What the "Repair Your Credit" People Won't Tell You

I used to be a debt collector. No, I wasn't one of the unethical bastards who called at all hours of the night, making threats to little old ladies. I was purely above-board, and so were my colleagues. During my time as a debt collector, I heard all kinds of stories, took all kinds of abuse, and worked with the true hard-luck cases. I also learned my rights and responsibilities as a consumer, and I've exercised these rights on more than one occasion. Today I'm going to give you a bit of advice on how to protect these rights. Before I do that though, I have to protect my interests up front with my little disclaimer... a disclaimer that I shouldn't have to give, but do anyway...

I'm not a lawyer. Don't take this as legal advice, genius. Laws may have changed a bit since I was a debt collector, so don't take this information as gospel.

Okay, here's the skinny... All consumers are allowed, by law, to view their credit reports once per year at no charge to the consumer. Forget about FreeCreditReport.com, FreeTripleScore.com and all of those other sites. They are NOT the sites to get your free credit report. The actual place to get your free annual credit report is www.ftc.gov/freereports. You may notice that this site is the actual FTC government site. I recommend that you exercise your right as a consumer, and get your free credit reports.

Here's the meat and potatoes of this article... As a consumer, you have the right to dispute any negative information that's on your credit record, and you can do this for free. All you have to do is contact the credit reporting agency (which can also be done online) and tell them why you're disputing the debt. Generally speaking, the following reasons are considered valid reasons for a dispute... 1)You did not authorize the debt [think identity theft]. 2) Another party is legally responsible for the debt [someone with a similar name, or things like that]. 3) You are unfamiliar with the debt. 4) You were dissatisfied with the product or service. 5)The information is incorrect [for example, they're saying that you were late with payments, but you made all payments on time]. There are other types of dispute, but these are among the most common, widely recognized disputes.

Once you have filed an official dispute with the credit reporting agency, they are required by law to contact the original creditor and ask for verification of any negative information. Generally speaking, this process must be completed within 30 days. If the original creditor fails to verify your dispute, the negative information must be removed from your credit history.

Now, here's what the "Repair Your Credit" people don't tell you. All they do, is the exact process I mentioned above. Basically, they send out several individual disputes against every negative item on an individual's credit report. If any one of these disputes fail to get acknowledged within the time frame allowed by law, the negative history must be removed from the person's credit report. And these "Repair Your Credit" bastards charge you hundreds of dollars for this!

If you've got a poor credit history, save your money. Get your credit report, and if there's something showing up that you don't agree with, exercise your rights... dispute the debt.