Know how to make your credit worse? Hundreds of supposed helpful financial companies do. Consumers today are swapped with promises to erase debts or have their credit managed on a daily basis for a small fee. Instead of healing your credit, these moves often leave new marks. How do you avoid terrible credit repair advice?

Don’t believe credit repair costs a lot. Aside of purchasing your FICO score, the only other investment you need to make to fix up your credit would be to pay down debts owed. This means a lot of credit repair services like credit monitoring do nothing more than what you can do for free yourself. Also, credit reports are free from all three reporting agencies once a year. And despite all the advertising noise, no other score aside of FICO is necessary.

Accounts never need to go into collections. Some debt management or credit consolidation programs claim your original accounts must go unpaid as part of their program requirements. While you might have more negotiating luck if your debts did show past due, debts unpaid is bad repair advice and can result in a collection agency or Debt Management Program (DMP) being reported and is just bad press.

Thinking payment on an old debt erases the mark. When an account becomes so negative a Charge-Off is reported, the mark is likely there to stay there until the statute of limitations expires. Also, paying up means account activity, which legally resets the time clock to lengthen how long the marks stays. One free thing you can do is send a statement to the three reporting agencies explaining why you didn’t pay.

Bankruptcy isn’t a credit repair plan. Claiming bankruptcy in an unfavorable answer and meant for unique personal finance situations. If any credit repair company or even a lawyer convinces you to file for a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy, it is likely because there is something in it for them. Some debts cannot be erased, like student loans, and yet many debts are still under order to be paid off despite any type of bankruptcy filing.