Credit Help Services by Credit Clean
If You Have Credit Problems
What Are Your Credit Options? The way we see it you have the following credit options when you have bad credit:
So Why Would You Choose To File Bankruptcy? In our opinion ... which consists of ten years working with Credit Reports & Credit Bureaus ... bankruptcy is the best choice to make if you cannot pay your debts whether they are old or new. You need a way to erase the board and start all over FRESH. We recommend bankruptcy only because cleaning up the bankruptcy after it has been filed is quick, easy and painless. Bankruptcy is meant to give you a fresh start and it does if you clean up the reports after you have filed. The question is can you qualify. A person who files bankruptcy and doesn't clean up the mess could be waiting for ten years to get credit scores high enough to buy anything. When the reports are cleaned up you can usually purchase cars and homes within eight months or less. Your credit scores become incredibly high considering you filed bankruptcy. Most people who file bankruptcy and clean up the reports are scoring between 650 and 700. Low end "A" credit begins at 620. Some of the employees who work at Credit Clean have credit scores in the 735 to 750 and they have never filed for bankruptcy or had a late payment so you can see this option is great if you can qualify to file for bankruptcy. The best part of the bankruptcy process is that your creditors cannot contact you once you have filed, they cannot add any more negative information to your accounts, they cannot file a judgment, lien or anything else that makes the account more negative, in fact everything stops dead when you file for bankruptcy. Plus you are protected by the bankruptcy court against anything happening after the court discharges your debts. What ever a creditor can file against you a bankruptcy filing can stop it dead.
MORE INFORMATION ON BANKRUPTCY
PROBLEM ONE: Even though your credit reports are able to be cleaned up you will find it hardest to obtain a credit card again. There are some companies who will offer credit cards to you right after bankruptcy (even some you filed in bankruptcy) but the limits will be low and you will have to make a year of good payments before they increase those limits.
UPSIDE IS: You have no more debt so you probably won't need a credit card for a year. The important things like homes and cars are available after bankruptcy. 2
In our opinion this is an option that needs further investigation. For one thing most CCCS companies work for your creditors. They are non profit because your creditors are making donations to keep these types of companies in business. The only goal a CCCS companies has it to get as much money as possible from you to pay to your creditors. Some CCCS are not funded by the creditors; however, if they are not funded by your creditors then you will end up paying money to them since they charge service fees. Now you are paying someone to help you pay back your creditors? Again we suggest strongly that you investigate the company since there are a lot of these types businesses that are undesirable. In the best case scenario a CCCS will set you up on a re payment plan with your creditors. By the way not all your creditors will agree to be paid smaller payments so they will not be part of the pay back arrangement. Once you have a certain amount to pay to the CCCS each month, an amount with go to each individual creditor. If you miss a payment you are doomed. Even if you don't miss a payment you are doomed. Below are the problems that exist when using this type of resolution method: PROBLEM ONE: Your creditors are still going to show you as a late payment each and every month, even if the CCCS gets your payments there on time by the creditors standard. WHY, because you are not making full payments or minimum payments and your creditors will continue to report you as paying late or if the account has been charged off or put in collection status you will remain in the same status.
UPSIDE IS: We can't think of anything. PROBLEM TWO: The creditors that are working with the CCCS are going to report to the credit bureaus something like this: CONSUMER IN CREDIT COUNSELING SERVICE or MANAGED BY CREDIT SERVICE. Each of these notations on your accounts, even if the account is not showing late payments, is considered negative and to most creditors you may be trying to get credit with this is as bad as filing a bankruptcy. In other words you are paying money to your creditors, the creditors are still showing you as a bad payer and you now have notations that affect your credit in the same way a bankruptcy would with no protection from the bankruptcy court. Your creditors could still file a judgment against you especially those creditors who would not agree to being paid less money under the CCCS program.
UPSIDE IS: We can't think of anything. PROBLEM THREE: Who is going to protect you while you are in this kind of re payment? If you are going to go out on the limb and use a company like this please take some time and do some thinking. You would be better off in most cases to file a chapter 13 which is the same thing ONLY your creditors have to accept the money the court sets which a lot of times is only one third of the amount owed and you can pay the creditors through the trustee over a 3 to 5 years period of time. Just do your research before using this kind of company. If they are non profit you may want to see who is funding them ... if it's your creditors I'm not sure they are really wanting to see you do good. What do you think?
UPSIDE IS: We can't think of anything. 3
Okay, let's say you had a bad period in life and money was tight but now you have money and you can settle your debts. One thing that most people do not know is THAT WHEN YOU PAY OFF A DEBT IT DOES NOT GET REMOVED FROM YOUR CREDIT REPORT. Just because you pay off a debt that went bad doesn't make it disappear. Sometimes a creditor will agree to remove a debt that has been paid, EVEN THEN you had better get it in writing because to be honest creditors and collection agencies lie. Many clients who have worked with Credit Clean have been told that the creditor or collection agency would remove the account if they paid it ... NOT. The account is still there two and three years later, when the creditor is confronted they deny ever having said the account would be removed. Now, let's say half of the creditors agree to take off the accounts if you pay them and let's say half of them do remove the accounts. You still have those who would not remove the account and an account showing as a collection PAID is a bad as an account showing as a collection UNPAID. The rating is the same, the negative impact on your credit is the same and the only difference is you have less money because you paid the debt off. So even though you are doing what should be the honest and right thing to do, you are not getting met even half way by your creditors with the right thing they should do and that is to give you some sort of "E" for effort. Below are the problems that exist when using this type of resolution method: PROBLEM ONE: You have paid off all your bad debts but your credit is just as bad as it was before you paid off the accounts. Why would anyone want to pay off anything? It's better to have money in your pocket and have bad credit then to have no money in your pocket and have bad credit.
UPSIDE IS: You don't owe money to anyone? PROBLEM TWO: Many collection agencies who collect or buy debts from your creditors do not follow the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and they do not follow the Fair Credit Reporting Act, both acts are implemented to protect you and if they are not following them how are you going to be protected? Most people do not know what they rights are and as such end up at the mercy of these collection agencies. We have compiled a list of the most blatant abusers COLLECTION AGENCY LIST. While ignoring the acts above they report new dates of last activity, new dates the account was opened etc. If you pay them they then show that the account was closed on a new date which is the date the clock starts for the item to disappear from your credit reports. If they change the date, you could see that account on your reports for another seven years from the date you paid it. This is not what is supposed to happen but it does and the only way to correct it is to challenge it. You should really check with a knowledgeable person before paying off any debt. Credit Clean MEDIATES debts but if the creditor is not going to give you some benefit for paying off the debt then we would not advise a settlement. We leave this decision up to you in either case.
UPSIDE IS: Half your debt is gone? PROBLEM THREE: This is the most frustrating of all the problems when people make attempts to pay off their past bad credit debts. The client settles the account for example fifty cents on the dollar (which by the way the amount of your debt has been raised to 50 or 75 percent of what you really owe). Creditor or collection agency is paid and then five months down the road you get a collection notice from another company stating you owe the other 50 percent of the debt. This by far the most evil thing that can be done and it is done often. Again we suggest you really think about this option before committing to anything with a past creditor or a collection agency. MORE INFORMATION ABOUT COLLECTION AGENCIES
UPSIDE IS: We can't think of anything. 4
Cleaning up credit reports is a multifaceted job. A company who does this work right will research all your accounts after doing a full evaluation of your credit reports. Experience working with creditors and credit bureaus is absolutely necessary in order for you to get the best results possible. If you have inexperienced people working on your credit files then what ever damage done is sometimes irreversible. By the time you find out the company is not helping you it may be too late to do anything else. Be careful who you hire to help you with credit repair and restoration. Remember they will have all your personal information, everything you have will be known by that company, hiring someone to do this kind of work that is not bonded is a high risk situation to say the least. Credit Clean's process of cleaning up your reports in the most thorough way of getting to the root of your credit problems. When the problems are removed from your reports the reports get better and when the reports get better the scores improve. When you credit scores are good so are your interest rates so it is a chain reaction that helps you become creditworthy. We know that most people did not purposely stop paying their creditors, in fact in most cases it was not the fault of the client and was totally out of their control. There are those of you who have credit reports with information that does not belong to you and those of you who have lost jobs, gone through divorce, had an illness or one of the many other reasons for ending up as a bad credit risk. There are many laws to protect you and we know them all. There are many angles to take to get bad accounts removed from your credit reports or made less negative. The main goal at Credit Clean is to get as much bad information removed as possible and if at the end there are still a few things that need worked on we find the best way to resolve these accounts so that your credit will be back on track.
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT CREDIT REPAIR Even with Credit Repair there are some down sides below is a list of them: PROBLEM ONE: Not every single bad account is always removed sometimes we can only make it less of a credit problem.
UPSIDE IS: Anything done to improve your credit reports also improves your credit scores especially when judgments, liens, collections and charged off accounts ... to name a few ARE removed. The higher your credit scores are the more apt you are to get approved for all credit and with good interest rates. PROBLEM TWO: It normally takes six months on average to clean up and repair credit reports. Some people need less time some need more but time is a necessary evil with credit repair work.
UPSIDE: Six months is better than seven years which is how long negative credit can remain on a credit report ... the seven years does not start from the date you opened the account either. In closing: The best way to help yourself when you have credit problems is to find out as much information as you can about credit reports, credit bureaus and creditors. If you do not have the time or inclination to do this then you need to hire someone to do it for you. Credit Clean offers both Self Help and Full Service Credit Repair Programs. What ever you decide ... one step that can't be left out is cleaning up your credit reports. Return To Previous Page Page Last Updated
Friday June 29, 2007 | 
