The guy at this company explains to me that in order for collection agencies, (the bulk of my report), to keep these accounts on my credit report they have to prove 7 things to verify my identity or they have to remove them. Once they are removed, my credit score will rise. He then said that if I pay off or settle with creditors they will put it on my report as PAID and that will stay on for 7 years and it will hurt my report more than help. What should I do? Should I let this company try to remove this items for $1,000?
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No....unless you like to flush money down the toilet.
If you’ve had recent defaults, charge-offs, late pays, then you need to understand that your credit will be affected for at least two years after these events happened and that they'll be on your credit report for 7 years. You can't pay to have accurate negative info removed. It has to age off naturally.
There is, however, one trick that "may" help to remove negatives from your credit files. You don't have to pay anyone to do this.
Per the Fair Credit Reporting Act you have the right to request written validation of negative entries on your credit files. Per this law they must validate the item(s) within 30 days or remove them from your credit file. Mail a letter via certified mail with return receipt to all three credit bureaus (Equifax, TransUnion & Experian). Include a photocopy of your driver's license and social security card...If you don't include these, they may write back requesting them, which would slow the process down by several weeks. For each negative item, write a separate letter and simply include the phrase:
Per the Fair Credit Reporting Act, I am requesting written validation of this item.
Do this one at a time for each negative entry....DO NOT request validation for all items at one time..Wait for your first response to come back...then request the next validation. If you send all letters at once you'll get flagged.
There is NO guarantee that this will work....It may give some decent results. The worst that can happen is that all negative items come back verified.
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Do not pay the $1000. If the collection agencies, etc., cannot verify/prove what must be verified or proven, then you can dispute the entries yourself, for free, and have them removed. If it is not possible for you to have them removed, then it would not be possible for his company to have them removed.
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Deal with the credit agencies directly. You should be able to dispute claims through sites like FreeCreditReport.com
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Credit repair companies are scams. They cannot remove legitimate items from your credit report.
See what the FTC has to say about credit repair: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer...
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SCAM!!!
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send me $500.00 and i will do the same work that they would. trust me, he said.