There is a type of company that, even though it is regulated by federal legislation and has been helping consumers for decades, is among the most maligned in the country. Even though many thousands of Americans have taken advantage of the services provided by the companies and individuals within the industry, there are still people who are adamant that the whole industry is a scam and anyone who is a part of it is a con-artist.

Reading the title of this article, it's apparent that the industry we're referring to is the credit repair industry. Despite the fact that the oldest credit repair companies have been around for 20 years, that credit repair services have helped people delete millions of negative items from their credit reports, and that the federal government created the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA) in order to regulate the credit repair industry and not to wipe it out, there are "experts" in the media, in major corporations, and in government positions that claim that any company who offers credit repair services is trying to take advantage of you.

There are logical reasons why people believe credit repair is a scam. To start with, there have been far too many "credit repair" clinics that truly were out to dupe people. These clinics promised the world but ended up just taking people's money. Left and right people desperate to improve their credit scores were falling for these con jobs to the extent that the negative attention these clinics received was enough to put a cloud over the entire industry. Instead of spending the time to distinguish the good services from the bad, many people decided that the entire industry was fraudulent.

And once this conclusion is made, it is easy to find supporting evidence because there are some pretty massive institutions that want people to believe that credit repair companies are not to be trusted. And who are these institutions? They are the credit reporting agencies (credit bureaus) who manage your credit report and the lenders who use your credit scores. The credit bureaus do not want people to try to clean up their credit report. It is bad business. The credit bureaus make their money by taking information about you, assembling it in a report, and then selling it. Credit repair causes them to have to do additional work that costs them money. When you are managing hundreds of millions of credit reports, that cost would be extremely high if everyone out there started working to repair their credit. On the other hand, many lenders such as credit card companies don't want you to clean up your credit because when you increase your credit score, they cannot demand as high of interest payments. So, given the size of the entities that would prefer you didn't repair your credit and the fact that their profits are on the line, it is obvious why when people try to justify their concerns about credit repair services, they are able to find plenty of information. Also consider the huge budgets these organizations can dedicate to lobbying lawmakers and planting stories in media outlets and there is little wonder why the amount of anti-credit repair information dwarfs the voice of the pro-credit repair crowd.

When looking at all these factors it is easy to see why so many people believe that there is no such thing as credit repair and why it is so difficult to persuade them otherwise.

Perhaps someday the situation will change. As more and more people are able to successfully increase their credit score with help from credit repair companies there is a broader base of people who know credit repair works to counter the people who believe it does not. But until there are enough success stories to turn the tide, the consumers who do their research, find a reputable credit repair service, and work to fix their credit will be the fortunate few because their credit scores will be that much higher than those of the people who will do nothing.