subject: Credit-Repair: What To Look For [print this page] Credit-Repair: What To Look For Credit-Repair: What To Look For
Repairing your credit can be done yourself, but it will take lots of time, and most likely, a lot of hassle. You would need to go through all your credit reports, finding anything that may help repair your credit, and then try to negotiate better deals and rates. Credit repair companies have much more experience and training with this, and for approximately two dollars a day (fluctuating depending on the services offered), chances are they will save you much more money than what you pay them.
Credit repair companies know what to look for when studying your credit reports, and they also know how to negotiate with the credit card companies. If you choose to do your own credit repair, however, it is important to look at anything that looks questionable, such as excessive fees, unnecessary charges, unfair late fees due to your inability to pay because of high interest rates, and anything on there that isn't from you!
You may be surprised how often mistakes are made from credit card companies. You could even have things on your credit reports that are from other people, especially if there are other living relatives with the same name as you. It is also possible to have fallen victim to credit card fraud without even ever knowing about it!
When searching through the credit reports, keep in mind that things generally stay on your credit for at least (but usually not longer than) seven years. That means if something happened several years ago that damaged your credit, it could still negatively affect your credit, so don't dismiss things that happened less than seven years ago, no matter how long ago it seems. The good news is that if you go through a credit repair company, they may be able to work out a deal with the credit card company about those issues.
