(Credit Repair Company with bad advice. Before we get started, We don’t make a habit of raking another credit repair companies work over the coals, so we’ll just leave that fake credit review sites name out of it)
I just read an interesting, if rather ill-informed, article from a credit blog (of all places!) that detailed 3 reasons to avoid hiring a credit repair company.
They then, in another contradicting article, list all the reasons you should hire a credit repair company. Hmmm….
The article stated that you should avoid credit repair companies because:
- You can do it yourself
- You can do it yourself…and save money! (Yes, that’s their 2nd, hard-hitting point)
- You don’t need any credit repair services anyway
Yes, they do go into a little more detail, so I thought it’d be fun to pick their article apart and see just how far off the mark they are. Please make sure your tray tables are in their full up-right, and locked positions; we’ll be experiencing some turbulence…
“You can do the same thing for FREE”
You can also read articles like this for free, and see how far their advice gets you without actual knowledge to back you up.
There’s no trick to credit restoration that credit repair companies are hiding; hell, we’ve got a whole page of resources for helping you address whatever credit and debt-related problem you’re facing.
So why bother hiring one at all? We’ll get to that in their third point, but first:
- “If there is a debt that should not be there, you can contact the credit reporting agency and they will dispute it for free. If it is not yours, they will have it removed.”
The credit bureaus don’t dispute your trade lines; they check with the actual creditors to make sure everything is reporting accurately.
You also want to be careful about which accounts you’re disputing. If you find an account that you’d rather not have hanging around your credit report anymore, and decide to dispute it, it could have serious repercussions once the original creditor gets word of your dispute – potentially in the form of a lawsuit.
And what do you do if you dispute an account that has false information being reported that continues to remain unchanged on your credit report? The article, unfortunately, has nothing to say on that point…
“Save money by settling yourself”
- “An individual can rebuild their own credit by getting rid of all of the credit cards they own and paying them off.”
Wow. That’s some of the worst advice I’ve ever seen on repairing your credit, and I seem to be reading it a lot.
Closing all of your cards will damage your credit report, not repair it. That quote makes as much sense as me telling you, “You don’t need gasoline to run a car.”
We’ve stated this numerous times in blogs and on our website, but we’ll cover it again here, because it’s pretty clear not everyone gets it: If you want a good credit score (or even a great one), you need credit cards. Period. Creditors and lenders like to see you know how to handle revolving credit, and credit cards are the best way to demonstrate your credit worthiness.
“They add in extras you don’t need”
- “Another reason why you should avoid a credit repair company is that they offer credit counseling. You do not need credit counseling in order to bring up your credit score.”
Credit repair companies offer credit counseling now?
Instead, you’ll want a credit repair company that understands the ins and outs of the credit industry, can help you build a plan to improve your credit and settle outstanding debts, and then help you rebuild your damaged credit profile sounds like a more effective plan of action than just “dispute it yourself and hope it comes off,” but again, that’s just my opinion.
I’ll leave you with this last quote:
- “Once you are able to pay your debts off, you should apply to one credit card company. Maintain that one credit card, so that you can rebuild your credit.”
But I thought I was supposed to close all of my credit cards…?
In conclusion
My point is, this whole article sounds like it was auto-generated to get good Google rankings for the term “credit repair companies”, not like it was written with the intention of actually educating people. In my humble opinion, it’s a real shame that this seems to be the norm for this industry, and that good advice is so difficult to come by.