69.95 per month, and you’ll also need to pay a first work fee of $69.95 at the start.
- Standard
This option is for people who have many questions about your credit report or have a dispute that needs to be resolved by a financial expert. It costs $99.95 per month, and you pay the same amount for the down payment.
- Advanced
The latter plan includes credit monitoring, monthly credit analysis, and personalized work on a long-term credit recovery plan. If you have a low credit score and a high number of problems on your report, choose this plan for $119.95 per month (the exact cost of the down payment).
Customer Service
Based on clients’ online reviews, customer support is not the company’s strong suit. To reach it, you must call 1-800-232-6499 any day between 7 AM and 7 PM, except Saturday and Sunday weekends.
In CreditRepair.com’s reviews, users have noted that support staff is not always able to answer your question and often just switch customers between each other. In addition, more often than not, people call to see how their lien is doing with the credit bureau or if there is a response from the lender, which customer support is not always aware of.
It is best to address only technical issues, such as payment issues, application performance, etc. Everything concerning the process of removing negative marks from your credit report itself is best discussed directly with your CreditRepair expert.
What FitMyMoney likes about CreditRepair.com
After studying all the information and reviews about CreditRepair, we are ready to make small conclusions and tell you the company’s advantages.
Clear work strategy
CreditRepair.com clearly describes all the steps of working with the company. It’s a transparent and straightforward plan to help customers solve their problems.
Excellent results
Since 2012, the company’s experts have performed more than 2 million Credit Removals, which is a fantastic result and proof of the company’s effectiveness.
No false promises
The website clearly states that you can only get rid of negative marks in your credit history if they are erroneous or inaccurate. The company’s experts know the law very well and can help prove any inaccuracies, but they are not magicians and cannot do what is forbidden by law, as they explicitly state.
Mobile app and dashboard progress tracking on the website
You can track your progress without constant calls to support and communication from financial experts because everything will show up on your phone. It’s convenient, fast, and accessible.
Free library of tutorials
The company’s website has over one hundred articles detailing how to improve your credit history, eliminate negative marks on your credit report, change your financial situation for the better, and increase your financial literacy.
What FitMyMoney doesn’t like about CreditRepair.com
However, despite the company’s merits, user reviews have also pointed out the negative aspects of CreditRepair.
The team of experts is not represented on the website
You won’t be able to find the names of specific experts who will help you improve your credit history, which puts their level of professionalism into question.
Rather high prices
Since removing marks from credit reports can take two to six months, you will have to pay a minimum of $200.
Low rating from Better Business Bureau
CreditRepair is not accredited by the BBB and received a low rating in 2019.
Not all customers get the results they want
There are occasional reports in reviews of people who have paid money, provided all the information, but never got any concrete help in six months of working with CreditRepair.
Is it worth contacting CreditRepair.com?
You should understand a few things before you decide to work with a company.
The first is that you always pay for everything with money or time. Which do you have more of? If time allows, you can go through removing negative marks yourself using the instructions on the company’s website. If you have more money, however, it’s better to pay experts for the job, so you don’t have to go into the details and complexities of the process.
Second, CreditRepair does not guarantee that you will be able to improve your credit score and does not give any specific time frame because every case is different. This process can take anywhere from 2 to 6 months, and the final result will only be seen.
Of course, you can always read reviews about the company to make a final decision, but it’s better to take a free consultation at CreditRepair to see if its services are right for you.
Reviews from users
In customers’ reviews, it is immediately apparent that the final result of cooperation with CreditRepair.com always depends on both parties. There are many positive stories of people improving their credit score in a few months, but also negative ones.
For example, you often see complaints of people unhappy with the results because their score only increased by 20 points in 4 months. However, this is a subjective opinion; the company does not give any guarantees precisely so that users do not expect magical results. There are also reviews that the cooperation lasted longer than the client initially thought, but this is only his expectation.
The rest of the users note that the CreditRepair.com team worked professionally; they did all the necessary work themselves and achieved the result that people hoped for.
The company’s average rating on several websites is 4.2 out of 5, based on the responses of several thousand people.
