Credit Repair Mythology, Fallacies And Truth

In 1970 the Fair Credit Reporting Act or the FCRA was enacted. This law gives consumers the right to question any item showing on their credit report that may be erroneous, incomplete, untimely, misleading, unverifiable, unfair, ambiguous or unclear. This includes foreclosures, charge-offs and bankruptcies.

False identities, erroneous balances, untimely listing, overly ambiguous listings and more commonly show up on credit reports. You can dispute anything that shows up on your credit for any reason if you feel that it is not totally accurate. After you issue a dispute the creditor and the credit bureau have a certain amount of time to bear out the truth of the listing. If it cannot be verified within the time frame then it must be removed from your account.

However, the FCRA does not give you the right to “debt repair”. If there is a legitimate and true debt showing on your credit you cannot legally get it removed. When you owe a debt you are legally responsible for it until it is paid off. Credit repair cannot be used in a case of someone trying to avoid a justifiable debt.

There are critics of credit repair that tend to confuse the two issues. Debt repair is not lawful and it is not above-board. However, credit repair is a useful and valid service that many people can benefit from.

You do not have the right to debate an honest, reliable and correct listing on your credit report. However, if the listing is confusing or misleading, unverifiable or partial, or even outdated you have the right to issue a dispute. But you cannot just get rid of legal obligations because you have a right to credit repair.

When you have debt problems you can do a few authorized things. You can pay down the debt or you can pay if off. You have the option to join all of your debt into one, fixed rate loan. You can also speak to your creditors and see if they would be willing to settle your debt. This may alleviate you of your debt but it could also give you bad credit.

But credit repair cannot be used to get out of paying a valid debt. Credit repair is for erroneous credit but it cannot lawfully be used for debt repair. However, do not let this put off you from taking benefit of your rights to credit repair. If you have damaging or wrong credit you have the right to try to get it removed.

You can issue disputes and do credit repair on your own or you can use a legitimate credit repair organization. There are a few outstanding companies that operate within full conformity of the law. These companies offer a important and useful service that can help you clean up your credit if you have listings that are inaccurate, misleading, incomplete, biased, or ambiguous.