Avoiding Credit Repair Scams (cont.)
Contributed by Rachel s Pickett
What Are The Warning Signs of Credit Repair Scams?
There are a couple of tell tale signs that you should be able to recognize in an instant. When working with a credit repair company releasing some of your personal information may be neccessary. The credit repair company should only need enough information to obtain a copy of your credit report. The information that is needed by a business to get a copy of your credit report is your name, address, date of birth, and sometimes your social security number.
As always, with your personal information, make sure you know why it is being used, and how the credit repair agency protects your information from outside vendors. Usually this information can be found in the credit repair company privacy policy. Reading the privacy policy will help you understand what the information is used for and how it is protected.
If a credit repair agency is asking for your social security number, credit card numbers, bank accounts, or any other personal information they cannot verify, do not give it to them. Most likely this is a credit report scam. All of this information should be available to them once they have obtained a copy of your credit report.
Also, make sure that your total amount of debt matches the amount the credit repair agency says you owe. If they do not match it is possible that you or the agency have a bad credit report that contains errors, or in a worse case scenario the company will say you have more debt than you have in order to charge you more for credit repair.
