Credit Repair Scams – Exercise Diligence
It’s likely you’ve heard about those who have gone to credit repair agencies for help to improve their low credit score, but who have instead been cheated by credit repair scams. Before you understand what actions must be taken to protect yourself against such unscrupulous people|these scammers|these crooks}, you must be aware of how they function.
They know that those unfortunates who are drowning in debt are in such desperate straits as to swallow whatever is told them, hoping these fraudulent companies are really able to lead them out of financial despair, so they can regained their serenity. They will often be so disheartened by the system, which is downright cruel to people who suffer from credit problems, that they’ll take any measures to get relief.
Most people looking for help are thinking about declaring bankruptcy. These are the people who are most vulnerable to credit repair scams.
The reason? Because they feel a sense of urgency, and do not know that improving their credit takes at least 6 – 12 months. Very often, these folks feel like time is running out on them, and unless they act quickly, disaster awaits them in the future. Ironically, when they sign up with these company’s instead of solving their financial problems, they will find themselves in even worse financial straits, because they’ve been fooled into chasing a mirage.
Here are the warning signs to avoid credit repair scams:
1. They promise the impossible – lots of these agencies promise they will have every negative account removed from your credit report. They will guarantee you that your credit score will improve in a very short time.
They try to accomplish this by disputing everything negative in your credit repor. The bureaus may initially remove some or most of the disputed items that they can’t verify in the space of 30 days. In the meantime, it will seem that this fraudulent agency has delivered on its promise.
But if the bureaus can verify the negative accounts at a future date, they’ll end up back on the report – plus you will have earned the reputation of being a hustler!
2. They tempt you to bend the rules – they use illegal means, such as using other people’s identity to increase your overall credit, by offering to give you a new Social Security Number, so that you can “start from scratch.”
Warning! Such tactics will only land you into more trouble. Not only is it illegal to take up a “new” SSN, the number could have a police record attached to it, or any such things that will be much worse than bad credit.
3. You demand full payment up front – a good many credit repair scams ask you for their fees in full before any services have been rendered. This makes sense, because they know that sooner or later you will discover that they cannot really remove bad credit or improve your credit score as quickly as they claimed. And at that point, you would refuse to pay.
In conclusion, credit repair scams are avoidable. Just keep in mind that no matter how desperate your situation, look out for the red flags!
This entry was posted on Friday, November 27th, 2009 at 4:21 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.