Questions, answered without hedging

No, and neither can anybody else. The dispute process under FCRA 611 is for information that is inaccurate, incomplete or unverifiable. Accurate, complete and verifiable information stays on the file until it ages off, which for most negative items is seven years and for a Chapter 7 bankruptcy is ten. Any company that tells you otherwise is describing a crime, not a service.

We will not answer that, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Scores are produced by models we do not control from data we do not own, and promising a number is both a lie and, under CROA, an illegal misrepresentation. What we will tell you on the free review is which items appear disputable and on what basis.

The review is free. After that it is $65 per item, invoiced once that item has an outcome in writing. There is nothing up front, no monthly fee and no card kept on file, because charging before the work is done is prohibited under CROA 1679b(b). If an item comes back verified, you are not billed for it.

Yes, and for some people that is the right answer. Your reports are free at annualcreditreport.com, disputing costs nothing but postage, and the whole method is on our do it yourself page with nothing held back. What you are paying us for is that the letters are specific, the sending is provable, the dates are counted and somebody chases on the day it is late. If you will do that yourself, do it yourself.

The agency has 30 days from receiving your dispute to complete its reinvestigation, extending to 45 days if you supply additional relevant information during that period. That clock is theirs and nobody can shorten it. Add about a week at our end for the letters to be written and approved, and the honest answer is roughly five to seven weeks per round.

You have until midnight of the third business day after you sign to cancel, without penalty or obligation and without giving a reason. That is your right under CROA 1679e, and the cancellation form comes with the contract in duplicate. Nothing is sent during those three days, so there is nothing to undo and no invoice.

No. A credit privacy number is sold as a fresh start and is almost always a real Social Security number belonging to somebody else, frequently a child. Using one is identity fraud and you would be the one holding it. Advising you to use one is itself illegal under CROA 1679b(a). If you have already used one, speak to a lawyer today.

Yes, where there is something specifically wrong: a balance that does not match, a date of last activity that is too recent, the same debt reported by two companies at once, or a debt that is not yours. Where the entry is simply accurate we will tell you that on the review rather than sell you a letter about it.

We hold the reports and documents you send, the letters we write, the replies that come back and the dates. You can ask for all of it or ask us to delete it at any time. We do not sell anything to anybody, we run no advertising trackers, and the information page on this site says exactly what is kept and for how long.

No. It is a demonstration of a website design. Plain Terms Credit is not a real company, the telephone number is inside the range reserved for fiction and cannot connect, and the street address is invented. What is real is the law it quotes: the CROA and FCRA sections, the deadlines and the rights are accurate and worth knowing whoever you end up talking to.