We have found many advertisements on television, in newspapers, and on the Internet promising to correct a bad credit file for a fee. Such companies promise to erase negative information - even a bankruptcy - from your credit report.
Our research indicates that it is possible to remove anything from a consumer credit report (even if its accurate). However the likelihood of permanent removal depends on the nature of the trade line and the creditor reporting it. This makes the credit repair business somewhat treacherous since there is no way to guarantee results. It is easy to see why there is dissatisfaction amongst customers of credit repair agencies. It is like selling a car that sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't.
We investigated to see why this happens and found it to be relatively simple: Credit bureaus are repositories of information. Creditors (subscribers) report information and credit reporting bureaus compile it, store it and then sell it to others for a fee. This point is critical because it clarifies the role of the credit reporting bureaus: they simply report what they're told. Successfully removing something can be therefore short lived when the creditor re-reports it, adding it back to the credit bureau's file history.
What derogatory trade lines appear to be permanently removable from the credit report are those no longer being reported. The credit reports contain a column labeled "Last Reported". If the date is old (more than 1 year) it is probably not being reported to the credit bureau anymore. If it has been recently reported to the credit bureau, it is being updated regularly.
We found that if a creditor is frequently reporting the derogatory trade line to the credit bureau, the likelihood of permanent removal is slim. If the item is no longer being reported to the credit bureau, there seems to be a high likelihood that the derogatory trade line will remain off the credit bureau records once deleted.
Obsolete information can be removed. Obsolete information is information contained in the credit file that is older than allowed.
