Fixing your broken credit is about as enjoyable as cleaning out your sewer lines weeding a briar patch. However, once you finally decide you’ve suffered enough and want to repair your credit, you have a couple of choices.
The first option is to fix your own credit. The second option is to hire a law firm that specializes in credit repair. You might think that it is cheaper to do it yourself. However, there is more to the process than meets the eye.
First, there is a great deal of legalese you need to learn when fixing your credit. For instance you will have to learn your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and so on.
If you are not the type of person who enjoys legal research in your free time, or don’t have patience for translating wordy statutes and confusing case laws from around the country, then this might not be for you. But if you are determined enough to plow through the stacks of law books, then you should expect to spend at least a a few Sunday afternoons researching applicable credit laws at your local library.
Assuming you are able to understand the case law and statutes, then you have to move onto the more important part of credit repair. The next step is to write a coherent and compelling dispute letter. You will need to cite the applicable case law and disputed items.
For example, the credit bureaus are trained to be on the lookout for those people trying do it yourself credit repair. They can easily spot the dispute letters written by amateurs. This can be a problem since credit bureaus are infamous for ignoring badly written dispute letters.
Assuming you can draft a decent letter, then comes the easy part. The easy part is to mail the letters. You will need to send them certified, which means you have to physically take them to the post office.
Mailing dispute letters via certified mail takes a lot of time. Unless you are unemployed, this is probably not worth your time. Surely you consider your time valuable.
Disputing bad credit on your own also requires an organized office and a strategic plan. For starters you will need a spreadsheet to track the progress of each disputed item. Plus, you will need to give yourself reminders in the event the bureaus or creditors have allowed the proper investigation period to lapse.
Does this sound overwhelming? Do it yourself credit correction is overwhelming and intimidating especially if you are not highly organized. So, unless you are dedicated to becoming an expert in the federal statutes, the issue is not can you afford credit repair services, but rather can you afford NOT to seek help from an affordable qualified attorney.
Tags: bad credit, bad credit repair, charge offs, Credit, credit repair, credit report repair, debt, Finance, home loans, money, personal finance