If you are in need of bad credit repair, a legitimate credit repair service can help you establish or re-establish your creditworthiness. The problem is, there are deceptive credit repair companies that prey on people with bad credit. Title IV of the Consumer Credit Protection Act (Public Law 90-321, 82 Stat. 164) was developed to protect consumers by prohibiting deceptive practices by credit repair organizations.

Here are 5 ways the law protects you against deceptive credit repair organizations:

1. Credit repair companies must present you with a legal contract that "provides prospective buyers of their services with the information necessary to make an informed decision and may not use deceptive advertising". Beware of any credit repair services or organizations that will not answer ALL of your questions fully and completely, does not offer you a credit repair contract, or that make claims that seem too good to be true.

2. Credit repair companies "may not make any statement, counsel, or advise any consumer to make any untrue or misleading statements to any credit reporting agencies". Beware of any credit restoration organization that claims to have the ability to add false items or remove detrimental (yet accurate) items from your credit report as this cannot be done. Legitimate credit repair organizations will create a clear, affordable, and achievable plan that will help you establish creditworthiness, not claim to be able to alter items on your credit report.

3. Credit repair companies "can not make any statement, counsel, or advise any consumer to make any statement where the intended effect of which is to alter the consumer's identification." There are credit repair organizations that may claim to be able to give you a new social security number, allowing you to start over with a brand new credit file. Beware. This is illegal. No organization other than the federal government can provide you with a social security number.

4. Credit repair organizations "may not charge or receive any money or other valuable consideration for the performance of any service before such service is performed." Beware of any credit repair organization that demands full payment of thousands of dollars for services in advance. This is a sure sign of a rip-off.

5. If you accept a credit repair contract from a credit repair organization, you have the right to cancel your contract within three (3) business days from the date you signed it. What this means is if you sign a contract with a credit repair service and want to take your time reading it, you have three days to think it through. Take this time to get any afterthought questions answered by the credit repair organization. You may also take this time to get your contract reviewed by an attorney.

You can read the full text of the law protecting you against deceptive credit repair organizations here.

Fortunately, all credit repair organizations are not scammers. There are legitimate credit repair services that can really help you establish your creditworthiness so you can back on your feet. But who has time to weed through all the scammers to uncover the legitimate credit repair comanies? We do. We search, find, and recommend legitimate credit repair services to those with bad credit so you don't get "got"... you get real credit repair help.

For more, visit our homepage.

dental plans