Money & Tax

Credit Repair: what to ask, what it costs, and one number to call

Updated June 2026 · By the Mobile Phonebook editorial team · How we research pricing

Quick answer: Call to ask about fixing your credit reports. But know this going in: everything a credit repair company can legally do, you can do yourself for free, and federal law says they can't charge you until the work is done. One free call to (800) 555-0199 connects you with a credit repair specialist after you enter your ZIP.

One number for credit repair (800) 555-0199

Enter your ZIP when prompted · Availability varies by area · Calls are free to you; the independent provider who answers may pay us for the connection. How we make money.

This page is general information, not financial, tax or insurance advice. Confirm specifics for your situation with the professional you speak with.

Credit repair has a dirty open secret. The entire legal toolkit, disputing inaccurate items with the bureaus, asking creditors to verify debts, requesting goodwill removals, is available to you directly, for free, with no special access required. Federal law gives you the right to dispute anything on your report, and the bureaus must investigate within 30 days. You can pull your reports from all three bureaus free every week at annualcreditreport.com. What repair companies sell is convenience and persistence: they'll send the letters so you don't have to. Some do that competently. Plenty just blast generic disputes at everything and collect monthly fees while you wait.

Congress saw enough abuse here to pass a law specifically about this industry: the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA). It bans charging you before services are performed, requires a written contract with a three-day right to cancel, and makes it illegal to promise removal of accurate information or to suggest you create a 'new credit identity.' Those protections are your screening tool. A company that violates any of them on the first call has told you everything you need to know.

What should you have ready before you call?

Your actual credit reports from all three bureaus, pulled free at annualcreditreport.com. Don't let a stranger describe your own reports to you
A highlighted list of items you believe are wrong, with whatever proof you have (statements, payoff letters, police or FTC identity theft reports)
Items that are accurate but negative, listed separately, because no one can lawfully remove those and anyone who promises to is your cue to hang up
Dates on old negative items. Anything near the seven-year mark may fall off on its own soon
Your goal and timeline: mortgage application in six months is a different conversation than general cleanup
The company's name searched against CFPB complaints and your state attorney general before you dial

What should you ask before you sign? The 8-question script

This is your script. Nobody expects you to be an expert. Sound like someone who asks the right questions, and anyone good will answer all of these without flinching.

What exactly will you do for me that I can't do myself for free?

An honest company answers plainly: convenience, organized follow-up, and experience with dispute escalation. A dishonest one implies secret methods or special bureau relationships. There are none.

When do you charge me, and for what completed work?

CROA prohibits charging before services are performed. Setup fees billed before any disputes go out are a legal problem and a character test the company just failed.

Will I get a written contract with the three-day cancellation right and a full description of services?

Both are required by federal law. A company that hesitates on its basic legal obligations won't be careful with your file either.

Which specific items on my report do you think are disputable, and on what grounds?

Real practitioners dispute specific inaccuracies with reasons. Mills dispute everything generically, which bureaus increasingly flag and which can get items verified and locked in.

What happens when an item is verified as accurate?

The truthful answer: it stays, and they should say so. Anyone promising removal of accurate verified items is describing either fraud or a temporary deletion that comes back.

What results do you guarantee, and what's the refund policy in writing?

Outcome guarantees are themselves a red flag (nobody controls bureau decisions), but a money-back policy tied to defined deliverables shows the company has skin in the game.

How will you report progress, and can I see every dispute letter you send on my behalf?

Letters go out in your name. You're entitled to see them, and reviewing them tells you instantly whether you bought tailored work or a mail-merge.

How long do you expect this to take for my file, and when would you tell me to stop paying?

Disputes resolve in 30 to 45 day cycles. If most of your issues are addressable, that's a few cycles, not an open-ended subscription. A company with no off-ramp plans to bill you forever.

How much does credit repair cost in 2026?

Price everything against free, because free is the honest baseline here. Typical 2026 figures:

Cost item	National range	What moves the price
Your credit reports (all 3 bureaus)	$0	Free every week at annualcreditreport.com, the official site. Never pay for your own reports
Disputing errors yourself	$0	Online, by mail, or by phone with each bureau. The CFPB publishes free template letters
Credit freeze at all 3 bureaus	$0	Free by federal law. The strongest identity-theft protection there is
Credit repair monthly subscription	$79 – $149/mo	Typical total spend runs $500 – $1,500 over 6 – 12 months. Watch for 'first work' fees of $19 – $200
Pay-per-deletion services	$25 – $150 per removed item	Sounds fair, but the incentive is to dispute accurate items. Scrutinize what counts as a 'deletion'
Nonprofit credit counseling session	$0 – $50	Better fit if your real problem is debt load rather than report errors
FCRA attorney for serious violations	$0 upfront in many cases	If a bureau won't fix a real error after proper disputes, attorneys often take FCRA cases on contingency because the law awards fees

These are typical 2026 U.S. ranges for planning purposes; your market and the specifics of your situation can land outside them. Always get the cost for your situation confirmed on the call and in writing. Ranges compiled June 2026 from national cost data and industry sources (methodology).

When you don't need to call anyone

We get paid when you call, so take this section as seriously as we do. Sometimes the honest answer is that you can handle it yourself or fix it cheaper first:

Your reports have errors and you have 30 spare minutes. Pull all three reports free at annualcreditreport.com and dispute online; the bureaus must investigate within about 30 days. That's the entire core service, free.
Your negative items are accurate. No company can lawfully remove them, and your money is better spent paying balances down, which actually raises your score.
You're a victim of identity theft. An FTC report at identitytheft.gov plus a credit freeze gets fraudulent accounts blocked under federal rules, faster and free.
Old items are about to age off anyway. Most negatives vanish automatically at seven years; paying someone to 'remove' something with months left is paying for the calendar.
Your problem is too much debt, not wrong data. A nonprofit credit counselor addresses the cause; repair letters address symptoms.

How credit repair really works, and what it can't do

The legitimate mechanism is the Fair Credit Reporting Act dispute. You (or a company acting for you) challenge an item on your report; the bureau has roughly 30 days to investigate with the company that furnished the data; if the item can't be verified as accurate, it must be removed or corrected. This works wonderfully on genuine errors: accounts that aren't yours, wrong balances, debts past the seven-year reporting window, identity theft fallout. By some estimates a meaningful share of consumers have at least one error worth disputing, so checking is always worth your time.

What no one can do, at any price, is permanently remove accurate, timely negative information. A real late payment, a real charge-off, a real bankruptcy: if the furnisher verifies it, it stays. Some repair shops play volume games, disputing everything repeatedly and hoping items fall off when a furnisher misses a deadline. Items removed that way often reappear once verified, after you've paid months of fees for the illusion of progress. The FTC and CFPB have sued repair operations over exactly this pattern, including some very large names.

Pricing usually takes one of two shapes. Monthly subscription: typically $79 to $149 a month, often with a 'first work' or setup fee, running as long as you stay enrolled, which is the incentive problem in a nutshell. Pay per deletion: a fee for each item removed, which sounds fairer but invites disputing accurate items to manufacture deletions. CROA's timing rule applies either way: no charging in advance of services actually performed. Many subscription shops thread this needle by billing 'in arrears' for the prior month, which is legal if the work happened; verify that it did.

Meanwhile the things that actually move your score most are free and boring: pay every account on time from today forward, get card balances under 30% (ideally under 10%) of limits, don't close old cards, and let time do its work. Negative marks age off automatically, seven years for most items, ten for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. No letter, paid or free, speeds that clock for accurate information.

Red flags & good signs

Red flags

Any fee charged before work is performed. That's a direct CROA violation, not a gray area
Promises to remove accurate negative items like real late payments or a genuine bankruptcy. Illegal to promise, impossible to deliver permanently
Any mention of a 'new credit identity,' CPN, or using an EIN in place of your Social Security number. That's fraud with your name on the paperwork
Advice to dispute every item on your report, including accounts you know are accurate
No written contract, or pressure to waive your three-day cancellation right
Guarantees of a specific score increase by a specific date. Nobody controls that
They discourage you from contacting the bureaus or checking annualcreditreport.com yourself

Good signs

They tell you unprompted what you could do yourself for free, then make the case for paying anyway
Written contract, itemized services, three-day cancellation right, billing only after work is done
Disputes target specific inaccurate items with documented reasons, and you get copies of every letter
They set an expected end date and tell you when continuing to pay stops making sense
They flag when your real issue is debt or identity theft and point you to a counselor or an FTC identity theft report instead

Frequently asked questions

Can credit repair companies do anything I can't do myself?

Legally, no. The dispute rights they use belong to you under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and the bureaus give your own disputes the same legal weight. What you're buying is labor and persistence: drafting letters, tracking 30-day deadlines, escalating to furnishers. For a complicated file that has value; for a couple of errors it's paying $500+ for stamps and follow-up you could do in an evening.

What does CROA actually protect me from?

The Credit Repair Organizations Act bans advance fees (no charging until services are performed), requires a written contract describing the services and total cost, gives you three business days to cancel, and makes it illegal for a company to misrepresent what it can do, including promising removal of accurate information. It also lets you sue for violations. Companies that break CROA on the first phone call are self-identifying.

How long do negative items stay on my credit report?

Most negatives (late payments, charge-offs, collections, repossessions) report for seven years from the original delinquency. Chapter 7 bankruptcy reports for ten years; Chapter 13 typically seven. Hard inquiries fall off after two years and barely matter past a few months. No one can shorten these clocks for accurate information; they expire on their own.

Will disputing items hurt my credit score?

Disputing itself doesn't lower your score. The risk is different: mass-disputing accurate items wastes the cycle, can get disputes flagged as frivolous, and a few lenders (notably some mortgage underwriters) want open disputes resolved before closing. Dispute what's actually wrong, with documentation, and there's no downside.

What is a CPN, and why do credit repair companies mention them?

A 'credit privacy number' is pitched as a fresh nine-digit number to rebuild credit under. In practice CPNs are usually stolen or fabricated Social Security numbers, often belonging to children. Using one on a credit application is federal fraud, and people have gone to prison for it. Any company that brings up CPNs or a 'new credit file' should be reported, not hired.

What actually raises a credit score fastest?

Payment history and utilization dominate the math. Bring every account current and keep it that way; get reported card balances under 30% of limits, ideally under 10% (paying before the statement closes helps); don't close your oldest cards; and add positive history if your file is thin, through a secured card or by being added as an authorized user on a well-managed account. Months of that beats years of dispute letters on an accurate file.

A collection on my report is real but I paid it. Can it be removed?

Sometimes. Ask the collector for a 'pay for delete' in writing before paying, or send a goodwill letter after. Neither is guaranteed, but both are free to try. Also worth knowing: newer scoring models ignore paid collections entirely, and medical collections under $500 no longer appear on reports at all.

The bureau verified an item I can prove is wrong. Now what?

Escalate. Dispute directly with the furnisher (the lender or collector reporting it), attach your proof, and file a complaint with the CFPB, which forces a tracked response. If it still won't budge, talk to a consumer attorney about an FCRA claim; the statute awards attorney fees, so many take these cases at no upfront cost, and bureaus settle real errors quickly once a lawyer is involved.

Related services

Ready? You know what to ask now.

One call, your ZIP code, and you're talking to a credit repair specialist.

(800) 555-0199

Calls are free to you; the independent provider who answers may pay us for the connection. How we make money.