With the power of the internet and the vast amount of previously unreachable information that it is now at our fingertips, Do It Yourself projects have become the latest rage. And of course, in many cases, why not? Why pay someone to do something that you can do yourself for free or at least at cost? In general, we definitely agree, however, there should be reasonable limits to the things that you would try yourself.
Of course, you can apply DIY to things such as home improvement projects or interior design, but would you try to fix your car engine? Represent yourself in court? Or operate on yourself? Of course not! Because more than likely you would make the problem worse! There are some things that you are just better off leaving in the hands of the professionals, and credit repair should be one of those things!
Reasons why credit repair is best left to the professionals
You need to have a thorough knowledge of credit repair laws
We at USA Credit Repair have experts in credit reporting laws like those found in the FCRA and debt collection practices laws like those found in the FDCPA. Yes, of course, you can go out and research and study these documents and many others related to credit reporting and consumer protection, but it would take you years to understand the laws fully and be able to master their application. So just like an attorney, the difference between a credit repair professional and you is education and experience, but that education and experience is vital in terms of the difference between being successful and unsuccessful in credit repair.
There is a lot of misinformation on the internet
We have been in the credit repair business for nearly two decades and the one thing that we would say about it is that it is always changing and evolving. What worked 10 years ago, didn’t work 5 years ago and what worked 5 years ago, doesn’t work today. So while you may come across a do it yourself credit repair guide online that seems perfectly legitimate, the odds are very good that most, if not all of the information that is being provided is now outdated.
Most credit repair advice found online offers the same “tried and true” methods that people not in the credit repair industry believe still work, such as “ask them if they will delete the account if you pay it”, or “just send a letter and if they don’t respond in 30 days it will have to be removed from your report”. The reality of the current credit repair industry is that these kind of tactics are no longer effective. The only way to truly be able to remove negative items from your reports is by using expertise in credit reporting laws.
Doing it yourself can make it harder for credit repair professionals to be successful if you are not
Think of credit repair in terms of a court case, where your credit repair professional is building a case for you against your creditors and the credit bureaus much like an attorney would. When we start that process, it is all about learning information and the specific details of your accounts and how they are being reported to the credit bureaus. Our expertise over years and years and thousands and thousands of individual cases allows us to know how to best proceed with certain accounts. The key to this, however, is being able to start the process with as wide of a net as possible, leaving open as many possible arguments as we can as we study the finer details.
However, if you work on your credit yourself and contact your creditors and tell them something like “I missed the payment because I was on vacation”, or “I didn’t realize the payment amount had increased”, those notations then become part of your record with the creditor and it makes it much more difficult for our professionals to change the narrative. The creditor already heard “your story”, so then we no longer have room to create “our story”, the one that may have removed the negative item from your credit report.
You could make things worse with your creditors
Without the proper training and expertise in credit reporting laws, it is very likely that you could miss key details and specifics that appear on your credit report. By reaching out to the creditors or the credit bureaus without doing your full due diligence, you could risk a creditor reporting more negative information on an account than they are already reporting. You could also risk a creditor whom you owe a balance to resuming collection activity that had stalled now that they know that you are looking into your credit, or even worse, you could restart the statute of limitations on your debt by making certain contacts with them. It is always best that you seek out a professional to give the proper advice, especially when it comes to unpaid debts, as sometimes you may be better off not disputing an item at all!
If you want to work with a team of people you can trust, contact USA Credit Repair today. We would love to discuss your needs and how we can help you legitimately repair your credit.