Repairing credit history - is this your responsibility or someone else’s?
You may have come across a plethora of intriguing advertisements with promises for fixing your credit score. They claim to free you of your responsibilities, to remove your entire bad credit history including liens, bankruptcies, judgments, bad loans etc. and clean your credit file for good.
"Before borrowing money from a friend, decide which you need most.”
- American Proverb |
Do not listen to this garbage!
The official watchdog for consumer protection, the Federal Trade Commission, warns against paying any attention to such advertisements. The companies publishing these ads take their hopeful customers for a ride by making tall claims and then in effect extorting hundreds or even thousands of dollars in fees.
Unfortunately, they do nothing to clean your credit background and finally your money disappears leaving your credit status exactly as it was, or much worse!
By exercising a little care and common sense, scams for repairing credit history can be easily identified.
Some of the key indicators are that you’ll be asked to pay before any results are rendered. (Statutory provisions under the Credit Repair Organizations Act stipulate that a credit repair company can charge you only after rendering the promised service.)
Scammers will try to prevent you from directly contacting a credit reporting company. It will advise you do to certain things that are not legal, like creating a new credit identity. Such things amount to fraud for which you may stand liable for prosecution.
Rest assured, whatever little a legitimate credit repair company is legally able to help you with, you can do yourself, incurring very little or no cost at all.
Now, let’s be real and get clear about something. The negative state of your credit is the result of your own actions or inaction and you know where the fault lies. It lies mostly with your past spending behavior, right?
Do you suppose someone else can change your spending habits for you? It would be erroneous to suppose they can. In fact, there is no one other than yourself who can do anything about improving your creditworthiness. And without a doubt, repairing credit history is always going to be an uphill task.
But you can do it! You need to embark upon a feasible debt repayment plan and make conscious efforts to pay cash for anything you wish to purchase. A check on your spending is warranted. YOU are THE person to put this check in place. You must also realize that debt has a vicious grip you, and on your self esteem, and in order to break the grip you will have to make a determined effort. Decide once and for all that you will no longer be a slave to the lender. Hold you head up high and become resolute in changing your finances.
These actions of determination and persistence are critical in providing a firm foundation for repairing credit history and improving your financial life.
|
"No man's credit is as good as his money."
- Edgar Watson Howe |
|