Rapid Rescoring
Having your credit repaired in a matter of hours is called rapid rescoring. Rapid rescoring services came about because too many people were losing loan or paying too much interest because of credit bureau inaccuracies.
However before you decide to go for it here is a primer in what these rapid rescoring services can and can’t do for you –
• They can’t deal with your directly as a consumer – Rapid rescoring is typically offered by smaller credit reporting agencies that serve as a middleman between the bureaus and lending professionals. These agencies are independent subsidiaries of credit bureaus that provide especial services for loan and mortgage brokers such as merged or “three in one†credit reports. To benefit from rapid rescoring you need to be working with a loan officer or mortgage broker who subscribes to an agency that offers the service.
• They can help you only if you have proof – Rapid rescoring services aren’t designed to help people who have yet to start the credit repair. You have to be prepared with documents such as a letter from the creditor acknowledging that your account was reported as late when you were in fact on time. That is why it is so important to get everything in writing when you are trying to fix your credit. If you don’t have proof but the creditor has acknowledged the error (perhaps by phone) some rapid rescorers can get the proof for you. However that can also make the process less rapid as it can take the rescorers days or weeks to get that information for you.
• They can help you get errors fixed but they can’t remove true negative items—Again you need proof that a mistake was made and not just your word. Also if a credit bureau is already investigating your complaint about an error the item typically can’t be included in a rescoring process either.
• The rapid rescorer can’t guarantee to help your score – in fact you still run the risk of having a negative item removed (as described in Part 2) and then have FICO scores make a dent in your credit because it was an old debt that was brought to a debtor’s attention. Another problem is that your credit could be cleaned up enough to have you switched to a different FICO group. Remember that the scoring formula is always trying to compare your credit worthiness to a group of people who have similar credit histories. If you have been lumped in with a group of bankrupt types, for years you might find that your score falls when some of those negative items are removed and your are bumped to the next group of folks with better credit.
In essence there are no guarantees with rapid rescoring so if you use it as a method of fast or emergency credit repair you are taking your chances!
Rapid rescoring was originally developed to benefit lending professionals who shared consumer’s frustration when erroneous information continued to be reported by the bureaus. This information often lowered credit scores and resulted in worse terms and rates for consumers as well as less business for the lenders who found that people could not practically manage to borrow from them.
The need to cut through the bureaucracy and speed up the process of credit repair was born at small independent credit reporting agencies that used small specialized staff to run the rapid rescoring service.
These rescorers have special relationships with credit bureaus that allow their requests to be processed quickly. The rescoring service sends proof of errors to special departments at the credit bureaus and the departments contact the creditors (usually electronically.) If the creditor agrees that an error was made, the bureaus quickly update your credit report. After that happens a new credit score can be calculated in very little time (often in about 72 hours.)
The cost for this service is usually somewhere between fifty and one hundred dollars for each “trade line†(the credit bureau word for account) that is corrected by the bureau although some agencies will do the rescoring for no extra charge as part of a package of services provided to lending professionals.
The availability of rapid rescoring doesn’t change the fact that you need to be proactive and vigilante when it comes to watching your credit scores. Months before applying or any loan you need to order copies of your reports and challenge any inaccuracies. You also need to keep your correspondence with the credit bureaus about these errors. This is wise because of the paper trail that is required should you happen to need the services of a reputable rapid rescoring expert.
If you are already dealing with a loan officer or mortgage broker ask if he or she has access to a rapid rescoring service. If your lending expert has never hear d of rapid rescoring – and it is a recent enough innovation that some professional lenders haven’t – ask him or her to contact the agency that provides her company with credit reports to see if it is available.
Some of the online mortgage brokers such as Quicken Loan also use rapid rescorers to help their customers clean up their credit reports so they can get a decent interest rate.
What if you are not in the market for a mortgage but otherwise don’t qualify for rapid rescoring but still want quick results? You will not likely be able to qualify for a rescoring service (that typically shows results within a 72 hour period) but you are likely to notice a big change in your score in thirty to sixty days if you adopt some of the suggestions in the next chapter.