I had significant credit issues when I was in school (mostly due to financial problems my parents were going through), which I've been digging my way out of for years, and now feel good about things. I'm hoping to buy a house, and the mortgage product I'm looking at requires a minimum 740, which I'm still a handful (10-25) points shy of, depending on the agency. As we're a couple months away from pulling the trigger, the lender recommended that I talk to a credit repair service to try to bump me up the last few points I need, and gave me a name and number to call. I'd always been under the impression that these services were bunk: essentially, that there's nothing they can do that I couldn't do, and as most of my bad history (and there's very little of it left on my reports) is legit and I still have a fair amount of student loan debt, there's nothing to challenge. Does anyone have any positive (or negative) experience with one of these services that they can share? Is it worth my time even talking to these people? I hear "credit repair agency" and I imagine a boiler room preying on the desperate, with the state attorney general's office trying to break down the door, but if I'm being overly cynical and there's actually something I can do, it might be worth it.
Don't bother. It sounds like you have an excellent grasp on how to manage your credit. There's a member here, Heather, who is big on recommending that you ask to be added to family members/very trusted friends credit card account(s) as an authorized user just as long as the payment history is flawless to help increase your score. The longer the history the better, as well. This is something you can do for free. It's not fool proof though, it may bump you up lots of points, it may do very little.
I'm with Mindcrime on this one; unless your credit is really in shambles (and it doesn't sound like it is), the DIY is often the best (and clearly the cheapest) route to go. The authorized user option might give you a boost; if you have any credit debt, I would make paying that down a priority to lower your credit utilization ratio. Also, make more than one payment in a month if you can to boost your payments history. If you were farther off from buying your home, I'd even suggest opening up a new credit card, but the immediate impact is a slight ding to your score so in this instance I would just try to lower the amount you owe (if any) and taking Mindcrime's advice regarding the authorized user strategy.
Thanks. I already pay off both of my cards twice a month (I get paid bimonthly and the first thing I do is pay off the current balances on my Amex and Visa), so there's not much more I can do on that front, and for the same family reasons that got me into this problem in the first place, I don't have any family members with sterling credit to get help from. I just have some bad history from a long time ago (90- and 120-day delinquencies on a couple of accounts), and suspect that things are about as good as they're gonna get until those clear off. As of now, my myFICO.com score is _exactly_ the threshold for my "backup plan" mortgage, so if I cross my fingers and don't do anything stupid, maybe I'll just live with it for a year or two and then refinance at a better rate.
And even if it is in shambles, it can still be managed by most people. Just think at $10 a month for e-faxing, you can fax a whole lot of disputes and validation letters... and be in complete control of the process.
Interestingly enough, I spoke with the contact, who basically agreed with everything above: there's little they can offer me in my circumstances, just keep paying down my credit cards to zero. So, I give them bonus points for honesty.
I would say hiring a credit repair company is like anything else, you can pay someone to do taxes or you can do it yourself. Just make sure you get someone who knows what they are doing. I'd recommend sticking with a company that only charges on a pay after deletion basis, that way if they are not any good you don't lose your money Danny
