OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — You could be involved in a scam, and not even realize it. This particular scam is called Credit Washing, and it happens when someone makes a false claim they are the victim of identity theft with the goal of getting derogatory information removed from their credit report. This is a crime, and if you don't know the read flags to watch for you might be hiring someone who intends to do this in your name.
A bad credit report could have a huge impact on your life. Not only could it make it much more expensive to borrow money, it could also make your car insurance more expensive and even make it difficult to find a place to rent. So, improving your credit score and credit report is an important goal, but the problems occur if someone wants to cheat the system to get you there.
"There is a small group of people that do this on purpose in order to defraud financial institutions, but a broader group of consumers that are tricked into doing this by shady or illegitimate credit repair agencies," says Naftali Harris, CEO of SentiLink.
Harris reiterates that it is illegal to do this, but even in your attempts to fix these past mistakes legally, you might hire someone willing to break the law.
"There's these illegitimate credit repair companies that make these false claims about how you can recover, and you can go from a 500 credit score to an 800 credit score in two months, and those claims are frankly just too good to be true," says Harris.
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