Good credit helps with everything from getting a mortgage to securing the lowest interest rates on credit cards and personal loans. Your credit history may even affect your chances of landing a job or finding the perfect apartment. If your credit reports have a few blemishes, you have several options, including working with a credit repair company like Lexington Law. Find out how Lexington Law stacks up against other companies in this industry.
What Is Credit Repair?
Credit repair is the process of improving your credit profile. Lenders use credit scores to determine if you qualify for credit cards, mortgages and other credit products, so it’s important to have a good score. If you have a history of late payments, charge-offs, foreclosures or unpaid debts, there’s a good chance your scores are below where they need to be.
Lexington Law and other credit repair companies work to have negative information removed from your reports, which may increase your scores enough to help you qualify for a loan or credit card. You may even be able to qualify for lower auto insurance rates or move into a nicer apartment once you improve your scores.
In most cases, it’s perfectly acceptable to work with a third-party company to repair your credit, with one major exception. If you live in Georgia, it’s illegal for a company to offer to remove negative information from your reports if that information is accurate. Georgia law also prohibits businesses from advising you to stop paying your creditors or ignore communications from collection agencies.
Removing Inaccurate Information
About 20% of all consumers have at least one inaccurate item on their credit reports. A credit-repair agency may be able to help you remove such items, also improving your scores. These are some of the most common credit reporting errors:
- Accounts marked as late when you’ve always paid on time
- Inaccurate balances
- Closed accounts showing as open
- Other people’s information mixed in with your reports
- Incorrect contact information
- Debts listed more than once
- Accounts listed under multiple creditors
Lexington Law Services
Lexington Law has a team of attorneys and paralegals available to help you improve your credit profile. The directing attorney, John C. Heath, has extensive experience helping consumers with divorce, custody, debt collection and other legal matters.
As of June 2023, the company offers three credit-repair packages:
- Concord Standard
- Concord Premier
- Premier Plus
Concord Standard
Concord Standard is the basic plan. If you sign up, Lexington Law will submit disputes to the credit bureaus on your behalf. This plan also includes creditor interventions, which means staff members will write to your creditors and ask them to remove any inaccurate information that’s hurting your credit profile. Concord Standard also includes DebtHandler, ID theft insurance and Inquiry Assist.
DebtHandler is a custom tool that allows you to choose a financial goal and find out what steps you should follow to achieve it. For example, you can choose to save money or increase your credit score. ID theft insurance helps cover losses associated with identity theft, which is when someone steals your personal or financial information and uses it for their benefit. Inquiry Assist gives you access to form letters you can send to creditors if you want to challenge any of the inquiries on your credit reports.
Concord Premier
Concord Premier includes everything in the Concord Standard package, plus report watch alerts, which let you know any time a change is made to one of your credit reports. This includes hard inquiries, new accounts, late payments and other entries.
Premier Plus
Premier Plus includes everything in the Concord Premier package, along with access to additional services to help you improve your financial situation:
- Junk mail reducer: This makes it easy to opt out of credit offers and put your name and email address on do-not-contact lists.
- Personal finance manager: The PFM tool allows you to create a budget and track your spending.
- Lost wallet protection: This tool allows you to enter the information from the cards in your wallet. If someone steals your wallet, Lexington Law may be able to help you cancel or replace the cards it contains.
- TransUnion FICO score: Track your progress by getting regular updates on your TransUnion FICO score.
Pros Of Using Lexington Law
One of the major advantages of Lexington Law is that it’s managed by a team of attorneys who know exactly what they can and can’t do on your behalf. Another advantage of using Lexington Law instead of another credit-repair company is that it’s been in business since 2004. If you decide to work with the firm, you won’t have to worry that you’re handing over your personal information to a fly-by-night company that’s going to close suddenly.
Cons Of Using Lexington Law
The main disadvantage of working with the company is that it can’t do anything you can’t do on your own. If you’re busy and don’t have time to dispute inaccurate information, then it might be worth paying for a credit-repair package. Otherwise, you can send disputes and manage your finances on your own.
Lexington Law has also been sued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over claims that it violated telemarketing rules and promised customers results it couldn’t deliver. The case is still in progress, but the CFPB has asked the judge to order Lexington Law and its partners to pay affected consumers $2.75 billion. CFPB officials are also seeking millions of dollars in fines and other monetary penalties.
The Bottom Line
Lexington Law has a better track record than other credit repair companies, but unless you’re really pressed for time, you can save money by writing your own dispute letters. You can also use free tools to set up a budget, track your expenses and stay on top of your finances, so it may not be worth paying for a credit-repair package.
You might also be interested in: Accredited Debt Relief: Is it a Good Choice for Debt Relief?
