Beware Of Credit-Score Fixers And Credit-Repair Shops

Beware of those who promise that they can take your score to the promised land overnight. Beware of those who say they can turn lead (your troubled credit report) into gold. That’s the message that Kayce Ataiyero, a Chicago Tribune reporter, is peddling. Of course she’s right. In an effort to understand these companies — and their promises — Ataiyero contacted more than a half-dozen credit-repair companies. From the Tribune:I asked Vance if he thought his service amounted to defrauding lenders. He said he was just participating in a system that has long set up consumers to fail by pushing credit on them at an early age, only to penalize them for years for the poor financial decisions they made. He said people come to him when they realize that it would take them 15 years to boost their credit scores to a level his company can reach in mere months.”When you turn 18 in college, they bombard you with credit cards,” he said. “They put you on a plank and let you jump off. All we do is give people an opportunity when they get a little bit older and wiser to fix their credit.”Vance put it this way: “Basically, there’s a loophole and we’re taking advantage of the loophole. It’s the American way.”Vance was an anomaly. Very few wanted to comment or return calls for the story. I imagine that, if people had commented, the message would have been similar to Vance’s, though.