| A credit repair specialist is someone who has the skill and knowledge to successfully repair your credit report, if possible. But do you need to hire someone? There are many things you can do yourself. But if you're at all unsure, then a credit repair specialist might be a good solution for you.
Not every situation will be easier handled with outside help. No matter what has made your credit bad, you probably can fix it yourself. But a specialist can be very helpful if your credit reports contain errors.
While you can challenge such errors on your own, it can be helpful to have an experienced credit repair specialist handling that for you. This is especially true if you're not comfortable challenging authority, or you're confused by the process that you need to follow.
Errors on credit reports are unfortunately very common. And one single error can drop your score a great deal, depending on what the error is. One error will lower your score, but errors regarding charge-offs, bankruptcies or old debt can be particularly damaging.
You could potentially pay off an old debt and not have it removed from your credit score in error. The older the debt, the longer the missed payment shows on your report and the more damage it does. Getting these paid debts off your report is a good first step to repairing your credit.
A credit repair specialist will challenge all of the "dings" on your credit report, like late or missed payments and things that really drop your score. Paying a specialist in credit repair to do this is no guarantee that any of those things will be removed from your credit reports, however.
If the things that are lowering your score are found to be accurate, they won't be removed and your score won't be improved. There's simply so solution for these sorts of debts other than to pay them as quickly as you can.
Sometimes errors are found and you have trouble getting the credit reporting agency to clear the error off your report. A specialist can come in handy in situations like this because they're used to dealing with these agencies. They have the experience to negotiate and make the credit bureau understand the problem.
Otherwise, in most cases, you can help repair your credit on your own simply by getting any old debts paid off as quickly as possible. You can request a free credit report once a year from each agency. The 3 major agencies are TransUnion, Equifax and Experian.
They're required to give you a free report every 12 months if you request it, but that doesn't include your credit score. If you want your credit score, you essentially have to pay for it. And there are two major kinds of credit scores: FICO and Vantage.
It's figuring out all these details and requesting the right information where an expert can come in handy. If what you need to do is unclear, then you might want to consider hiring a credit repair specialist. |