Credit repair
There are many credit repair agencies and other organisations that claim that they can repair credit reports.They all require you to pay a fee up front, and many claim they will refund the fee if they are unsuccessful. Well we all know that getting a refund can be difficult and often impossible, even when granted with many a thing, and this is certainly one of them. They know that people are sceptical about their service, so spend a fortune on literature persuading you that it actually works, so you part with your money.
Believe me, if they could do what they claim to do, they would ask for payments afterwards, advertise no upfront fees-then they would be inundated. They could even put all the bad credit back and perhaps add some more if someone then refuses to pay them.
This is not to say a credit record cannot be repaired, thousands of negative credit listings are removed from credit reports every week. However, remember “Only time will cure a credit record that contains adverse, but accurate credit information.”
Bad credit can be restored, it is not necessarily an easy process, but you can challenge your credit record, therefore successful challenges will lead to improvement.
The credit repair company’s adverts are far more an impressive image than their results.
The credit reference agencies deny that accurate information can be removed from a credit report.
It is worth remembering the following: -
Any consumer can dispute their credit report. Mistakes are often made, and it is worthwhile getting a copy of your file from time to time in order to check it. You can dispute your credit file by putting a note on it to explain why there may have been a problem. In some circumstances this may well be worth doing, but in the majority of cases it does no favours by just reinforcing the negative listings on your credit report.
If you are having trouble paying your bills/credit payments, you may decide to contact a debt advisory service or the citizen’s advice bureau, or, after reading this booklet, you may decide to sort it out yourself. Basically, contacting any lenders to say that you are having problems and need to renegotiate what you pay them each month, or need to arrange reduced payments is a HUGE RED FLAG on your credit file. You must expect considerable difficulties in applying for finance at some time in the future.
When you pay off an account that is overdue, it will then show as cleared or paid with the credit reference agency. Unfortunately, the credit payment history may remain and therefore still cause problems. In other words, if you have an account in default or running late, although paying it would certainly help, if at least by preventing things from getting any worse. Don’t expect your rating to revert back to perfection though.