The Real Truth About Credit Repair

Credit repair is your legal right which is guaranteed by the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. This law was created for the purpose of correcting and counteracting the abuses of the credit reporting bureaus. More complaints are filed against credit bureaus than against any other type of business.



The credit bureaus have declared war against credit repair firms. They pass judgment on them in the media and they send out literature that is slanted against credit repair to anyone they believe is getting help in repairing their credit. Credit reporting bureaus, as any other kind of corporate entity, are mainly concerned with guarding their profits. Investigating the complaints of consumers costs them money. Since the credit reporting bureaus will do whatever they need to do to stop consumers from progressing with the credit repair procedure, you, as a consumer, need to do anything you can to look after your own interests.



Credit reporting bureaus want you to believe that you can easily and quickly repair your own credit because they are aware that you won't ever be able to generate the same results on your own as you might with professional help. The forms and web pages they provide are constructed to be useless because the bureaus don't want you to succeed in repairing your credit.



When you speak with people who work for the credit bureaus or with people who work for credit grantors, you will probably be told that all negative entries MUST appear on your report for 7 1/2 years before they can be automatically deleted. However, the law does not require that. The law states that negative entries CAN remain on your credit report for UP TO 7 1/2 years. The fact is that the credit bureau or the credit grantor can decide to delete any negative entry at any time. In fact, tens of thousands of negative items are taken off every day.



Most big credit repair companies are staffed by costly lawyers. Their only job is to mail letters about your case to the credit bureaus. You are charged on a monthly basis for this service, so there is no reason for the lawyers to accelerate the process. It could take years to see results from these corporations.



Simply clearing a debt will not make the negative entry vanish from your credit report. However, there is a proper procedure for clearing debts, including collections and past due accounts. It's possible to get your negative entry updated to positive status by making this a condition of acceptance of your pay-off.



Even a few negative items can be damaging to your credit report for the reason that they will maintain a strong, downward pull on your credit score which is the number lenders make use of to accept or deny credit to would-be borrowers. These items HAVE TO be removed from your report if your credit score if it is to go up into positive territory. With even a few negative items on your report, you will pay a MUCH higher rate of interest on your loan, if you get the loan at all. While some items are more challenging to get erased than others, there is no type of negative entry that has not been repaired.



Credit bureaus will try to discourage you from attempting to repair your credit by telling you that even if you are successful in taking away a negative item, it will just re-appear on your credit report later on. The fact is that the law now requires the bureaus to notify you in writing if they make a decision to re-report any entry that has been deleted. Since this law has been in effect, there has been a big decline in the re-reporting of negative items because the bureaus realize that by doing this, they may be exposing themselves to costly lawsuits.



Finally, you should NEVER try to clean up your credit report by applying for a new Social Security number. This is highly illegal and may land you in jail. Also, don't bankruptcy as this will be damaging to your credit rating in the future. Every single credit item you connect with your bankruptcy will be marked "included in bankruptcy." Because so many items will end up containing the word "bankruptcy," it now will be very difficult to remove them all. Bankruptcies remain on your credit report for 10 years if not successfully erased before then. By filing bankruptcy, you’ve made it a whole lot more difficult to re-establish good credit.



Bob Gillespie



About the Author:



Bob Gillespie writes on many subjects including credit repair. He is a full-time Internet marketer and author who lives on the island of Maui in Hawaii. Learn more about credit repair at Bob's blog at:



http://credit-repair.inetwyoming.com