Looking For the Best Credit Repair Service
The credit repair industry has become a crowded place. The credit crisis has led to more stringent lending restrictions that have resulted in making a good credit score far more important than it had been in years. No longer able to get approved for credit, thousands are looking to credit repair services for help. Eager to cash in on the trend, new credit repair companies are being created all the time claiming to be experts at repairing bad credit.
With so many inexperienced credit repair providers entering the market, many of which are simply turnkey businesses using a third party software solution as the backbone of their product, it becomes a challenge to know which services can be trusted with your credit reports. To help separate the top credit repair services from the greenhorns trying to make a quick buck, here are three tips for identifying a quality provider:
1) Check for experience – Creating a credit repair service is surprisingly simple. A person only needs a website and a little money in the bank to pay for a software package. Remaining in the business and generating good results for customers is harder. The best companies usually have an established history of helping people which is not only indicative of a stable business, but it also is a sign that the company practices within the confines of the law since most underhanded credit repair companies have a short lifespan.
A company’s BBB report will show how long the company has been in business, although not necessarily how long they have been providing credit repair services. If the company does not have a BBB listing, it may be a red flag since the company may be very new or flying under the radar. If you have a hard time figuring out how long a company has been operating, you can try performing a WHOIS lookup of their website’s domain name to see how long it has been since it was registered, but odds are if it requires that much work to track down the information, you are probably better served looking elsewhere.
2) Look for an offline presence – The Internet is ideal for commerce, but the process of correcting your credit reports generally produces better results when performed offline. Reputable credit repair providers usually have a physical place of operations you can use as a guide to how solid the company is. Satellite imagery services like MapQuest are great tools for checking out the company’s headquarters. Get the company’s address, load a map and see if the company has their own building, operates in an office complex, rents out a location in a strip mall, or has the mailing address of a personal residence.
3) Look at pricing and payment options – Signed into law in 1996, the Credit Repair Organizations Act establishes rules that credit repair companies must abide by. One of these is to only accept payment for services after the agreed upon services have been performed. This restriction was put in place to protect people from fraudulent companies who would charge large upfront fees and then never provide the expected services.
Naturally, you should steer clear of credit repair providers who require an upfront payment.
In addition to finding out when and how much you will be expected to pay, make note of the payment options. Most reputable companies will, at a minimum, give you the option to pay via credit card on their website or over the phone.
Be wary of companies who require checks or money orders as you do not have the same level of protection in case you need to recover your money if something goes wrong. Also watch out for companies who employ third party payment processing on their website such as PayPal as this may be a sign of a fly by night clinic. Finally, as with any online transactions, when submitting payment information online, make sure the web page is secured. Before keying in your credit card or Social Security number on a web page, make sure the address of the page starts with “https” and your web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.) displays a padlock or similar icon indicating the connection is encrypted.
