These services are often a group of lawyers and paralegals that will work to remove negative information from your credit report. Primarily they are going to use the fair credit reporting act as a basis to have the negative information removed.
This piece of legislation requires that the bureaus investigate a consumer’s credit report if they file a dispute. To file a dispute you must write a letter to each bureau in which you identify the item you are challenging.
The bureaus will then investigate, they will contact the lender and asked them to verify the balance, the account, and the dates on the debt. It is very common for lenders to not verify an account when the bureaus contacts them, this is because it cost lenders even more money and often they have no way to get any return investment on verifying your account.
Two Important Things
1. Roughly 80% of all investigations result in the removal of an item from your report, regardless of how accurate or inaccurate the item is. This is because once a lender sells your account to a collection agency they no longer have any legal grounds to contact you or collect on that debt. Therefore when the bureaus contact them they are only going to spend money to verify your debt and instead won’t verify it.
2. Unfortunately getting the bureaus to investigate isn’t as easy as just sending a letter, this is why many people turn to a professional lawyer to ensure that the bureaus follow federal law. However Congress has not helped your cause because they have given the bureau’s power to first decide that a dispute is valid before they will investigate it.
We have a difficult time trying to comprehend why Congress would do this, because it surely isn’t in the consumer’s best interest. The bureaus only spend money when they investigating a dispute and are forced to investigate disputes because of the earlier aforementioned fair credit reporting act.
The bureaus have been fined over and over again by our federal government for not investigating disputes, yet Congress decided to give them the power to decide if it’s valid before they have to investigate? In other words the bureaus are going to avoid investigations at all costs because there is no return profits or even potential for correcting a report to generate any income for the bureaus.
Often your dispute letter will be responded to with a letter that asks you for more information about the item, this is going to happen regardless of the need. This is simply a stall tactic and an attempt by the bureaus to get you to give up and just live with the negative items on your credit file.
You are going to need to stay persistent or higher a credit repair service as they will file the disputes on your behalf and have the legal resources to ensure that the bureaus do investigate. Additionally these lawyers can also help you settle any outstanding debt and ensure that these items will either be removed or can be removed once the debt is settled.
Make sure you fully research each service as many will vary widely in the features, benefits and costs. You should expect to have a lawyer on your side however a paralegal will typically do most of the work. Your costs should not exceed $50 per month with about $100 upfront or retainer payment.
For more about credit report repair services or for more about how to correct credit report visit us you can also call 800-251-3505 for a free credit consultation.
