Credit Repair Scams and Legitimate Credit Repair Services
- By Stuart Hunter
- Published 01/15/2010
- Finances
- Unrated
Stuart Hunter
Providing credit repair services since 1991, Lexington Law has helped over 500,000 clients legally take on their credit. Last year alone, Lexington Law helped clients remove over 600,000 negative items from their credit reports.
View all articles by Stuart Hunter
The credit repair world can be a scary place. Given the number of news articles, TV stories, and "expert" pieces cautioning against fraudulent credit repair services that get pushed out by well regarded media outlets, it can look like the best choice is to steer clear of credit repair companies entirely - a course of action the news outlets seem to advocate.
A quick search turns up numerous articles talking about how to avoid a credit repair scam. Most talk about red flags such as companies that charge large upfront fees, claim to help you create a clean credit history, don't keep you informed of your right to repair you credit yourself, and generally make misleading or untruthful statements. At this point, however, very few articles mention that there are credit repair services like Lexington Law who do not engage in the illegal or fraudulent practices that are common to a credit repair scam. In fact, many articles from established news agencies like CNN conclude by advising people to "get legitimate help" from consumer credit counseling services.
Not only is this advice incomplete, but it is also 100 percent useless to people who are in need of credit repair. Credit counseling programs
may be able to help people who are unable to make payments on their debts, but it will do nothing to repair your credit reports. Some credit counseling programs even have the potential to make your credit look worse.
Unlike consumer credit counseling services that work to help bring your debts under control, credit repair services are designed to help you increase your credit score. They are not mutually exclusive offerings and in many cases, a person who has used a credit counseling service to help manage their debts becomes a good candidate for credit repair once they have completed the program.
Legal credit repair services like those provided by Lexington Law serve a purpose and it is a disservice to say otherwise. Hopefully as consumers and news columnists alike become more familiar with credit repair and the services credit repair organizations provide, we will start seeing a better balance between news stories warning of credit repair scams and news stories listing the qualities to look for in a legitimate credit repair service.
A quick search turns up numerous articles talking about how to avoid a credit repair scam. Most talk about red flags such as companies that charge large upfront fees, claim to help you create a clean credit history, don't keep you informed of your right to repair you credit yourself, and generally make misleading or untruthful statements. At this point, however, very few articles mention that there are credit repair services like Lexington Law who do not engage in the illegal or fraudulent practices that are common to a credit repair scam. In fact, many articles from established news agencies like CNN conclude by advising people to "get legitimate help" from consumer credit counseling services.
Not only is this advice incomplete, but it is also 100 percent useless to people who are in need of credit repair. Credit counseling programs
Unlike consumer credit counseling services that work to help bring your debts under control, credit repair services are designed to help you increase your credit score. They are not mutually exclusive offerings and in many cases, a person who has used a credit counseling service to help manage their debts becomes a good candidate for credit repair once they have completed the program.
Legal credit repair services like those provided by Lexington Law serve a purpose and it is a disservice to say otherwise. Hopefully as consumers and news columnists alike become more familiar with credit repair and the services credit repair organizations provide, we will start seeing a better balance between news stories warning of credit repair scams and news stories listing the qualities to look for in a legitimate credit repair service.