A credit repair company is an organization that helps you understand and repair your credit by analyzing your credit report and disputing inaccuracies with credit bureaus and creditors. Credit repair companies have the experience and knowledge to tackle credit issues that could be difficult to resolve on your own.

This expertise makes the credit repair process easier for customers. Companies know what to look for, understand the process needed to fix inaccuracies, and are informed on what clients are legally entitled to request from both credit bureaus and creditors.

Credit repair companies are different from credit counseling agencies. Credit counseling organizations are normally nonprofit. They advise about debt and finance management, help you get a copy of your credit report, and other services depending on the organization.

Credit repair companies typically request and review your credit report from the major credit bureaus (TransUnion, Experian and Equifax), create and execute a plan to fix any discrepancies, and recommend other ways to improve your score.

Each company’s methods and steps vary, but we’ll break down what to generally expect from most companies.

When reviewing your credit report, credit repair companies typically look for credit report errors like:

• Accounts that don’t belong to you

• Duplicate accounts

• Incorrect inquiries

• Inaccurate accounts

These inaccuracies can unfairly take a toll on your credit score. Periodically reviewing your credit report helps you catch these inaccuracies before they affect your score.

Credit repair companies know what to look for and can save you the time and effort needed to review each report line by line.

Credit Repair companies initiate credit challenges for all of the errors found on your credit reports. By submitting a dispute, you’re requesting the credit bureau review the accuracy of the information on your credit report. The bureaus are required to either correct or remove it if they’re unable to verify it.

The time it takes to see the results from credit repair varies based on your current score, financial situation and many other factors.

For example, a person with a few simple inaccuracies on their credit report may see their results sooner than someone who has multiple complex inaccuracies that require lots of correspondence. However, results vary greatly.

The credit bureaus are required to correct or remove any inaccuracies reported to them within 30 days under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. However, it still may take longer depending on your situation.

You can learn more about the timeline of Ascend Capital 360 process and the typical results of an average client.

Yes, you can repair your own credit, but you must make sure you’ve done your research to do it correctly. Legitimate credit repair companies should also inform you of that when you contact them. You can do anything that a credit repair company does. For example, you can contact the credit bureaus directly instead of using a credit repair company’s help.

However, repairing your credit without the help of a credit repair company or financial expert can hurt you in the long run if you haven’t done your homework. There are a lot of things you can easily miss if you don’t have the experience or knowledge that they provide.

A credit score is a number generated by a mathematical formula that is meant to predict credit worthiness. Credit scores range from 300-850. The higher your score is, the more likely you are to get a loan.

The lower your score is, the less likely you are to get a loan. If you have a low credit score and you do manage to get approved for credit then your interest rate will be much higher than someone who had a good credit score and borrowed money. Therefore, having a high credit score can save many thousands of dollars over the life of your mortgage, auto loan, or credit card.

720-850 EXCELLENT 700-719 VERY GOOD 675-699 GOOD 620-674 AVERAGE 560-619 POOR 500-559 VERY POOR