My story on Credit Repair

OrngNugz

OrngNugz

500+ Posts
This is my story about what I did to repair my credit. About a year ago I moved back to Austin. I signed a 1 year lease on a Apt to get to know the area, its been a 10 year struggle to get back. I first tried to do the credit repair all myself by pulling my credit reports from all agencies then disputing the items on the report. After 30 or so days I saw a few things were removed but not very much.

Now, knowing that I wanted to buy a home in a year time frame I wanted to do everything possible to improve my credit score. I had 1 credit card so I apply for 1 more and use it on occasion. I was talking to a friend that works in the Mortgage industry and he told me about a Credit Repair company that he gets some customers with a long buying time horizon to use.

I had previously heard of these Credit Repair companies but would never consider using one straight off of the internet, thinking most are probably scams. I went ahead and trusted my friend and asked the Credit Repair company for help.

Here is the run down. The "Repair" company will ask for all of your information, everything (SS number , address etc) and pull the credit report for all agencies to see where you stand. At this point, depending on how bad the report looks they will quote you some rate. A ball park figure for the repair of your credit is $1000.00. Since I had a referral and my report was not extraordinarily bad I only paid 750.00 for this service.

When they start to "work" your account they tell you up front that there is no guarantee that anything will be removed from your credit file. Trusting my friend I went ahead with this little experiment anyways. The company starts by disputing ALL information in your credit report. The creditors then send you a reply and you send this original letter back to the Repair company, keeping a copy for yourself. They ask you to send these letters as fast as possible. The entire program is about 120 or 180 days long.

So after a few months I start to see something here and something there removed from my credit report. I see increasingly more action as you can monitor the progress on-line. Being skeptical of the process and of the company I placed a "Credit Monitoring" system in place on my credit. This way I could see if there is anything funny going on, nothing funny going on so far.

Now I have about 30 days left in the system, they have removed a really good chunk of things from my credit report and my credit score has gone up over 75 points. They update me saying that they are still trying to process the last accounts I should have the final results 30 days after the process, so about 60 days from today.

I don't know how 75 points on my credit score translates to how much less I will pay in interest when looking at a mortgage but I would assume that its worth 750 dollars. I know I went up a rating, (poor to fair) (fair to good) (good to very good). I probably wouldn't have done this without the referral since I am cynical about these types of deals but looking back I am pretty glad I put that aside.
 
did you simply dispute or did you short term piggy back for a reporting cycle or two onto someone else's credit (i.e. your name added to one of there accounts in great standing) so as to bump up your FICO?
 
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piggybacking still works although it's getting much much much harder with the new FICO, and yeah, it sounds like a shill for the service.
 
Jury is still out. It is possible to get certain items removed TEMPORARILY from your credit report by disputing their accuracy. This will raise your credit score in the short term. After a certain period of time though, they will come back on to your report if they are legit.

The bast way to improve your credit score is to get a credit card and/or a few other loans and pay them off in a timely manner.

"Renting" someone credit by having them add you as an authorized user on your account used to be a very useful tool to raise one's score, but as stated above, FICO changed the formula.

It too bad I found out about it too late. Some people made lots of money just by adding other peoples name to their accounts.

Bernard
 
My friends only drink Coke One because they want to be skinny..and wow! It's really working. I tried it and now I've lost a ton of weight and I still get to enjoy the great taste of coke classic.

I'm just happy that I started drinking Coke One that I wanted to come on here and share my experiences with you all. Really, it's probably the best thing I've ever done..and my friends all think so too. Plus, girls think I'm hotter.
 
the mortgage company i used to work for charges $250 for this service($500 for a couple). its very simple - you send them a letter disputing the tradeline and they have 30 days to respond. if they don't respond, you can have it removed from your report. if you send them 7 letters in 7 days, and they are disorganized and only send 6 replies, then you've got them beat...at least for a couple of months until they can get it added back on if its a legitimate debt.

i would like to hear what your FICO started at, and what it ends up at, and then what its at 120 days from now. also understand that contacting all of these companies allows them to update the last activity date, which makes the bad debt look more recent and therefore causes more harm to your FICO score.
 
as someone who represented a credit bureau for ten years and still handles lawsuits involving credit issues, I have never seen a credit repair organization that I did not consider a scam (on both ends)

there may be some that are not scams, but from your description you did not use one of them
 
i represent a few credit repair companies and have found that most are scams but there are a few out there that are legitimate. the method the OP described is illegal and in violation of CROA. you can not legally dispute accurate information.

and disputing items does not renew the last activity date.
 
i don't understand why some people think they are smarter than everyone else. particularly when the group they believe they are smarter than, collectively, has thousands of members.

did you really think you would pull this off on hornfans? c'mon now.
 
check out 15 USC 1679 and Tex. Fin. Code Ann. 393.001-393.505
among the many interesting provisions is this one that is a required disclosure under federal law: "You have a right to dispute inaccurate information in your credit report by contacting the credit bureau directly. However, neither you nor any 'credit repair' company or credit repair organization has the right to have accurate, current, verifiable information removed from your credit report."
 
Pretty much, in the original post I put that they told me there was no guarantee that they could remove anything. I know it was a bit long but its in there somewhere. So basically there are saying the same thing in a different way.
 
and for the nail in the coffinSec. 1679b. Prohibited practices

(a) In general No person may -

(1) make any statement, or counsel or advise any consumer to make any statement, which is untrue or misleading (or which, upon the exercise of reasonable care, should be known by the credit repair organization, officer, employee, agent, or other person to be untrue or misleading) with respect to any consumer's credit worthiness, credit standing, or credit capacity to -

(A) any consumer reporting agency (as defined in section 1681a(f) of this title); or

(B) any person -

(i) who has extended credit to the consumer; or
(ii) to whom the consumer has applied or is applying for an extension of credit;

(2) make any statement, or counsel or advise any consumer to make any statement, the intended effect of which is to alter the consumer's identification to prevent the display of the consumer's credit record, history, or rating for the purpose of concealing adverse information that is accurate and not obsolete to -

(A) any consumer reporting agency;

(B) any person -

(i) who has extended credit to the consumer; or (ii) to whom the consumer has applied or is applying for an extension of credit;

(3) make or use any untrue or misleading representation of the services of the credit repair organization; or

(4) engage, directly or indirectly, in any act, practice, or course of business that constitutes or results in the commission of, or an attempt to commit, a fraud or deception on any person in connection with the offer or sale of the services of the credit repair organization.

(b) Payment in advance.

No credit repair organization may charge or receive any money or other valuable consideration for the performance of any service which the credit repair organization has agreed to perform for any consumer before such service is fully performed.

15 USC 1679b
 
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