If you’re a Minnesota resident who’s looking to buy a home, suddenly your credit score seems pretty important. After all, lenders use your credit score to determine whether or not you qualify for a mortgage. It will also dictate the interest rate assigned to your loan. For this reason, a lot of Minnesota home buyers find themselves scrambling to do anything they can to boost their credit scores before applying for financing. One important thing to do is get in touch with a good, credible credit repair company. Unfortunately, these kinds of situations make it easy for bad credit repair companies to take advantage of desperate consumers.
Actually, these fraudsters aren’t really credit repair companies at all. They look like credit repair companies, but they make empty promises to Minnesota consumers and take their money without any results. They may even end up making it impossible for consumers to get approved for the mortgages they so desperately need.
How Minnesota Home Buyers can Spot a Bad Credit Repair Company
Minnesotans who want better credit scores should know that there are good credit repair companies out there. Sadly, though, a few crooked companies make it hard for everyone in the business. A good credit repair professional will help you get errors removed from your credit reports in order to boost your credit score. On the other hand, a bad “credit repair” service will encourage you to dispute every negative item on your credit reports.
It’s important for Minnesota consumers to know that legitimate negative items that have not expired cannot be removed from credit reports. A dodgy credit repair company may be able to make them temporarily disappear. However, valid items will most likely make their way back to your credit reports in time.
Also, bad credit repair companies will almost always ask for payment up front. According to federal law, credit repair companies may not ask for payment from their clients until after the work is finished. Yet, to get around this, a lot of establishments tack on “consultation charges” and “set-up fees.” There are also credit repair companies that offer mostly worthless “money back guarantees.” These guarantees have a catch. They mislead Minnesota consumers because they’re not valid until clients pay for at least six months of services. Which means more money is spent than the amount received.
Minnesotans looking for a good credit repair company should ask four important questions before signing up for services:
- Are there any upfront fees or charges?
- Will the company provide a written contract that clearly states the intended work?
- Does the company work under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to dispute credit report errors and mistakes?
- Are there positive online reviews from former customers?
If you don’t like a credit repair company’s answers, you shouldn’t put your trust in them.
Why Bad Credit Repair Companies are very bad for Minnesota Home Buyers
Here is why bad credit repair companies are very bad for home buyers. Those who need a loan to buy a home are the most likely people to fall for a “too good to be true” offer from these bad credit repair companies. They know this, and often target anyone who has recently applied for a home loan. The problem is that a standard tactic for dishonest companies is to flood the bureaus with dispute letters. They will dispute everything. However, in order to qualify for a loan, you can’t have any open disputes on your credit reports – NONE. This is how a would-be home buyer ends up making their situation worse by trusting the wrong credit repair company.
Luckily, home buyers with errors on their credit reports can now get a FREE credit repair lawyer to get them removed. Or, if you have disputes opened on your credit reports that are keeping your from getting a mortgage, we can help with that too. This service will also cost you a penny out of your pocket.
The Free and Legal way to Get Better Credit
Don’t let errors on your credit reports bring your credit score down. At Minnesota Credit Repair Lawyers, we have been cleaning up credit reports for our clients since 2008 for free. How do we do it? The law allows us to collect our fees and costs from the defendants in any successful law suit action. This is why our clients pay nothing for the work we do.
Let’s start the conversation about what we can do for your credit. Set up your free consultation today by calling Attorney Gary Nitzkin at (888)293-2882 or sending him a message through our contact page. Sue. Settle. Smile.
