Credit Repair Services: Fair Credit Reporting Act Protects Your Rights |
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Credit repair services offer to dispute negative information on your credit report by sorting it out with each major credit bureau. If they cannot verify the accuracy of your credit report, they must remove the marks. If you are looking to repair bad credit, there are a number of credit repair services. Before choosing one, know your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) protects your consumer rights. The FCRA maintains that each credit bureau must maintain an accurate and verifiable account of your credit history. If you feel the information on your credit report is not accurate, you can ask for an investigation to repair credit. The credit bureau must respond to every request for an investigation in a realistic amount of time (usually 30 days). Under FCRA, you can question an item on your credit report and your complaint must be investigated. Credit repair services cannot make a credit bureau remove negative information from your credit report if the information is accurate. The credit bureau must contact each creditor and verify that your credit report is accurate. The credit bureau will then update, correct, or delete each item. If any company does not respond within a reasonable time, the item must be removed from your credit report. You may repair bad credit on your own or hire one of many credit repair services. Recently enacted laws state that credit repair services cannot charge until the credit repair has been performed. These credit repair services often have minimal or no start up fees, will provide you with a detailed understanding of credit repair and how they repair bad credit, explain the FCRA to you, and will not make false claims about how they repair bad credit. These credit repair services should not repair credit until they have a signed contract with you and have completed a three-day waiting period. If credit repair services asks you to: make false statements on a loan or credit application, misrepresent your Social Security number, or advises you to get an Employer Identification Number from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) under false pretenses, you will be committing fraud. Avoid such disreputable credit repair services. Many credit repair services guarantee their work. Understand that there is no guarantee that bad credit ratings will be removed permanently. They can only guarantee their effort. Accurate and verifiable information will remain on your credit report. You may also attempt to repair bad credit on your own. Inform the credit bureau in writing what information you believe is inaccurate. Include copies of documents that support your position. Provide your complete name and address, identify each item that you are disputing, state the facts and explain why you dispute the information. Request a deletion or correction on your credit report by using credit repair services. Send your letter by certified mail, return receipt requested. Keep copies of your dispute letter and enclosures. On completing the investigation, the credit bureau provides the written results and a free copy of the updated credit report. On your request the updated credit report is also sent to those who have received your credit report in the past six months as well as to those who have received it for employment purposes for the past two years. Bad credit ratings are usually maintained for only 7 years. There are exceptions, such as bankruptcy (10 years), criminal convictions, and information related to employment. Many lenders and creditors only look at the last two to three years of your credit report. By actively monitoring your credit report and taking the initiative to repair bad credit when a credit bureau reports misinformation, you will greatly improve your creditworthiness with the help of credit repair services. To improve your situation if you are heavily in debt, you need to get rid of the debt by using credit repair services. If you can afford to pay back the debts on your own, you should. If you cannot, then you may want to contact a competent debt reduction company to negotiate settlements for you. |
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