What About Do - It - Yourself Credit Repair
Question: I’ve read many advertisements for books that will help me clean my own credit report. Why do I need an attorney to help?
Answer: Good question, what most people underestimate is the time and tenacity required to do a thorough job of clearing bad credit. Here are some time estimates that may help you understand what you need to allocate time wise assuming you wish to…
Examine very carefully your capabilities and your schedule before deciding to repair your own credit.
| Example of a Month’s Activities in Restoring Your Credit (for a couple) | |
|---|---|
| Activity | Hours Required |
| Monitored calendar daily to check deadline of each of six credit bureau correspondences | 2 hours |
| Drafted six new original credit bureau query challenges | 4 hours |
| Visited post office six times to mail correspondences by Certified Mail/Return Receipt Req. | 2 hours |
| Carefully analyzed and marked six credit reports to find negatives/deletions/ positive changes | 3 hours |
| Drafted 4 tardy credit bureau response follow-up letters | 2 hours |
| Visited post office 4 times to mail follow’up letters by Certified Mail/Return Receipt Req. | 2 hours |
| Responded to 2 credit bureau stall letters by providing further information/ challenging time loss | 2 hours |
| Visited post office 2 times to mail stall responses by CertifiedMail/Return Receipt Req. | 1 hour |
| Responded to 2 “frivolous or irrelevant” credit bureau rejection of dispute letters | 2 hours |
| Visited post office 2 times to mail “frivolous or irrelevant” claim Certified Mail/Return Receipt Req. | 1 hour |
| Requisitioned six new credit reports at $8.00 each through local credit bureau | 2 hours |
| Contacted ten creditors and made creditor-direct challenges | 8 hours |
| Drafted 20 letters to creditors (one per spouse) to challenge and demand further documentation | 4 hours |
| Visited post office once to mail letters to creditors Certified Mail/Return Receipt Req. | 2 hours |
| Contacted ten creditors by telephone to negotiate deletion of negative listing | 4 hours |
| Carefully analyzed ten responses from creditors with billing histories and promissory agreements | 5 hours |
| Contacted six state, federal, and licensing organizations to locate addresses and forms for complaints | 2 hours |
| Prepared complaints to six state, federal, and licensing organizations | 3 hours |
| Visited post office to mail complaints Certified Mail/Return Receipt Req. | .5 hours |
 |
|
| Total hours per month (first month) | 51.5 hours |
This chart shows liberal estimates of time required to repair your own credit. If you are a single person working on his/her credit alone, you can subtract 25% from the total time required. This time investment will continue on a monthly basis, gradually shrinking as creditors agree to delete their listings. On the average, you can expect the process to take between twelve to eighteen months, unless you have very little negative credit (meaning, one negative item per report.)
Each response to a creditor or a credit bureau must be an original and must pertain specifically to your present situation or you may be red-flagged as a frivolous credit repair troublemaker or be ignored altogether. There are no effective “form letters” or “fill in the blank” responses that yield results. Credit bureau checkers spot form letters easily as the sign of someone attempting to repair their credit. As such, these letters generally earn a swift “frivolous and irrelevant” response.
Dueling with the credit bureaus and credit grantors requires an aggressive and tenacious personality. You must be willing to wade through rejection after rejection until you achieve your desired credit repair.
The credit bureaus will shoot down the majority of your claims and disputes. They will treat you like a disreputable person and a liar. You must take this rejection without becoming discouraged. If you are the kind of person who tires quickly from an emotional struggle, you should seriously consider hiring a professional to repair your credit. If you are the kind of person who becomes angry when dealing with the slow, bureaucratic employees of big bureaucracies, you will not fare well. Patience is an absolute requirement. If you are thick-skinned and have the fortitude to fight the credit bureaus and your creditors for as long as it takes, then you may have the proper disposition to repair your own credit. In the process of repairing your credit, you will have to track and monitor dozens of communications at once. This will require organized, disciplined habits. Every day, you must check up on each of these communications to make sure that the credit bureau or credit grantor hasn’t overextended their time limit. You must spend at least one-half to one hour per day tracking your responses, results, and taking appropriate actions. Remember, you will be dealing with three credit bureaus per person, plus you will be communicating with each credit grantor appearing on each credit report. In most cases, the number of simultaneous communications will exceed twenty or thirty. If you are not a very organized person, you are definitely not in a good position to attempt to repair your own credit. Click Here To Learn More About Credit Repair.
