Surprisingly enough, it is not illegal to have a collection removed. The collection companies, by law, have the right to report or not report as they see fit. Having said that, let’s look at what a collection company’s main concern is.

Their main concern is to collect the debt and get reimbursed for their liability. The reason your debt is a liability is because they are unsure if they will be able to collect the debt. In return, they report the debt on a consumer’s credit file. If the main goal is to collect 100% of the debt, why would they care about anything else?

Now having said all of this, you are legally required to pay your debts. However, if the collection company cannot verify this debt and provide you with full validation of the debt they are claiming, you have the legal right not to pay until this information is validated. You have an option, you can actually negotiate your full payment, and in return they remove the collection account from all of the credit reporting agencies.

Your success may vary depending on the collection company.

If you have any questions regarding this process, please ask a professional credit analyst.

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H & I Credit Solutions

Have you ever called your credit card company or visited the Big 3 reporting agencies websites? Have you noticed that they offer a service that you can pay for to make sure that no one steals your identity or to give you alerts when something has changed on your report? They offer credit monitoring. Credit monitoring from these companies is a loose loose situation because these are the same companies that report the information to the credit bureaus.

Companies report inaccurate credit information to credit bureaus all the time and then they have the nerve to offer credit monitoring services.

Are you curious yet?

That’s just like paying your car insurance company every month, and they pay someone to set you up to get into a wreck. Just so you will use the insurance and justify raising your rates. Is that fair?

Of course not, why would you pay the same people to protect your report when they are the ones assisting in the inaccurate information that is on your report?

The only way you can make sure that your report is correct, is monitor it yourself and make corrections to your report yourself. You can monitor your credit report using several different credit monitoring services. One service that is really good for credit monitoring is USAA.com. USAA has a great credit monitoring service that is super cheap and provides automatic updates when anything changes. Best of all with their credit monitoring service they provide all three credit scores. This is a huge benefit with their credit monitoring service.

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H & I Credit Solutions

I believed for a long time that paying an account in collections would improve your credit report score until I was hit with a reality check. Believe it or not paying a collection account doesn’t improve your credit score one bit. It doesn’t even improve the integrity of your credit report file.

Why?

A collection account, as we all know, is bad! Let’s look at a collection account from a lenders point of view. Let’s say as an owner of a small car lot, you have a client that is looking to finance a car, you pull their report and you see 9 collection accounts. But at second glance, you notice that 4 of them are paid!
As a lender how would you think if would affect your decision on an active collection vs. a paid collection when extending a loan of 25 thousand dollars to your potential client.

The ugly truth is, a collection is a collection. If you are looking to loan 25 thousand dollars (or more) to someone that has 9 collection accounts, you may request a higher down payment at a higher interest rate. Or, you may not even be able to approve the loan.

Do not get discouraged, there is help.

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H & I Credit Solutions

Credit repair is very detailed, very precise, and takes a lot of patience. You can repair your credit yourself with the correct knowledge and understanding of Federal Law. Many consumers feel that they need to turn to a credit repair company to tackle the inaccuracies in their credit report. This is a great place to start, because credit repair companies understand the laws governing the credit industry. There are companies out there that claim to be Law Firms, they have helped a lot of consumers with inaccuracies on their credit report.

There are a few things that consumers must be mindful of before making the decision of hiring a “Law Firm”.

• Do they charge a set up fee
• Did the lawyers go to school and pass the bar exam to repair credit
• How long will it take
• How much money is this really going to cost me

Many consumers believe that if they chose a law firm to handle the dreadful process of credit repair, they will have the security of the process done right. I mean, they are lawyers right, they must know the law.

This leads me into the next question. If you went to college to the best school, received a PHD in dentistry, spent over 50 thousand dollars for school, would you get a job to work the front desk at a dentist office?

Hiring a law firm to repair credit is the same concept. Lawyers do not spend thousands of dollars, years of going to school, pass the State BAR exam, & start their own practice just so they can repair credit. In my opinion they add the service of credit repair knowing that consumers have the blind opinion that they will do a better job. A law firm’s credit repair charges may range from $2,000.00 to $5,000.00.

Many Law Firms outsource the credit repair process to companies that specialize in the credit repair process. One specific Law Firm claims that they only repair credit reports. While this business is a much needed industry, it worries me that consumers are not getting what they pay for. This specific Law Firm offers pilot programs when consumers call and question the integrity of their credit report file.

If there is a special tactic in order to challenge an item on a consumers credit report, then why should a consumer have to call the credit repair company and complain or start questioning the process in order for the company to take action? Be very careful when choosing a credit repair law firm, you must understand that y0ur credit report is not handled by actual lawyers.

Empower – Educate – Take Action

H & I Credit Solutions