We got a call yesterday from a potential client. From our phone interview it was clear he had credit problems and needed help. It was also clear he had been very misinformed by garbage on the internet (false information on the internet? No, say it isn’t so).

When I say garbage I’m referring to claims such as this one Improve Your Credit Score in 24 Hours. Normally I won’t point out other sites I think are less then ethical. But sometimes when I think a consumer is being hurt, the offender deserves to be credited for their work. FYI the 24hour comment is referring to a rapid rescore which I will explain here later.

He referenced that site because he was on a tight timeline. He wanted to buy a house near the beginning of March. I had to tell him it just wasn’t a realistic expectation. The fastest way to piss a client off is to let him down. To promise something is going to happen - then not delivering on that promise.

I spent a good 20 minutes trying to explain what he could realistically expect from credit repair. I did my best to explain how that promise of 24 hours was misleading in the most professional way I could.

Every time a client trusts us enough with their financial matters we’re thrilled. Not because of the money, because it means we’ve conveyed honesty. It means our hard work and ethics has instilled trust in somebody and that is the biggest compliment we could ever receive.

Unfortunately, I made the decision not to work with this client. Why did I do this? Because he had read misleading information, believed what he wanted to believe and I know we never could have lived up to his expectations.

Instead, I had him fax his credit reports and we are in the process of writing a “flow chart” of how we would recommend fixing his credit. I have a hunch, he’s already wasted money on that guide and it’s a shame. Misleading information like this does nothing but ruin peoples credit. It hurts’ the industry - and the success of any company practicing these methods will be very short lived.

Anyway, after spending an hour or so being disgusted with fellow “credit repair companies”, I decided the best thing I could do to explain a realistic timeline of what an average consumer can expect from credit repair.

Ok – here's the deal
The FCRA states when a consumer disputes information on their credit reports, the credit bureaus have 30 days, plus mail time to respond. It totals about 40 day.

There is one loophole credit bureaus have where they can deny an investigation. If they feel the disputes are “frivolous”. The easiest way to trigger that frivolous flag is disputing everything on your credit report at once. The likelihood of a few errors is about 80%, but saying “everything on my credit is wrong” will trigger that flag. Disputing up to 5 items at a time seems to be the magic number.

We monitor our disputes and results closely. We track numbers so we can provide accurate data to our clients. A realistic expectation for deletions per dispute is about 55%. So if you dispute 5 items you can expect about 2.75 items deleted. The remainders will be challenged on a different level the next round.

The rest is simple math. Let’s take an average consumer with 10 negative items and we can approximate how long it will take to fix their credit.

Round 1
10 Negatives
5 disputed
2.75 removed
Remaining items 7.25
Current Time Line: 40 days

Round 2
7.25 Negatives
5 disputed
2.75 removed
Remaining Items 4.5
Current Time line: 80 days

Round 3
4.5 Negatives
4 Disputed
3 Removed
Remaining items 1
Current time line: 120 Days.

Obviously, these are averages. I came up with these numbers by opening our file cabinet, pulling out the first 50 files and crunching the numbers.

I know for a fact, some clients have been done much faster and I know some have taken longer, and the truth is, some credit cannot be fixed, but averages are averages. These expectations are very realistic. Listen folks, your credit could be the single most influential factor in your life. As much as we would like it overnight, it’s not realistic.

Credit, credit repair, building credit and managing credit is about education. It’s about discipline and yes, time is a big factor. Whatever you do, don’t make the situation worse by get quick schemes.

You didn’t damage your credit over night. You’re not going to fix it overnight and you’re not going to rebuild it overnight. My advice is to research all you can. Anticipate a slow, methodical repair process and learn to appreciate the you’re on the road to recovery.