Credit Repair via Credit Counseling
You may come to the decision that going through repairing your own credit is not something that you can complete without some outside help. There is no shame in having to locate some help because of your emotional reactions or poor money management ability.
When you explore outside agencies, you will immediately notice that there is a plethora of credit repair companies promising you the moon and the stars. Sure, credit repair in 24 hours sounds great, but you can be sure that it’s not going to happen. This kind of claim can be easily dismissed. Also, the internet will offer to have several agencies contact you. They will (in 5 months) and/ or they will make some possibly nasty phone calls to you. Avoid these offers.
When you first read the claims of some of the agencies, you should be able to tell that the claims are ridiculous, such as: repair credit overnight. While those kinds of claims are fairly obvious, others are not. The internet will have ads for you to have several agencies contact you for help. You provide some information. What you might end up with are some annoying and possible nasty phone calls.
There will still be more research needed before you will be ready to choose your agency. You will need to know what is “must have” information. You should get information from more than one agency. Comparison shopping is definitely in order.
Any agency that you contact should be more than willing to explain how they operate, the services they provide, cost structure, any other available help without knowing any of your personal information.
When you find an agency that responds to your satisfaction during a first contact you can then ask further questions. You’re going to want to find out how the process may affect your credit report, debt management services, additional money management help. You also need to know how the agency will keep you informed about their activities.
A very important bit of information that you need to know will be fees for the agency service. There are agencies that ask for big sums of money to initiate the service in addition to a large monthly fee. If you can’t pay your debts now, how will you pay exorbitant fees? Beware of becoming involved with a process that is extended over a long time because of fees, even if the agency says it is nonprofit.
Your reward for doing all this preliminary searching will be that you will locate an appropriate credit counseling agency to match your needs.
