Want to Fix Credit

How much does bad credit cost me?

As you consider retaining Lexington Law you would do well to look at the price you are already paying for bad credit. If the cost of the service can produce much greater savings, you would be wise to make the investment. Below are just a few examples of the cost of bad credit.

Automobile Financing

If you are making payments on a car, you are probably paying between $5,000 and $9,000 more just for having bad credit. This added interest shows up every month in a higher payment. Take a look.

$20,000 car paid over 5 years:
CREDIT STATUS	RATE	PAYMENT	COST OF CREDIT
Excellent	10%	$424.94	$0.00
Mildly Damaged	14%	$465.37	$2,425.80
Damaged	20%	$529.88	$6,296.40

Home Mortgage

Bad credit in auto financing can really hurt, but it is nothing compared to the cost of bad credit when a home is involved. A typical home can cost between $50,000 and $130,000 more in interest if you are buying the home with bad credit.

$200,000 home paid over 30 years:
CREDIT STATUS	RATE	PAYMENT	COST OF CREDIT
Excellent	6%	$1200	$0.00
Mildly Damaged	8%	$1,467	$96,120
Damaged	11%	$1,904	$253,440

Credit Cards

Most if not all prime credit cards are entirely out of reach to consumers with bad credit. And the few credit cards that are available to them (known as "sub-prime" cards) typically require exorbitant setup fees or recurring monthly fees, offer very low credit lines, often require cash deposits, and in most cases do not even report your positive credit activity to the credit bureaus.

Can bad credit be deleted?

The simple fact is that questionable credit listings are deleted from credit reports by the thousands each and every day. The proof is very compelling: The efforts of Lexington Law Firm have successfully resulted in many hundreds of thousands of questionable credit listings being deleted.

Ultimately, as Lexington client, you too may see for yourself that your good credit rating can be restored. Indeed, you can restore a questionable credit profile in much less time than seven years. It's not necessarily easy or foolproof, but the right to challenge and improve your credit is yours.

Are items such as bankruptcies and foreclosures impossible to remove?

To see how many questionable bankruptcies we removed during the last quarter please refer to our stats.

There is not one type of questionable listing that cannot be removed from a credit report if it is inaccurate, untimely, or unverifiable. While negative items such as bankruptcy or unpaid debts are certainly more difficult to remove from the credit report, this has more to do with the operational systems of the credit bureaus than with the severity of the bad credit item. For example, judgments and tax liens are severely negative listings yet have been considerably easier to remove.

Do negative items remain listed for at least 7 years?

When you speak with certain creditors, their typically under-educated staff may tell you all manner of such pseudo-legal nonsense. The law demands that negative listings appear on your credit report for no longer than seven years. The credit grantor or the credit bureau can choose to delete the negative credit listing whenever they see fit.

Does paying off past-due accounts neutralize their negative status?

No. Paid, once-delinquent, debts still show up as severe negatives. It's important to note that credit reports don't just show your current credit situation, but they also show what your credit situation has been in the past. Therefore, past delinquency, collection activity or a charged off listing does a great deal of damage to the credit score even if it was paid off. This is one of the great ironies of the credit reporting system; paying your past-due debts does little to immediately increase your credit score and may actually make the score worse.

Can credit repair companies be trusted?

Many "credit repair" companies claim to remove negative credit with the flick of a wrist. Their advertisements make bold assertions and money-back guarantees: "Bankruptcy, tax liens, judgments... no problem!! One hundred percent guaranteed!! Credit report 100% cleared in 30 days!!" Can they really make such sweeping guarantees?

While some credit repair companies are outright frauds, others are not frauds and they use the dispute process to obtain impressive results. In fact, they assist in having thousands of inaccurate, obsolete or unverifiable credit listings deleted every day.

Unfortunately, it is risky to trust anyone to help you restore your credit. It is estimated that credit repair companies have bilked Americans out of more than fifty million dollars. The majority of credit repair companies were started by entrepreneurs with a penchant for marketing. Consumers have flocked to these "credit doctors" only to discover that their advertisements proved far more impressive than their results. Hiring a credit repair company is like playing Russian roulette. Many of them are effective and legitimate, but it is difficult to tell a rip-off from the real article.

Working within the credit bureau maze requires substantial background knowledge - knowledge that takes credit repair companies years to learn. In fact, U.S. District Court Judge J. Wexler entered the following legal opinion in the Federal Supplement. "Since allowing third parties to assist consumers will likely lead to the expedited correction of credit reports, it will further the purposes of the [Fair Credit Reporting] Act."

Are you really a law firm?

Lexington Law is a group of associated independent consumer advocacy law firms focusing on credit-related issues. Each firm is owned and supervised by its respective directing attorney. Each one is a state-of-the-art law firm offering top-tier customer service. You may wonder how you can get the services of a law firm for such a low monthly rate. To provide phenomenal service at an extremely affordable price, work is completed by a team of attorneys, paralegals and legal assistants using advanced computer and web systems. And yet, when you retain a Lexington Law firm you complete a legal retainer agreement which affords you all the protections and assurances of an attorney/client relationship.

Will deleted items just reappear on the credit report?

On occasion, a negative listing that was recently deleted may eventually be verified by the creditor. The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires that the credit bureau inform you before the re-report a previously deleted listing. The FCRA also makes it more difficult for credit bureaus to re-report listings. Because of these factors, it is fairly rare for listings to come back on once they've been deleted.

If a questionable credit item is re-reported, it is a simple matter to challenge the listing again at a future time to press for permanent deletion.