What is your opinion of any service that offers credit repair?

I need to fix my credit, and there are people on E-bay and elsewhere who guarantee the full restoration of my credit. Are they legitimate?

Public Comments

1. The only thing they can guarantee is taking your money...There are plenty of free resources online to help you with your credit. FYI: correct negative information cannot be removed from your credit file....Only time can heal this damage to your credit....It would be impossible for anyone to "fully restore" your credit if you've had several recent charge-offs/defaults. All of the credit repair firms use the same tactic that you can do for yourself....totally free....You have the right under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to have every negative entry validated by the credit bureaus....If they can't validate the debt...they must remove it under this federal law......You can mail each credit bureau a request for validation for each negative item...Do this one at a time...not all at once...You might get lucky and get one or more items off your credit report like this....But, there is NO guarantee...They might come back with everything validated.
2. This will show up on your credit report and Financial Institutions will treat this as they would a Bankruptcy. There are some credible places out there but I would speak to a bank first and see if they can point you in the right direction first...if they care about their clients they will do that. So, check where you do your daily banking and see if you can get a helping hand...
3. most of them are just scams that take your money and dont do anything that you cant do on your own.
4. If they are selling on e-bay, you can just imagine what their office looks like. I would stay away and remember this Avoid credit repair agencies that charge a fee to improve your FICO score by removing negative, but accurate, information from your credit reports. No one can force credit reporting agencies or lenders to remove accurate information from a credit report. Credit repair companies often take your money without delivering what they promise, or provide only temporary improvements of your score, sometimes by removing accurate information that will reappear later.
5. Let me share what our own Government says about credit repair scams. From the 2007 edition of the Consumer Action Handbook "If the information is accurate, only time, hard work and a personal debt repayment plan will improve your credit report. Credit repair companies advertise they can erase bad credit for a hefty fee. Don't believe it".
6. There is nothing that they can do that you can not do yourself. I would avoid using a Credit Repair Agency since all you need to do, (if you have issues, questions, problems, etc., with your credit report that would include inaccurate information or inaccurate status of your accounts,) is to write them directly and present your case. Most people won't take the time to do that! Do it and see what happens. It's your credit score, take action to get it back on track. I found this article just by searching for "Tips to improve your credit". Good luck.
7. Be very careful when you get these emails...in general if it seems to good to be true it most likely is. There are legit credit repair programs out there BUT, they're not as helpful as they seem. I've found some good information here too... http://debt.knowledged.info/credit_card.html Hope that helps.