If you find yourself with less than stellar credit, you may consider using a credit repair service. There are both advantages and disadvantages to using this type of service. Before you do anything, ask yourself why you want this service. Is your credit bad and you don’t know how to go about repairing it? Do you not have the time necessary to invest in repairing your own credit? Did you know that you could fix bad credit on your own? It just takes a little bit of time and effort on your part.

If you want to try to fix your credit yourself, just request a copy of your credit report from one of the major bureaus: Experian, Equifax, or TransUnion. Once you get it, read everything on it and if you think something is unfair or untrue, you will need to write a letter stating so. If something shows up as bad, but is valid, you can write the lender to see if something can be worked out to pay your debt in order to have the bad credit mark removed from your credit history. This is the same thing a credit repair service will do for you.

A credit report monitoring service like Triple Advantage by freecreditreport.com will monitor your credit report for you and let you know if there is any suspicious activity or any changes to your credit report.
The legitimate credit repair services will tell you what they can and can’t do as well as give you their fees and clearly explain what you will get for that fee. Unfortunately, there are disreputable credit repair services you need to avoid. They may attempt to confuse you with legal jargon you don’t understand. They may not fully disclose your legal rights. They may ask you to not contact a bureau directly (which you can). They may even suggest you create a new credit identity by using an Employer Identification Number (EIN) rather than your social security number. They may suggest you remove all bad credit, whether it is valid or not, which if you do, you will be committing fraud.

Keep three things in mind when looking at credit repair companies:

1. Make sure they only want to remove inaccurate information from your credit report.
2. Don’t pay a big price. Check around with several credit repair companies to see what a valid fee is. What they are doing is relatively easy and shouldn’t cost you an arm and a leg.
3. The credit agency cannot dispute any claims in your name unless they have a notarized power of attorney to do so.

Remember that is you are serious about repairing your credit and have a little time, this is something you can do yourself!