Debt Relief Fraud - Know the Score About Credit Repair
For generations, residents of the United States have depended upon the recommendations of friends, family, and respected members of the community when newly shopping around for an unfamiliar service.
Debt relief, though, remains so fraught with moral dilemma - as well as the eternal peril of the new - that most of our country's families either don't wish to admit such problems to their loved ones or don't know quite where to turn.
Furthering the problem, it's almost second nature for the twenty first century American buyer to look upon the internet for suggestions, but that's far from a guarantee of legitimacy.
With debt relief professionals in particular, the testimonials recorded upon message boards may have nothing at all to do with the actual services undertaken for consumers.
Many of these internet discussion hotlines are in fact nothing more than an unedited clearing house for debt relief scam artists touting the benefits of services that do not in fact exist.
One of the most prevalent scams hovering around the industry does not even pretend to actually offer debt relief but instead purely deals with - or, more likely, pretends to deal with - the inaccurate marks that affect so many consumers' Fair Isaacs credit scores.
According to some national studies, every other resident of the United States above the age of eighteen holds a significant error on one of the credit reports overseen by TransUnion, Equifax, or Experian.
Now, some of these errors may well be in the borrowers favor.
However, if your scores are being artificially held down because someone with a similar name across the country happened to default on loans, you're going to want to strike that notice from the credit report as quickly as you can.
Even if the problem delinquency that's acting as an anchor toward credit scores was genuinely your responsibility, most states have now legislated separate statutes to ensure that poor credit marks will only continue to have negative consequences for a limited duration of time: usually less than seven years.
The new state and federal laws governing credit agencies have guaranteed each borrower an expense free copy of his or her own credit report from each of the bureaus once per year, and it's vital that the head of household takes advantage of the stipulation to check the reports' fine print for potential mistakes.
Technically, a credit repair or debt relief firm shouldn't have any greater leverage than the ordinary borrowers when it comes to editing credit reports or raising FICO scores.
Of course, no matter how democratic and responsive the credit bureaus are supposed to be, the employees of the big three agencies do seem to react noticeably different when requests for alteration come from a legal firm.
If borrowers have the cash on hand to hire attorneys or debt relief veterans specializing in credit repair, the experience of trained professionals may well be worth the sizable fee that will be charged.
Unfortunately, there are almost an equal number of companies that wholly pretend to assist borrowers and actually just pocket the funds without doing a lick of work.
Indeed, on the most superficial evaluation, the best way to tell a debt relief scam from a genuine effort toward rehabilitating credit scores would be the extent of promises made.
While it's true that the credit bureaus can be convinced to erase even the genuine delinquencies (provided the creditors do not respond to inquiries promptly enough), that's still a matter of luck and timing.
Even the finest credit repair firm cannot force a credit bureau to alter correct data verified by the lenders no matter how much money they charge for the conceit.
Debt relief, though, remains so fraught with moral dilemma - as well as the eternal peril of the new - that most of our country's families either don't wish to admit such problems to their loved ones or don't know quite where to turn.
Furthering the problem, it's almost second nature for the twenty first century American buyer to look upon the internet for suggestions, but that's far from a guarantee of legitimacy.
With debt relief professionals in particular, the testimonials recorded upon message boards may have nothing at all to do with the actual services undertaken for consumers.
Many of these internet discussion hotlines are in fact nothing more than an unedited clearing house for debt relief scam artists touting the benefits of services that do not in fact exist.
One of the most prevalent scams hovering around the industry does not even pretend to actually offer debt relief but instead purely deals with - or, more likely, pretends to deal with - the inaccurate marks that affect so many consumers' Fair Isaacs credit scores.
According to some national studies, every other resident of the United States above the age of eighteen holds a significant error on one of the credit reports overseen by TransUnion, Equifax, or Experian.
Now, some of these errors may well be in the borrowers favor.
However, if your scores are being artificially held down because someone with a similar name across the country happened to default on loans, you're going to want to strike that notice from the credit report as quickly as you can.
Even if the problem delinquency that's acting as an anchor toward credit scores was genuinely your responsibility, most states have now legislated separate statutes to ensure that poor credit marks will only continue to have negative consequences for a limited duration of time: usually less than seven years.
The new state and federal laws governing credit agencies have guaranteed each borrower an expense free copy of his or her own credit report from each of the bureaus once per year, and it's vital that the head of household takes advantage of the stipulation to check the reports' fine print for potential mistakes.
Technically, a credit repair or debt relief firm shouldn't have any greater leverage than the ordinary borrowers when it comes to editing credit reports or raising FICO scores.
Of course, no matter how democratic and responsive the credit bureaus are supposed to be, the employees of the big three agencies do seem to react noticeably different when requests for alteration come from a legal firm.
If borrowers have the cash on hand to hire attorneys or debt relief veterans specializing in credit repair, the experience of trained professionals may well be worth the sizable fee that will be charged.
Unfortunately, there are almost an equal number of companies that wholly pretend to assist borrowers and actually just pocket the funds without doing a lick of work.
Indeed, on the most superficial evaluation, the best way to tell a debt relief scam from a genuine effort toward rehabilitating credit scores would be the extent of promises made.
While it's true that the credit bureaus can be convinced to erase even the genuine delinquencies (provided the creditors do not respond to inquiries promptly enough), that's still a matter of luck and timing.
Even the finest credit repair firm cannot force a credit bureau to alter correct data verified by the lenders no matter how much money they charge for the conceit.
