credit repair company are they worth it?

Anonymous · ‎10-20-2020

Been approached from a friend about fixing my credit with a repair company... is it worth it or is this something i can do without paying anyone? Also they tell me i can add my rent history onto my credit report is this true never heard of this before?

Jnbmom · ‎10-21-2020

@Anonymous wrote:
Been approached from a friend about fixing my credit with a repair company... is it worth it or is this something i can do without paying anyone? Also they tell me i can add my rent history onto my credit report is this true never heard of this before?

No you can do this yourself with some work, DO NOT pay for "credit repair" most of these places do little if anything and still take your money and a lot of times they make it worse.

Not to familiar with the rent history, but I believe there are companies but you have TO PAY THEM.

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Brian_Earl_Spilner · ‎10-21-2020

@Jnbmom wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Been approached from a friend about fixing my credit with a repair company... is it worth it or is this something i can do without paying anyone? Also they tell me i can add my rent history onto my credit report is this true never heard of this before?
No you can do this yourself with some work, DO NOT pay for "credit repair" most of these places do little if anything and still take your money and a lot of times they make it worse.

Not to familiar with the rent history, but I believe there are companies but you have TO PAY THEM.

Things like Experian Boost add utility and rent history and are free.

Anonymous · ‎10-21-2020

@Anonymous wrote:
Been approached from a friend about fixing my credit with a repair company... is it worth it or is this something i can do without paying anyone? Also they tell me i can add my rent history onto my credit report is this true never heard of this before?

Depends on what your personal definition of "worth it" is. That will vary from individual to individual. It can take some time and effort to do all of the work, but it can be done on your own. If you're a person with substantial income that works 80+ hours a week and have little time to yourself, taking on a credit repair campaign may not make sense and it may be "worth it" to pay someone else. Your more average/typical guy like myself that works a normal amount of hours and has a less than substantial income (not willing to throw money toward a CRS) can find success in following many of the tips found in the rebuilding forum here.

I think my total cost of repairing my file which took me from a 619 starting point to 850 in about 2 years time was about $150 and that was all the cost of stamps and envelopes. That of course doesn't include the time I invested, a factor we all weigh differently.

Remedios · ‎10-21-2020

A quick reminder, advocating use of credit "repair agencies" is against the TOS.

@Anonymous you'd only be paying someone to further ruin your credit and call it "fixed".

If you are serious about working on your credit, head over to rebuilding section and start a topic specific to your issues.

CH-7-Mission-Accomplished · ‎10-21-2020

@Anonymous wrote:
Been approached from a friend about fixing my credit with a repair company... is it worth it or is this something i can do without paying anyone? Also they tell me i can add my rent history onto my credit report is this true never heard of this before?

I did all of my own "credit repair," but I have read stories about how credit repair agencies work. I think they charge like $120/month, but what they do is they dispute just one derogatory item on your report per month, so they are generating huge fees over a year or two. They also tend to succeed at the easy stuff that you can do yourself.

As has also been pointed out, they can also cause more harm than good. They can get you labeled as an abuser by the reporting agencies and wind up in special handling, which is not good.

Do it yourself. Even if you just deal with one bad mark at a time.

Anonymous · ‎10-24-2020

Credit Repair agencies are not worth the money. If you want to press hard to clear collections, you are better off hiring a personal attorney to send demenad letters and stay on top of the collectors and work to bargain a pay for deletion. The credit repair agencies move really slow and by the time they get anything done you would have likely paid the cost of an attorney who will do more in a shorter time.

that said, 95% can be done on your own with research here. There are really only a few ways to repair credit:

1) pay off revolving debt. get your credit utilizations down/to zero. stay away from debt consolidation that requires closing cards or purposely missing payments in order for the conslidation company to negotiate settling debt for less. seek out no-interest for 12-18 month offers on balance tranfer cards

2) pay for deletion. if you have collections call them and make offers to pay for deletion. not everyone will. but press as hard as you can. if they arent taking legal action then there is no reason to pay it off until they agree to this. this is also where a real lawyer can help negotiate this.

3) good will letter to remove late payments. there are examples here. but removing those lates can go a long way. write the letters and see where it gets you.

4) request credit line increase once a month. it wont help your utilization as fast as paying off debt but it will help gain some util%

5) DO NOT MISS ANY PAYMENTS, CLOSE ANY CARDS, OR LET ANY DEBT GO TO COLLECTION. This is not a judgement on you or anyone who has had collections or missed payments. it happens to alot of people for alot of reasons. it takes months to years to undo a missed payment or collections. its alot easier to pay off debt or create good credit then it is to undo bad credit.