Credit Repair Companies

Companies claiming the ability to improve, repair or fix people’s credit are generally regarded as scams or poor value propositions. In fact, there is very little you can pay a so-called credit repair company to do that you cannot easily do yourself for free.

Some credit repair companies are shady, promising things they’re not legally able to provide. Others may overcharge for minimal work that actually makes for the perfect DIY project. Instead of searching for the best credit repair company, your top priorities if you have bad credit should be saving as much as possible, making sure your credit and loan accounts are in good standing and never missing a single monthly minimum payment.

There is no quick fix for credit problems. You just need to prove yourself to be a dependable borrower.

How Does Credit Repair Work?

The credit repair process involves disputing inaccurate and outdated negative information on your credit reports as well as adding positive information to diminish the impact of past mistakes. Lenders and creditors use the information on your credit report to determine whether you will be a risky borrower. Building a positive credit history can increase your approval odds for credit cards and loans and help you get lower interest rates on these products than you would with bad credit.

You can repair your credit yourself or seek assistance from a third-party company. Credit repair companies are often expensive and may provide little to no results. However, they can potentially save you some time and effort, compared to going through the process alone.

Do-it-yourself credit repair is typically the best option since it’s much cheaper than hiring a company to do it for you, plus you can learn valuable information about managing your own credit. You also avoid the risk of falling for a credit repair scam. We’ll walk you through the best ways to repair your credit below.

Best Ways to Repair Your Credit

The best way to repair your credit is to first identify what is the cause of your bad credit, reviewing your credit report for any inaccurate information, and then infusing your credit report with positive information. These are the three main components of legitimate credit building strategies. We’ll break them down in detail below.

Step 1: Stop the Bleeding

You can’t help your credit get better without first identifying the source of its pain. It’s like a doctor making a diagnosis prior to setting a treatment plan. So, the first thing you need to do is check the status of all your loans and lines of credit. You should ask yourself the following questions to see where you stand:

• Am I current on my monthly minimum payments?
• If I am not current on my payments, how long will it take to catch up?
• How much do I have saved for payments?
• Do I foresee any future payment problems?

Answering these questions will give you a roadmap to current status. Getting current means that your issuer will start reporting you as having “Paid On Time” during the course of their normal monthly reporting to the major credit bureaus.

When you do catch up on your payments and pay on time moving forward, this will ensure your credit stops slipping in the wrong direction and enable you to start seeing credit improvement. But as long as you are behind on payments, your credit will continue dropping, like a fresh wound losing blood.

Step 2: Review Your Credit Reports & Dispute Errors

One of the first steps you should take in the credit improvement process is reviewing your credit reports in search of inaccurate information that might be wrongly dragging down your score. We recommend pulling all three of your major credit reports from AnnualCreditReport.com at once. This will enable you to compare how accounts are classified in each file as well as more thoroughly check for the source of your credit woes.

The main things you’re looking for are:

1. Inaccurately labeled missed payments
2. Incorrect amounts owed
3. Duplicate accounts
4. Fraudulent accounts

If you find evidence of any such errors, you should report them to both your credit card issuer and the credit bureaus. You can learn more about this process in our guide on how to fix credit report errors.

Step 3: Add Positive Information to Your Credit Reports

The only way to overcome negative information on your credit reports is to devalue it over time with positive information. Accurate records cannot be removed and may remain for a period of 7 - 10 years, depending on the infraction.

The easiest way to consistently add positive information to your credit files is to have an open credit card that is in good standing. Every month that you either make no purchases or pay your bill in full, a positive data point will be added to your report. Over time, a consistent track record of recently responsible financial behavior may be enough to begin outweighing the mistakes you’re hopefully leaving in the past.

If you have bad credit, you’ll likely need to open a secured credit card. This is far from a bad thing, though. While secured cards require a security deposit, the amount of which will serve as your credit line, they also offer effectively guaranteed approval, low fees and the comfort of knowing it is impossible to spend more than you can afford to repay.

Step 4: Seek Out Assistance

It may be worth reaching out to an accredited credit counseling company or non-profit, as they will be able to provide you with guidance throughout the credit building process at little to no cost. Just be careful of the credit repair companies that make promises of things they may not be able to do. You can learn more about credit repair companies and some of the best and worst options below.

For more information on credit building, check out our guide on how to improve your credit.

Best Credit Repair Companies

Don’t get us wrong, we do not recommend ever paying for supposed credit score improvement, as the most effective strategies are all free and easily accessible to the general public. There are, however, a few individual companies that actually have pretty good reputations. But that, of course, doesn’t necessarily change the fact that you still will be paying for a service that you can get for free.

The following table highlights a sampling of some of the best credit repair companies, along with their grades from the Better Business Bureau, their primary services, and fees.

Do Credit Repair Companies Work?

Legitimate credit repair companies can help dispute inaccurate information on your credit report, but it’s not guaranteed to work, let alone improve your credit score. They also can’t remove accurate negative information that may be dragging down your score.

Additionally, if you pay for credit repair, you run the risk of getting scammed by some of the worst credit repair companies. We’ll go into that below.

Worst Credit Repair Companies

The credit repair industry preys on the desperation of consumers who have made a few financial mistakes and are now saddled with costly bad credit. Credit “repair” services take advantage of this vulnerable group by telling desperate consumers what they want to hear and charging excessive fees for promised results that will probably never come. We list some of the worst companies below.

Regulators and law enforcement have cracked down on shady credit repair organizations in the past. For example, the Federal Trade Commission and 24 state agencies levied a coordinated bust against 33 credit repair firms in 2008. Also, more recently in 2025, the FTC shut down the credit-repair scheme called “The Credit Game” and refunded $3.5 million to more than 9,000 victims. Despite these wins, countless predatory credit improvement firms are still in operation today.

How to Spot a Credit Repair Scam

Credit repair scams may seem difficult to identify, especially if the emotion of your situation is affecting the way you look at a given company. That’s why it is so important to stay calm and approach things strategically, almost in a clinical manner.

There are a number of specific warning signs to watch out for, such a requiring an upfront payment, which violates the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA). You can see some more common signs below.

Common Signs to Watch Out For

• Requiring upfront payment.
• Not providing a written contract.
• Not allowing you to cancel your contract.
• Claiming the ability to “remove” accurate items from your credit reports or “clean the slate.”
• Touting proprietary methods and extraordinary results.
• Guaranteeing the ability to raise your credit score.
• Having a lot of bad reviews.

It’s also a good idea to check out the Federal Trade Commission’s website for tips and information about avoiding credit repair scams.

How to Report a Credit Repair Scam

Credit Repair Statistics

Oftentimes, warning people so ardently about a given activity or purchase simply results in eye-rolling. That’s where hard numbers come in. The statistics below will hopefully put the above information in context and better understand the risks inherent in hiring a credit repair service.

• 0: Number of credit repair company customers who get a good deal
• $6.6B: Annual revenue generated by the credit repair industry
• ~50,000: Number of jobs supported by the credit repair industry
• 44,000: Number of credit repair companies in operation
• 2,565: Number of consumer complaints regarding credit repair companies filed with the CFPB from September 2023 to August 2025
• 1,126: Number of complaints about credit repair companies where the main issue was “didn't provide services promised” or “confusing or misleading advertising or marketing” from September 2023 to August 2025
• 33: Credit repair organizations included in “Operation Clean Sweep” – a crackdown by the FTC and 24 state agencies in 2008
• 9,224: Number of consumers who were affected by the credit repair scheme called “The Credit Game’ before the FTC shut it down in 2025”

Bottom Line

There are many credit repair scams that will take your money and provide you with little or no assistance. Even legitimate credit repair services can be expensive and may take a while before showing you any results.

Fortunately, do-it-yourself credit repair is not complicated, and it’s generally not worth paying someone else to do something you can do yourself for free. By regularly checking your credit reports or signing up for a 24/7 credit monitoring service and practicing good financial habits, like paying your bills on time and keeping your credit utilization low, you can repair your credit on your own.

Learn more about how to improve your credit.