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Please note: The Ask Experian team cannot respond to each question individually. However, if your question is of interest to a wide audience of consumers, the Experian team will include it in a future column.
Credit Repair
There is nothing any credit repair clinic can legally do for you — including removing inaccurate credit information — which you can’t do for yourself for free. Their fees can be substantial, ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars.
The Credit Repair Organizations Act, a federal law, prohibits credit repair clinics from taking consumers’ money until they fully complete the services they promise. It also requires such firms to provide consumers with a written contract stating all the services to be provided and the terms and conditions of payment. Under the law, consumers have three days to withdraw from the contract. The Act makes it illegal for a credit repair clinic to suggest that you mislead credit reporting companies about your accounts or alter your identity to change your credit history.
- Correction on Experian report should also be made on other credit reports
- Debt management firm isn’t necessary to negotiate with lenders
- Debt management plans and your credit report
- Experian does not review loan documents or notify credit repair firms to call consumers
- Improving your credit is a matter of common sense
- It’s not necessarily how much you owe that hurts your credit scores
- Late payment history will remain for a time after debt is paid
- Medical judgments negatively impact credit history
- Negotiating reduced payments can hurt credit scores
- No need to pay to improve your credit
- Opting out will not cause your credit report to disappear
- Pay the collection agency, not the original account holder
- Paying off debts is just the first step in restoring your credit scores
- Paying off old accounts is first step in credit recovery
- Purchasing “seasoned tradelines” likely to land you deeper in debt
- Risk and reward when adding brother as an account holder
- The difference between credit counseling and debt settlement
- Time limits for collection agencies to collect a debt
- Which accounts to start paying off when you have bad debts
- You can “fix” your credit report without help
- You can rehabilitate your credit
- You can’t improve your credit “all at once”