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Credit Assistance Network is one of the smaller credit repair agencies in the business, a status that comes with pros and cons. While the company is more likely to give you individualized attention than a major competitor might be, you’ll also have to deal with fewer resources and outdated technologies.
What gets our attention most about Credit Assistance Network, though, is its fee structure which, unlike most competitors, operates on a per-deletion basis instead of a monthly basis. For anyone with a long list of credit reporting errors to fix, this could lead to exorbitant fees you can’t afford to pay, leaving you in an even worse position than where you began.
Pros Explained
- Free consultation: Your initial credit review with Credit Assistance Network is free of charge.
- Personalized service: Since Credit Assistance Network is a small company, you’ll get more one-on-one attention than you might with a larger firm.
- Money-back guarantee: If Credit Assistance Network is unable to remove any incorrect items from your credit report within 90 days, they’ll refund your initial fee.
- Offers educational materials: The company’s blog is filled with guides related to credit and financial health.
Cons Explained
- High service fees: After a one-time $179 setup fee, you’ll be charged $50 per deletion per bureau. That adds up to $150 for every item that appears on all three of your credit reports.
- No monitoring: Credit Assistance Network doesn’t offer or include monitoring in its service fees.
- Outdated website: The Credit Assistance Network website provides a poor user experience and makes it difficult to locate information. Most of the information hasn’t been updated since 2013.
- Makes questionable claims: We found several examples of questionable and contradictory information across the Credit Assistance Network website. For example, the company claims to hold an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, but it’s actually a C+.
- Few customer reviews: Credit Assistance Network has few to no verified customer testimonials on any of the major review websites.
Types of Services
Credit Assistance Network offers a single credit repair service with no clearly defined plans or packages. Since the company is smaller than most competitors, it has the advantage of being able to tailor services to the individual. This means the services you receive may vary depending on your personal credit history. However, Credit Assistance Network highlights two core services that it offers by default to all credit repair customers.
Credit Disputes
Most people seek out a credit repair company for assistance disputing items on their credit report. Credit Assistance Network handles these disputes on your behalf, first combing through your credit reports to identify potential errors and then drafting and sending letters directly to the credit bureaus. The company will then follow up on any disputes that are rejected to pursue alternative courses of action.
Creditor Interventions
A more unique service to Credit Assistance Network is its inclusion of creditor interventions. This encompasses a range of actions that require interacting directly with creditors. The company may send requests for debt validation, which forces the creditor to come up with proof that you legally owe the debt they are reporting. If your credit is in otherwise good shape and you’ve been making all your recent payments on time, you may benefit more from a goodwill letter, which simply asks the creditor to remove the derogatory mark out of good nature.
If Credit Assistance Network or any credit repair company suggests sending debt validation letters on your behalf, proceed with caution. Most collections agencies view this as a sign that you intend to avoid the debt and it may trigger a more aggressive effort to collect payment.
Optional Add-Ons
Depending on what Credit Assistance Network finds on your credit reports, they may suggest additional services to help further improve your credit. There’s no official pricing structure for these additional services, so it’s up to the company to decide how many they’ll include in your base fees before imposing a surcharge. Make sure to ask about additional fees before agreeing to services not included in your initial contract.
Settlement Offer Assistance
Credit repair can’t be used to erase valid debts that you actually owe. If a delinquent account is bringing down your credit score, the best course of action is to pay off the balance as quickly as possible. Since it’s in the creditor’s best interest to collect as much of their money as possible, some will accept an offer for less than the outstanding balance if you agree to pay a lump sum. Credit Assistance Network can help draft settlement offer letters to creditors if you choose to pursue this option.
Identity Theft Resolution
Victims of identity theft face a long road to repair their credit by eliminating traces of accounts opened by criminals in their name. Credit Assistance Network can tailor its services to help anyone struggling to restore their credit to its prior status after their identity has been stolen.
While you can easily hire a professional service to help restore your credit from identity theft, it’s entirely possible to do it on your own without paying lofty fees. Check out the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) identity theft guide for a clear, step-by-step plan to report identity theft and clean up your credit.
Security Clearance Assistance
If your job requires you to have a security clearance, your credit is one of the many items looked at on your application. While bad credit won’t necessarily bar you from getting clearance, it can certainly hurt your case. Credit Assistance Network offers a specific service to those hoping to polish their credit before applying for a security clearance.
Customer Service
Credit Assistance Network primarily interacts with customers by phone and email. Representatives are available to answer phones from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. EST every weekday. This is a selling point for working professionals with a nine-to-five job; many competitors shut down phone lines right at 5:00 p.m. every day, which creates a major headache anytime you need to get in touch with your case manager.
Sadly, the Credit Assistance Network website doesn’t live up to the same standard. Much of the site’s information hasn’t been updated since 2013 or earlier, and the design appears at least as old. We frequently struggled to locate key information such as pricing, and some details were entirely incorrect. For example, while Credit Assistance Network advertises an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, its actual rating is a much less respectable C+.
Company Reputation
We frequently use third-party rating sites as a source of customer review data when analyzing credit repair companies. Unfortunately, Credit Assistance Network doesn’t have much of an online footprint, likely due to its small customer base. The company has no complaints registered with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or the Better Business Bureau, although it does receive a less-than-optimal rating of C+ from the latter. Due to a lack of data on popular review platforms such as Google, we were unable to locate reliable customer testimonials.
Contract Duration
Unlike the vast majority of credit repair companies, Credit Assistance Network doesn’t charge fees on a monthly basis. With no contracts to speak of, it’s easy to cancel services anytime. However, since Credit Assistance Network bills customers based on the number of successful disputes, you may still be responsible for fees related to any items that are removed after you cancel.
Note that Credit Assistance Network does offer a 90-day money-back guarantee. If no items are successfully removed from your report in the first three months, the company will refund any fees paid up to that point.
If you have a complaint about the services of a credit repair company, you can file a complaint with the FTC or call 877-FTC-HELP.
Cost
Credit Assistance Network charges two types of fees. The first is a one-time setup fee paid when you sign up for services. This fee is $179 for individuals and $279 for couples, which is extremely high for the industry. The second fee is charged based on the number of items the company has deleted from your credit reports. The rate is $50 per deletion per bureau; public record deletions are $75 each.
Credit Assistance Network charges customers $50 for every successful deletion. Even if the same error appears across all three of your credit reports, you’ll end up paying $150 in total to have that one item removed. If you have multiple errors on your report, these fees could add up very quickly.
The Competition: Credit Assistance Network vs. Credit Saint
To see how much you’d pay for credit repair with Credit Assistance Network versus a company that charges monthly fees, we ran a comparison against Credit Saint. The competitor’s mid-tier Credit Remodel package costs $99 per month and includes up to 10 disputes for every billing cycle, placing the cost per dispute as low as $9.90. You’d pay $500 for the same number of disputes with Credit Assistance Network (assuming they were all successful).
On top of this, Credit Assistance Network’s $179 first work fee is nearly twice the $99 you’d pay with Credit Saint. Taking these costs into consideration, Credit Saint is easily the better value out of the two.
| Credit Assistance Network | Credit Saint | |
|---|---|---|
| Year Founded | 2004 | 2004 |
| Services Offered | Credit repair | Credit repair, monitoring |
| Customer Service Touchpoints | Phone, email, client portal | Phone, email, client portal |
| Upfront Fee | $179.00 | $99.00 to $195.00 |
| Monthly Fee | Varies by number of disputes | $79.99 to $119.99 |
Unless you only have one or two errors to address on your credit report, Credit Assistance Network may be more expensive than they’re worth. The company’s per-deletion fee structure makes it hard to know exactly how much you’ll end up paying for services until the final bill arrives. We prefer the transparency of a monthly membership that includes a set number of disputes per billing cycle.
How We Review Credit Repair Companies
We take many different data points into consideration when reviewing credit repair companies. Based on industry averages and best practices, we grade each company on their service options, pricing, and policies. We also read carefully through customer testimonials to identify common themes and potential pitfalls. Finally, we check with government agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to look for complaints and legal action that could indicate poor business practices.
Learn more: Read out full Credit Repair Review Methodology here.
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