Friday, November 10, 2006
Credit Repair Service Scams – How They Are Robbing Consumers Blind
If you are thinking about hiring a credit repair service to clean up your bad credit report, you better take notes on the following special report:
Credit Repair Services are robbing unsuspecting consumers blind with their shifty scams, false hopes and broken promises. The director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection warns citizens in need of credit repair to be advised of numerous credit repair service scams and schemes. He states that while "There are legitimate, credit repair options available, the FTC has never seen a legitimate credit repair company."
Don’t be fooled by credit repair services that contact you with hard-sell tactics, unbelievable promises and outlandish fees. There are several big-time scams underway in the United States fooling consumers into paying big bucks to have their credit report cleared.
Be wary of credit repair services claiming that they are “in” with the credit bureaus, have some sort of special arrangement or know a secret tactic to make credit reporting agencies delete bad credit reports from your file.
There is no such thing as an ‘in” with the credit bureaus, they have rules and regulations that they follow to the letter, no matter what credit repair service you represent. The credit bureau may temporarily remove the debt in question from your file and place it on the disputed list, but when the bogus credit repair service doesn’t follow up with the proper procedures, the debt will return onto your credit report. This temporary deletion from your file is the so-called ‘clean credit report’ the credit repair service is promising.
Another bogus line some Credit Repair Services use to hook you is; “we can convince the creditor you don’t really owe this debt.” They come with a scheme to have you challenge the debt and then attack the debt holder with procedural requests that will allegedly make them drop the bad claim off of your credit report. Although there are legitimate ways to compel a debt holder to prove disputed debts, this is not an effective method and consumers rarely see any long term results from using this type of credit repair service scheme.
The third scam to look out for is for a price, the credit repair service promises to get you a whole new, clean credit file. The credit service tells you to apply for a new taxpayer id or Employer Identification Number, also known as a EIN, to build a new credit report. This is a felony and could land you and the credit repair service into serious trouble.
The reason unsuspecting consumers get taken by this scam is because the credit repair service does not fully explain what they are being asked to do. In most cases they don’t even realize that this is not a legal solution to their credit repair problems. Be leery if any credit repair service promises you a new credit file or fresh credit history.
Be wary of too good to be true promises and fast fixes, there are reputable counseling agencies that offer credit repair programs, just make sure you do a little reference checking before you sign on the dotted line.
The best credit repair advice I can give you is don’t waste your precious time and hard earned money on a questionable credit repair service. Do a little research and find out how easy it is to repair your own credit. A bad credit report can easily be challenged and resolved by ordinary people like you and I by simply following easy paperwork procedures.
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