These days, even some employers check the credit scores of job applicants to see if they are reliable and accountable. If there is a problem with your credit score, it might be time to look into doing a credit repair.
You might be asking yourself, how do credit repairs work? A lot of people have misconceptions about credit repair services. They assume these companies treat all clients the same and don’t pay proper attention to the details of individual situations.
As is in any industry, there are companies that are better than others, but you can find a legitimate credit repair company if you need one. Unfortunately, most people have no idea how these companies work and base opinions on negative reviews of some unnamed credit repair company–this is why guidance from experts such as those at The Phenix Group is invaluable.
What Can You Do?
To start things off, you need to collect your credit reports and go through them carefully to catch any obvious discrepancies–let’s assume you’ve found several issues and want to fix them. You can search online, find a template complaint letter, download it, and send it to the credit bureaus hoping that will be enough to persuade them to take action in your favor.
Still, this process is not that simple–if you send a letter to the credit bureaus with the template letter you found online, there’s little chance you’ll get any meaningful response. Thousands of form letters like yours are sent to the bureaus daily. To filter through the mountain of requests, credit bureaus use systems such as Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Online Solution for Complete and Accurate Reporting (e-Oscar).
When you send in a letter, OCR scans and reads the letter to see what the issues are and if it’s a template letter that has been sent before. If the system determines it is, the dispute is automatically marked as frivolous and no investigation is started. You might get an auto response saying the item was verified or your whole dispute is frivolous, and you won’t see any real answer to your request.
If your letter makes it through the OCR, it will find e-Oscar waiting. After the OCR processes the content of scanned letters and translates them into a three-digit code, it sends the letters to the e-OSCAR system. The e-Oscar system then gets in touch with creditors to handle the dispute.
Bureaus don’t handle the actual investigation–they normally send the creditors an email asking if the information is correct or not. As you can see, the entire process limits the results that you can get when you send in form-generated requests.
What Credit Repair Companies Will Do
Well-versed companies, on the other hand, know how the system works. They’ll craft a letter that will convince the bureaus to actually look into the matter. Even if the first dispute letter does not work, expert companies know what to do next. If you were to do this yourself, you might opt to close the account after worrying whether or not closing a credit card account hurts your credit score.
But the credit repair company will not give up and will send different types of reinvestigation requests suited to your situation. Hundreds of scenarios can evolve from a request, and good credit repair companies know how to deal with them efficiently. If you try to do this on your own, you’ll need to invest a lot of time, energy, and money to gain the necessary knowledge and adapt to negligent or inefficient credit bureaus. You have to be persistent and not be deterred by frustration.
The company you hire will conduct a rigorous analysis of different credit solutions. The staff is responsible for communicating with you and keeping you up to date about various options for improving your credit.
Conclusion
Some credit situations require complex legal actions like filing a lawsuit and attending trials. You can easily avoid this lengthy and expensive procedure by opting for a credit repair service. So, sit back and relax while a credit repair specialist, such as those at The Phenix Group, takes care of your unpleasant credit score on your behalf.