Best Credit Repair Companies

Hiring an expert to dispute all your credit report errors is quicker and more convenient than doing it yourself. Credit restoration specialists have the experience and expertise to navigate some of the most complicated credit situations.

Credit Saint offers customer assistance 24/7 by email and online chat through its member portal. It offers three packages to challenge credit bureaus in your favor. Unlike other credit repair companies, Credit Saint focuses its efforts on the three credit bureaus rather than individual creditors. Each package varies in its level of aggressiveness and includes score analysis, creditor interventions and score tracking.

Prices start at the time of publishing at $79.99 per month, with a $99 initial work fee for the lowest tier of credit restoration. Its free credit repair consultation helps you know which level is best for your financial situation. Plus, you can receive a full refund after 90 days if you don’t see negative items removed from your credit.

Sky Blue Credit coaches are on call to assist you with questions you have about the credit and credit repair process. Its education center is full of helpful resources and tutorials to help you know your credit better. It has a special mortgage preparation service for customers who want to focus their credit repair efforts on applying for a mortgage.

Sky Blue Credit charges $79 upfront and $79 per month at the time of publishing. Couples (marriage not required) can sign up together for only $40 more for setup and per month. It uses a 35-day dispute cycle, which is 10 days faster than many other credit repair companies.

With The Credit People you can choose between a monthly package, which costs $19 to set up and $79 per month, or you can opt for the flat-rate plan, which includes six months of service for $419 and no setup fees ($74 savings) at the time of publishing. The flat-fee pricing comes with a full six-month satisfaction guarantee.

As soon as you sign up, The Credit People send you your credit report. Within the first 60 days, you will see which actions have been taken to improve your credit. Many customers see a credit score improvement of 50 to 100 points.

The Credit Pros offers more services to its customers than the other companies we reviewed. Some packages come with ID theft restoration and insurance, along with unlimited dispute letters and goodwill letters. You will have someone working on your case three to five business days after you sign up.

At the time of publishing, plans start at $69 per month with a $119 first work fee. However, this price is for its Money Management package, which does not include any credit bureau disputes. If you are looking for a company to work on your behalf to repair your credit, you will need the Prosperity or Success Plus plan, which cost $119 and $149 a month, respectively.

Ovation has the most discounts of all the credit repair companies we reviewed. It gives customers 65 and over a 10% discount after the first work fee is paid. Additionally, military-connected customers can receive a 10% discount, and couples get a 20% discount. If you are currently working with another credit repair company and switch to Ovation, you will receive a $50 credit.

Ovation offers two credit repair plans: Essentials and Essentials Plus. At the time of publishing, both plans require an $89 first work fee. At $79 per month, the Essentials plan is appropriate for most standard credit resolution issues. The Essentials Plus plan is a little pricier, at $109 per month, but it’s designed to remove more complicated negative items more quickly. Essentials Plus includes unlimited challenge validation letters, credit goodwill letters and credit monitoring.

Credit repair is the process of disputing negative marks or inaccurate information on credit reports to get them removed. Sometimes called credit restoration, it involves challenging negative claims on your credit reports with the credit reporting bureaus (Experian, TransUnion and Equifax).

Doing credit repair yourself is a lot of legwork, especially if you’re struggling with identity theft or have multiple marks to dispute. We suggest hiring a credit repair company if you have multiple and varied disputes.

The most common derogatory marks targeted during credit repair include:

• Fraudulent accounts
• Delinquent accounts
• Accounts in collections
• Missing accounts
• Data management errors
• Incorrect personal information
• Judgments
• Expired debts
• Unverified or invalidated debts
• Foreclosure
• Repossessions
• Late payments
• Hard inquiries
• Charge-offs
• Bankruptcy

For many people, credit repair is essential to access financial services such as loans and credit cards. With an improved score, you increase your chances of qualifying for loans — and for better interest rates.

A credit repair company can help your credit score, but not all companies are the same. It is essential to work with legitimate companies that improve your credit each month.

Consider these steps to find the best credit repair company for you:

Many credit repair companies work with you to remove or appeal questionable and problematic items on your credit history. Sometimes inaccurate marks on your credit report are from credit bureau errors or faulty creditor reports. Common errors that a credit repair company looks for include incorrect inquiries and duplicate, inaccurate or missing accounts.

Removing just a single negative item on your credit report can increase your credit score by more than 100 points. Note, though, that it can take anywhere from 30 days to one year to repair your credit and see your score increase.

Credit repair strategies include sending goodwill adjustments to your creditor for late payments and cease-and-desist letters to debt collectors. In general, credit repair companies will follow this process:

1. Pull your credit reports from all three credit reporting bureaus
2. Analyze your credit reports for possible errors or mistakes
3. Dispute errors on your behalf
4. Confirm removal of negative marks if the credit reporting company finds the report is inaccurate

Credit bureaus must send a notice of any corrections made to your report. Sometimes, a deleted dispute can reappear on your credit reports if the lender proves its claim is valid. If you find a derogatory mark reinserted on your credit reports, you can dispute it again.

Note that you can repair your own credit by disputing errors, but many people like having a team of professionals work with them to fix their credit.

Federal regulation for credit repair

Federal laws make it illegal for credit repair companies to make false claims. The credit repair industry is also regulated by state governments. Most states require credit repair agencies to be bonded and insured. Some states also require them to have a licensed attorney on staff.

If you believe a credit reporting agency or one of your creditors has violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), you should submit a consumer report to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The ConsumerAffairs Research Team vetted 15 credit repair companies rated by more than 2,465 customers. To narrow it down, we considered only companies that dispute claims from all three credit reporting bureaus. We also excluded agencies that don’t offer free consultations for new clients.

We then used a proprietary algorithm that takes into account the recency and length of reviews, among other information, to rank the top credit repair companies this year. To narrow it down again, we excluded companies with an overall satisfaction rating below 3.5.

Our research team also analyzed 5-star review data from top-rated companies to find the best qualities of each.