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Credit Repair DFW: Better Make it Credit Repair DIY

The credit repair industry is generally viewed in a negative light. This is hardly surprising, given the proliferation of unscrupulous companies that make lofty promises of removing negative information in a person’s credit report permanently, which in fact, they cannot really do. These companies are found virtually everywhere, in the Dallas/Fort Worth area (DFW), New York, Los Angeles, you name it. Before you decide to hire credit repair DFW firms or those like it, you’d better know more about the basics of your credit report and about how you can protect yourself from fraud.

Your credit report basically contains information on your financial behavior in the past years. People looking at your report will be able to see if you’re the type who makes credit card payments on time (or not), if you’ve had your properties foreclosed, if you’ve filed for bankruptcy, among others. If you have such negative information in your report and are about to apply for a major loan, seek employment, or rent an apartment, you might think of hiring a credit repair DFW firm to make all this negative information disappear from your report to improve your chances for that loan or job. After all, what company would want to give you a loan if you have a proven history of not making payments on time?

But hiring a credit repair specialist would not help you at all if the information in your credit report is current, true, and verifiable. In other words, if you did default on payments or if you did file for bankruptcy, there is no way that anyone can delete that information. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been cracking down on companies who commit fraud by misleading consumers on this issue. These companies say they’ll clean your report for a fee, but many of them do so through illegal means, such as creating a new identity or using false Social Security numbers. One such company targeted by the FTC was a Dallas company called Cornerstone Wealth Corp., operated by John Atchley.

Financial experts say that if you do have erroneous information in your credit report, you can usually correct this without having to hire a credit repair DFW firm. All you have to do is to make your complaint in writing, address it to the company that issued the credit report, and coordinate with them as much as you can. With this do-it-yourself (DIY) way, you’ll learn a lot more about how your credit report is made and used, and you’ll be able to avoid becoming a victim of fraud as well.