The best credit repair services won’t set unrealistic expectations, but can take much of the hassle out of fixing your credit score. None of these companies perform magic, but the best credit repair services certainly can help a great deal in improving your credit score.

There are hundreds of credit repair services advertising today, but the Federal Trade Commission considers most of them to be scams. Companies that claim they can help you erase bad credit, or offer guarantees to raise your credit score, are probably scams.

According to the FTC, “No one can legally remove accurate and timely negative information from a credit report.” Many of these companies will advise you to dispute all negative entries on your credit report. In most cases, this is illegal, just as following illegal advice is.

The best credit repair services won’t ask you to pay in order to get your credit reports. Under federal law, anyone can get their credit report from each of the three credit-reporting agencies (TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax) once every twelve months for free.

Much of what these companies do are things you can do yourself, however they can often help inform those who may not be aware of all their options. Taking on some of these tasks can help lower fees, or you can chose to do the whole thing yourself.

It is important to differentiate between credit repair services and “debt consolidators”. A debt consolidator does not try to fix your credit, but rather works to help you bring your outstanding debt under control.

They accomplish this by contacting your all of your creditors, and negotiating a ‘settlement’ agreement on your behalf. This will be a small fraction of the actual outstanding debt. Then they add these amounts into a single sum. Based on your budget and ability to pay, you send a single amount each month to the company, who breaks it up and then sends a portion to each creditor.

Even the best credit repair services can’t help those who aren’t willing to help themselves. They won’t offer you the same sort of “bailout” that erases bad debt like a bankruptcy filing does. What they can accomplish, however is to help set you on the right path towards improving your credit score, which in turn will improve your financial future.