subject: Self Credit Repair - It's Easier than the Credit Repair Companies Want You to Believe [print this page] Self Credit Repair - It's Easier than the Credit Repair Companies Want You to Believe
If you have been researching credit repair options on the internet, you've probably read enough conflicting information to convince you that there's a lot more to fixing your credit than there actually is. As a matter of fact, if you're anything like most consumers, you may even be thinking that you won't see any real results until you sign on with one of those expensive credit repair services. That's simply not the case. The fact is that those companies put a lot of money into flooding the web with information (much of it misinformation), and the purpose of all of it is to push consumers through their doors. Don't fall for it!
The truth of the matter is that creating the credit dispute letters you need to accomplish basic self credit repair is not that complicated. It's not exactly a no-brainer, but then, you've got a brain, right? So you don't need a no-brainer. You can do exactly what any credit repair company would do for you, and you can do it for free. But don't take my word for it. The Federal Trade Commission says the same thing on their website when they encourage consumers to investigate and undertake their own CreditRepair.
The basic function of a credit repair company is to create credit dispute letters to send to the credit bureaus, the purpose of those letters being to get things wiped off your credit report. But there's not a step in that process that you as a consumer cannot undertake on your own behalf.
Even if you're not a good writer, you can create these credit repair letters on your own, and you don't have to start from scratch either. There are plenty of credit letter samples and templates you can use for free online. In fact, the FTC's site that I referenced earlier offers one such sample credit dispute letter. It will work just as well as any of the others I've seen.
Simply copy whichever sample credit repair letter you choose into a new document, put your account information into the appropriate places for the items you want to dispute (making a new letter for each item you wish to dispute), and mail those letters to the reporting bureaus. Also be sure to include an ID page, which should contain very clearly legible copies of your social security card, your drivers license, and a utility bill. All those items must bear your current address too.
I am always amazed when I hear people talk about the work they had a credit repair company do for them. Every time I've asked such a person if they tried to do self credit repair first, the answer is always the same: "Oh, I wouldn't have known how to do that." Well, of course you wouldn't, but you could have learned it with just a little research, and you could have saved yourself a great deal of money. I have helped very many clients understand and undertake self credit repair, and I know the results can be every bit as impressive as any credit repair company can achieve.
I have helped hundreds of people perform repair their own credit, and I have seen amazing results to their credit scores-results every bit as good as the ones those same clients would have gotten if they had paid a pricey credit repair service to create their credit dispute letters for them. But by undertaking CreditRepair on their own, they saved themselves that hefty fee, which I've never known to be less than $250 dollars, but usually much more than that, even up to thousands of dollars. There's just no reason not to try the method that even the FTC acknowledges to be the best credit repair option.
