topic Re: Credit Repair companies ?! in Rebuilding Your Credit

Credit Repair companies ?!

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 21:17:56 GMT

Hi guys!
I have paid almost $20K in debt in 2020 all closed accounts , charge offs, or that they've taken me to court , I have two cards to go, and I'm paying all for less than owed ( I've made that decision long ago, to pay all cards for less than owed, all debt was 3-4 years old ) anyways, once I pay the last 2 I will have zero debt on credit cards. I want to hire one of those companies to send letters to try and removed some of this negative items off the report , I know they do remove mistakes off reports , but will they remove actual debt that's been paid but it's just there showing it was in collections and or charged off .... etc?

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

Jnbmom — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 21:25:39 GMT

No reputable company can remove legitimate debts. Your accounts were past due you settled and paid them off which is great, but expecting them to be removed because you paid them just isn't how it works.A lot of times you pay a company they dispute legitimate entries the creditors update and you do more damage . Save your money start to rebuild read posts in the forum and come up with a plan.

Normally before payments are made and agreed on you can sometimes get them to pay for delete, but once it's paid you lose any leverage.

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 00:23:14 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hi guys!
I have paid almost $20K in debt in 2020 all closed accounts , charge offs, or that they've taken me to court , I have two cards to go, and I'm paying all for less than owed ( I've made that decision long ago, to pay all cards for less than owed, all debt was 3-4 years old ) anyways, once I pay the last 2 I will have zero debt on credit cards. I want to hire one of those companies to send letters to try and removed some of this negative items off the report , I know they do remove mistakes off reports , but will they remove actual debt that's been paid but it's just there showing it was in collections and or charged off .... etc?

First off, they will only "help" by blasting the CRAs with disputes, which will likely make matters worse. You could do this yourself for free, anyway.

I would search the threads for "GW saturation technique" and work on that for all these accounts. You may get a "no" 1 or 20 times, but all you have is time between now and when they fall off and you may just get lucky and get a sympathetic individual that will say "yes". It could be possible on the first try, definitepy don't want to sound discouragung, but some FIs definitely take many, many letters to finally get a GW removal of lates/TL.

Good luck!

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

nmk94 — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 02:32:42 GMT

Don't do it. I did it once, even though I hadn't heard the most flattering things. I should have heeded the warnings from others.

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 11:29:17 GMT

What happened ?

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 23:32:09 GMT

@

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Hi guys!
I have paid almost $20K in debt in 2020 all closed accounts , charge offs, or that they've taken me to court , I have two cards to go, and I'm paying all for less than owed ( I've made that decision long ago, to pay all cards for less than owed, all debt was 3-4 years old ) anyways, once I pay the last 2 I will have zero debt on credit cards. I want to hire one of those companies to send letters to try and removed some of this negative items off the report , I know they do remove mistakes off reports , but will they remove actual debt that's been paid but it's just there showing it was in collections and or charged off .... etc?

First off, they will only "help" by blasting the CRAs with disputes, which will likely make matters worse. You could do this yourself for free, anyway.

I would search the threads for "GW saturation technique" and work on that for all these accounts. You may get a "no" 1 or 20 times, but all you have is time between now and when they fall off and you may just get lucky and get a sympathetic individual that will say "yes". It could be possible on the first try, definitepy don't want to sound discouragung, but some FIs definitely take many, many letters to finally get a GW removal of lates/TL.

Good luck!

LaHossBoss is correct. Do it yourself. You'll save money and get a feeling of accomplishment!

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 23:35:22 GMT

Well, the replies have been doubtful or confusing , he first says they will blast the CRedit burials with letters and this will make matters worst , and that I should do it myself , why would I do it anyway if it will worsen my situation ?

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

Brian_Earl_Spilner — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 23:41:52 GMT

They're only going to flood the bureaus with disputes hoping these companies slip up and forget to answer. A couple of problems arise from this.

1. At some point the bureaus are going to flag it as frivolous and will stop filing them. They've also been know to flag a person for excessive disputes making it difficult for someone to file a legitimate one later.

2. Every time one of those negatives is confirmed by a company, it's reported as if it was still open, doing the damage it would have done, if it was still open and reporting.

Just stick to goodwill letters.

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 01:34:00 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Well, the replies have been doubtful or confusing , he first says they will blast the CRedit burials with letters and this will make matters worst , and that I should do it myself , why would I do it anyway if it will worsen my situation ?

My point is, if you want to do what the CRAs do, you can do it yourself for free, without paying anyone (meaning blast the 3Bs with disputes, which is all they do). But you are right, why would anyone want to do that? It likely ruins your credit further, meaning you are throwing your money in the wind with a CRA or just doing it yourself for free.

This *used* to work a bit more many, many, many years ago when the FIs/CAs didnt respond in a timely manner and things were done via snail mail.

Now all FIs/CAs are on computers and internet and have learned the dispute and respond in 30d game. Of course, they aren't going to slip up anymore.

I was simply explaining what they do and that you can do the same thing for free, even though it is a mess amd makes matters worse amd to save your money if that is the route you do choose to go.

If you go on a GW campaign, which is what you described in what you thought they did (and they used to send disputes via mail many, many, many years ago) because all you have is time between now and when they drop off your CRs, you may get lucky and get them off a bit or a lot early and directly through the FI and it is free to do so as well, yourself. I am just trying to save your hard earned money. The FIs would probably prefer to hear from you over a CRA, anyday, anyway.

Good luck!

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 01:51:01 GMT

That's exactly what I want to do the GW because I don't want to dispute because all my debt is legit I don't see anything innacurate so I myself find hard to believes anything will come off based on disputes , but the gw you're pretty much saying " I messed up , give me a chance " lol at that , I think I stand a chance . But I have no idea how to start , where to get addresses or templates to at least have an ideia of what to write and who to write it to, should I write to the cra's or to the actual credit card companies ?

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

Jnbmom — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 01:54:57 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
That's exactly what I want to do the GW because I don't want to dispute because all my debt is legit I don't see anything innacurate so I myself find hard to believes anything will come off based on disputes , but the gw you're pretty much saying " I messed up , give me a chance " lol at that , I think I stand a chance . But I have no idea how to start , where to get addresses or templates to at least have an ideia of what to write and who to write it to, should I write to the cra's or to the actual credit card companies ?

You write GW to the creditors. not the CRA's. You can do a simple google search for GW letters and you cater to your situation, make it personal, explain your situation and don't make it too long. Short sweet and to the point.

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 02:09:19 GMT

And how do I get good addresses to send it to ?

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 02:10:57 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
That's exactly what I want to do the GW because I don't want to dispute because all my debt is legit I don't see anything innacurate so I myself find hard to believes anything will come off based on disputes , but the gw you're pretty much saying " I messed up , give me a chance " lol at that , I think I stand a chance . But I have no idea how to start , where to get addresses or templates to at least have an ideia of what to write and who to write it to, should I write to the cra's or to the actual credit card companies ?

I would definitely write directly to the credit cards companies and the Exec level. You can do a G search for who is currently on the board and probably find their email addresses that way. I found them from an online search, although I have not written mine yet.

Sounds like a good start! Just like you said, accountability, what went wrong (to garner some sympathy) and/or what you are trying to achieve, and that you did your best to right the wrong by paying/settling the debt. Like @Jnbmom said, something to grab their attention, but not too lengthy. I would definitepy look up some ideas, but use your own words, as I am sure they have seen many of the same, generic requests.

Good luck!

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

nmk94 — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 02:16:10 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
What happened ?

Being 100% honest, mixed results, but all of that is still pending because things could come back.

I had two accounts that had lots of derogs (closed) that were taken off. So good, right? But I had one CO that hadn't been updated in a while suddenly update. Also, they will even dispute derogs on accounts in good standing. So I had some lates on my mortgage, and they sent a dispute to the mortage company. The thing is, I had a total of 4 different 30 days late, but for whatever reason the bank had stopped reporting the two oldest ones, just the newest ones. So only two. After the credit repair agency blasted them, they updated, and now all four are reporting again!

Here's what's worse: I reached out the the credit repair company and asked them, "What is the game plan here? Are we just sending disputes?" And there answer was either "this is how it works" or nothing at all. They are not strategic. If they had been, they would have actually been more successful, knocking out the two closed accounts with derogs but careful to avoid touching the non-updating old CO (let sleeping dogs lie). And those two old accounts could start reporting again as they're withing 7 years. So maybe there will be no benefit to this at all. Which ultimately means...you can do this all yourself. You can dispute things yourself, AND be strategic so that it doesn't blow back on you.

Hope this helps and apologies for the long reply, but I thought it best to be detailed on what went down for you and anyone who might come across this. Best of luck! Credit repair is a marathon, not a sprint.

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 02:25:28 GMT

I may just write something up by hand with my own words , just don’t thing excs are going to even bother looking , do you think they would ?

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 02:30:58 GMT

I only have 2 CO's one I Paid for less the other I reports monthly so it would really be of any harm for me I think. Because all other stuff is paid too , there is nothing to update on the other stuff , what do you think ? That's the online negative right ? Is to have old stuff updated and reported

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

nmk94 — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 02:34:40 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I may just write something up by hand with my own words , just don’t thing excs are going to even bother looking , do you think they would ?

If you send to execs, they then send it on to other people to handle it. Maybe they have an assistant who reads their emails. Regardless, in my experience they do respond, even though the ultimate decision may not be to remove the derog.

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

sarge12 — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 04:21:26 GMT

I will just state that IMHO, Credit Repair Agencies are modern day snake oil salesmen or much like miracle cure electrical devices. To be fair they may be able to dispute items a user is too lazy or too busy to dispute themselves. I have not seen many cases where they did anything the debtor could not do themselves. In general though, they are more often than not trying to get something for nothing, by selling nothing for something. Be especially wary of those who promise a certain number of points gained. Some promise a 100 point increase, and my score alone says that can't happen. I have a fairly low opinion of them, and think they prey on desperate people who need help. The lone exceptions might be some sponsored by United Way or even lenders, that provide services without fee. Some lenders do pay for credit counseling to lower the number of people who file for bankruptcy, sometimes by working with lenders to lower interest rate or defer some debt. This differs from those who charge a regular fee, that are motivated by the fee. At the very least, you should be very careful when seeking such help, because to say there is much corruption in that industry is an understatement. User reviews of such services is also not a good judge, because the company itself can create user names to post favorable reviews.

Re: Credit Repair companies ?!

FireMedic1 — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 09:22:06 GMT

@AnonymousRead thru this thread on GW's

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/The-Saturation-Technique-Best-GW-adjustment-odds/td-p/4727098