The Instant Credit Repair Scam (?)

Factual Questions
1

Everything I’ve read about credit repair (particularly here at the Dope) has led me to believe that, although it’s possible, it’s a long and tedious process.

So what’s the deal with these signs on the side of the street that say “Credit Repair, $199! Call 1-800-XXX-XXXX”? Is there some general premise at work here (other than I give the place $199 and get nothing in return)?

2

Like, one or both of the following:

  1. You’ll get a tutorial on doing credit repair marginally better than Googling “credit repair”.
    and/or
  2. They may have you send them your credit report, then have a guy read it, and type up form letters for you to remail to various companies.

Lexington Law Firm used to fit in category #2.

I suggest spending $199 worth of time reading here:

Especially some of the older threads were worth their weight in gold. Lots of tripe in there, though. Look for old threads by Psycdoc [sp].

3

There are scam sites and there are “legit” sites. The legit ones simply give you the same advice you’d get if you spend 30 minutes Googling around on your own.

You can’t instantly fix bad credit but there are ways to fix it up. For instance, you can challange the bad entries. If the company that dinged you can’t back it up, they have to take it off. This is very effective if you have a merger of a small bank with a large one. A lot of time, when the small bank merges, if they’ve dinged your credit, during the merger, the small banks records don’t merge over right and when you dispute the ding on your credit, they can no longer back it up so it gets removed.

You also negotiate. For instance, once someone puts a ding on your credit, YOU have power. You should never pay money to that company unless you talk to them first. Say “look my credits bad, if you expect me to pay, you need to assure me that if I pay you, you’ll remove that entry.” This almost always works. The company wants their money + interest, they could care less about your credit.

So alot of the legit companies simply give you tips like that. You can find them for free.

4

I used Lexington for a couple of years, and actually got some pretty good results. I had to stop for various reasons, but I think I’m going to sign up with them again soon. Are they still in business?

5

Couldn’t tell you. I stopped following Creditnet after I bought my house in '03, and that was where I learned about them.