Beware of Consumer Credit Repair Services |
|
As the number of Americans in debt increases, so does the popularity of credit repair services. Almost every day consumers are targets of bombardment by companies with promises of perfect credit report. The attack comes in various forms including television and radio advertisements and telemarketing offers of easy credit repair services. Plenty of companies offer consumer credit repair services but when it comes to finding the ones who are not only interested in your money or trying to scam, there are very few. Use extreme caution if considering any of the consumer credit repair services. Learn how to distinguish genuine ones and be aware of your rights. It doesn't matter whether you are already using or just looking for credit repair services, there are certain signs you should keep an eye out for. These will be indications that the company may not be legitimate and only an attempt to scam you. When their offer of credit repair services sounds too good to be true, it probably might be. When explaining your rights to you, they may be vague and not tell you what you can do on your own free will and most of all, demand payment before delivering any of the credit repair services being promised. Credit repair companies are under obligation to offer you a written contract of the credit repair services, in addition to a copy of the same contract and anything else you are asked to put your signature on. What credit repair companies are not entitled to, is to take payment from you before performing any services, lie about the kind of services being provided and begin any of the credit repair services without having got your signature on the written contract. Irrespective of the credit repair services being offered to you by the company, ensure that all your credit card statements are still in the mail every month. It is the ideal opportunity for you to check up on the credit repair company to be certain that they are living up to their claims. By reading your credit card statements on their arrival, you'll be able to spot the payments made to the credit repair company. If your payments made to them are either not showing on your statements at all or showing up late, you'll realize that something may not be right. The company is probably scamming you in one-way or another. They are doing so, either by not sending your money to your creditors at all or sending them late. Either way they are failing in their promise and thereby are in violation of the law. FTC experts maintain that credit cannot be repaired or genuine records of bad payments eliminated. Theoretically it may be possible for a legitimate service to exist but for the FTC there are no legitimate credit repair services. Per the estimate of the Federal Trade Commission, there are around 1000 credit repair companies in the US but not a single one is capable of delivering their promise. A new law has recently been initiated to prevent credit repair services from taking any payment at all from consumers before successfully repairing their credit. With the new federal law, consumers who have fallen victim to fraud in the promises of credit repair services can approach the federal court and get back their money, along with attorney fees and unlimited punitive damages. Consumers with bad credit who are likely to be desperate for credit cards end up paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars to companies with claims of repairing credit with their credit repair services. Therefore if debt problems are confronting you don't be taken in by consumer credit repair companies promising to get rid of late payments and bankruptcies. They can easily be of disrepute on the prowl for customers desperately in need of help. The plain fact is that bad credit need not be endured for seven to ten years but you can actually repair your credit in a much shorter period of time. |
