Question 1

What is credit repair?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Credit repair is the process of reviewing your credit reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion and challenging information that is inaccurate, incomplete, unverifiable, duplicated, misdated, or older than its legal reporting window. It does not reduce debt you owe and it cannot remove accurate, current, verifiable information. The industry is regulated by the federal Credit Repair Organizations Act.

Question 2

Can a credit repair company remove accurate information from my credit report?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

No. Accurate, current, and verifiable information cannot lawfully be removed from a credit report by any company, and it remains until it ages off on its own schedule. What can be challenged is information that is wrong, incomplete, unverifiable, duplicated, misdated, or past its permitted reporting period. Any company promising to delete accurate items is making a claim no one can legally deliver.

Question 3

Is it legal to charge for credit repair before doing the work?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

No. The Credit Repair Organizations Act prohibits a credit repair organization from charging or receiving any payment before it has fully performed the services it promised. That prohibition covers setup fees, deposits, and first-month prepayments. Advance-fee charging is the single most common basis for federal enforcement action against credit repair companies.

Question 4

How much does credit repair cost?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Most legitimate firms charge roughly $70 to $150 per month, billed after each month of work is performed rather than in advance, because advance fees are prohibited by federal law. Setup fees are common in the industry but are difficult to square with that prohibition. Our plans run $79, $109, and $149 per month with no setup fee and nothing due before work is performed.

Question 5

How long does credit repair take?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Each challenge carries a 30-day investigation deadline under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, extended to 45 days if you add documentation during the investigation, so a single round takes roughly a month. Most files require several rounds, and complex files take longer. No honest company can give you a completion date, because the timeline depends on how the bureaus and the furnishers respond.

Question 6

What is a CPN and is it legal?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

A credit privacy number, or CPN, is a fabricated nine-digit identifier sold as a lawful substitute for a Social Security number. It is not one. CPNs are frequently stolen Social Security numbers belonging to children or deceased people, and using one on a credit application is federal fraud. Using an employer identification number in place of your SSN to obtain personal credit is likewise fraud.

Question 7

How do I get my credit report for free?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Go to AnnualCreditReport.com, the only website authorized by federal law to provide free credit reports. Since 2023 you have been entitled to one report from each of the three nationwide bureaus every week at no cost. Get all three rather than one, because Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion receive data separately and frequently report different information about the same account.

Question 8

Does checking my own credit lower my score?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

No. Checking your own credit report or score is a soft inquiry and has no effect on your score, no matter how often you do it. Only a hard inquiry, generated when you apply for credit and a lender pulls your report, can affect your score, and the effect is usually a few points that fade within about a year.

Question 9

What affects your credit score the most?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Payment history is the largest FICO factor at about 35%, followed by amounts owed at about 30%, which is dominated by how much of your revolving credit limits you are using. Length of credit history is 15%, new credit is 10%, and credit mix is 10%. The first two factors together are nearly two-thirds of the score.

Question 10

What is the fastest way to raise your credit score?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

For most people, lowering revolving credit utilization, because it is roughly 30% of the score and recalculates monthly with no memory of prior months. The specific tactic that matters: your balance reports to the bureaus on your statement closing date, not your due date, so paying down before the statement closes changes what the bureaus see even if you always pay in full.

Question 11

Why is my credit score different on every site?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Because there is no single credit score. There are dozens of FICO versions plus VantageScore, and the three bureaus hold different data. Mortgage lenders commonly pull older FICO versions, auto lenders use auto-specific variants, and the score shown in a banking app is often a VantageScore. Treat a free score as a trend line rather than the number a lender will use.

Question 12

What is a good credit score?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

On the common 300 to 850 scale, 670 to 739 is generally considered good, 740 to 799 very good, and 800 and above exceptional. Below 670 is fair, and below 580 is poor. The thresholds that actually matter are the ones your specific lender uses for pricing tiers, which differ by product and by lender.

Question 13

Should I close a credit card I do not use?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Usually not, if it carries no annual fee. Closing a card immediately removes its credit limit from your utilization calculation, which raises your utilization ratio, and it eventually shortens your average account age. Both are scoring factors. Keeping an old no-fee card open with a small recurring charge on autopay is generally the better move.

Question 14

What is not included in your credit score?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Your income, employment, savings, assets, age, race, religion, marital status, and address are not inputs to your credit score. Neither is checking your own credit. Lenders may consider some of those factors separately during underwriting, and some they are prohibited from considering, but none of them are part of the score calculation itself.

Question 15

How long do negative items stay on a credit report?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Most negative information reports for seven years. Chapter 7 bankruptcy is the exception at ten years from the filing date, and hard inquiries are visible for two years with about twelve months of score impact. For collections, charge-offs, repossessions, and foreclosures, the seven years runs from the date of first delinquency on the original account, not from the date of the event.

Question 16

Does paying a collection remove it from my credit report?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Usually not. Paying typically updates the account to a zero balance and a paid status, but it can continue reporting for seven years from the original delinquency. FICO 9, FICO 10, and VantageScore 3 and 4 disregard paid collections, but many lenders still use older FICO versions that do not. In some states, paying can also restart the statute of limitations on the debt.

Question 17

What is re-aging and why does it matter?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Re-aging is when a collection agency reports a date of first delinquency later than the true one, making an old debt appear recent and extending how long it can legally report. It violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act and it is common when debts are sold between agencies. Comparing the date of first delinquency across all three credit reports is how you catch it.

Question 18

What does a charge-off mean on a credit report?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

A charge-off means the lender wrote the balance off its own books for accounting purposes, typically after about 180 days of non-payment. You still owe the debt and the account keeps reporting. Its seven-year reporting window runs from the date of first delinquency, not from the charge-off date, and lenders sometimes report it the other way, which extends the item improperly.

Question 19

Was medical debt removed from credit reports?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Not by federal rule. The CFPB rule that would have removed medical debt was vacated nationwide by a federal court in July 2025 and is not in effect. What still applies are the credit bureaus' voluntary policies: paid medical collections are removed at any amount, unpaid medical collections under $500 are not reported, and no medical collection can appear until one year after it goes to collections.

Question 20

Can a bankruptcy be removed from my credit report early?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Not if it is accurately reported. Chapter 7 reports for ten years from the filing date and Chapter 13 for seven. What is frequently wrong and worth correcting is the reporting on the individual accounts included in the filing, which should show a zero balance and an included-in-bankruptcy status but often still show balances owed or post-petition late payments.

Question 21

How many credit reports contain errors?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Roughly one in five consumer credit reports contains an error, and about one in twenty contains an error material enough to change the interest rate a lender would offer. That is why disputing is a real remedy rather than a gimmick, and it is also why checking all three reports matters, since an error often appears on one bureau and not the others.

Question 22

Can I dispute credit report errors myself for free?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Yes. You can dispute anything you believe is inaccurate or incomplete directly with each credit bureau and with the company furnishing the information, at no cost, and you can get your reports free weekly at AnnualCreditReport.com. Nobody can charge you for access to that right. Paying a firm buys analysis, documentation, and follow-through, not access.

Question 23

How long does a credit bureau have to investigate a dispute?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Generally 30 days from receiving your dispute, extended to 45 days if you provide additional documentation during the investigation. If the bureau cannot verify the disputed information, it must delete or correct it and notify you in writing, and it must provide a free updated copy of your report if anything changed.

Question 24

Can I cancel a credit repair contract?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Yes. The Credit Repair Organizations Act gives you three business days after signing to cancel any credit repair contract in writing, for any reason, with no penalty and no obligation. The company is required to disclose that right and provide a cancellation form. A company that does not mention it is already out of compliance.

Question 25

What is debt validation and when can I request it?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, you can demand written validation of a debt within 30 days of a collector's first communication, and collection activity must stop until they provide it. Debts sold in portfolios often carry thin documentation, so a validation request sometimes produces nothing. A debt that cannot be validated should not be reported to the bureaus as verified.

Question 26

Is freezing my credit free?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Yes. Placing, lifting, and removing a credit freeze is free at all three nationwide bureaus, and you must do it separately with each one. You can also place a free one-year fraud alert, or a seven-year extended alert if you have an identity theft report. A freeze is stronger than an alert because it blocks access to your report entirely.

Question 27

What can I do if a credit bureau violates my rights?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

The Fair Credit Reporting Act provides a private right of action, and remedies for willful or negligent violations can include actual damages, statutory damages, punitive damages, and attorney fees. You can also file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which forwards it to the company for a response. For litigation, consult a consumer protection attorney.

Question 28

Do student loans help or hurt your credit score?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Paid on time, federal student loans generally help, by building long-dated installment payment history that supports two scoring factors. Installment balances also weigh far less than credit card balances, so a large loan balance is not damaging the way the same amount of revolving debt would be. Delinquency is what damages credit, and student loan delinquency is unusually often misreported.

Question 29

Will getting out of student loan default remove it from my credit report?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

It depends on the route. Completing loan rehabilitation, typically nine agreed affordable payments over ten months, removes the default notation from your credit report. Consolidating out of default resolves the loan faster but generally leaves the notation in your credit history. Under either route, the individual late payments preceding the default remain for seven years.

Question 30

My student loans were in forbearance but reported as late. Is that fixable?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Yes, and it is one of the stronger challenges available, because a delinquency reported for a month when no payment was due is plainly inaccurate. You need the deferment or forbearance approval in writing with dates that line up. This occurred at volume during the SAVE plan transition, when enrolled borrowers were moved into forbearance.

Question 31

What replaced the SAVE plan in 2026?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

The SAVE plan was struck down and repealed, and enrolled borrowers were placed into a forbearance in which interest accrues and the time does not count toward forgiveness. The lasting income-driven options are now IBR and the new Repayment Assistance Plan, or RAP, which launched July 1, 2026. PAYE and ICR are closing to new enrollment and end by July 2028.

Question 32

Are federal student loan programs free to apply for?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Yes. Every federal repayment, forgiveness, and discharge program can be applied for at no cost at StudentAid.gov or through your loan servicer. Any company charging for access rather than for advisory work is misrepresenting what it sells. What a firm can legitimately charge for is strategy, accurate application preparation, and ongoing management of recertifications and servicer errors.

Question 33

Do I have to pay anything before you start work?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

No. There is no setup fee and no deposit. Consistent with the Credit Repair Organizations Act, you are billed only after services have been performed, so your first invoice arrives after your first round of challenges has been prepared and sent. You also receive a written contract and a written statement of your federal rights before anything begins.

Question 34

Will you tell me if I do not need to hire you?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Yes, and it happens regularly. If your report has one or two errors and you have the documentation, disputing yourself costs postage and we will say so. If an item is accurate, current, and verifiable, we will point at it and tell you it is going to age off rather than bill you to challenge it. That answer costs us a sale and buys a referral.

Question 35

Can you help with both student loans and credit repair?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Yes, and that combination is the reason both practices sit under one roof. Federal student loans are frequently the largest item on a household's credit report and among the most commonly misreported, and a default resolved on the loan side often needs a correction on the credit side before it reports properly. Active clients on one side receive a discount on the other.

Question 36

Are you a law firm or a credit counseling agency?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

Neither. We are a student loan consulting firm and a credit repair organization. We do not provide legal advice, tax advice, debt settlement, or debt management plans, and we do not represent clients in court. When a file belongs with a consumer protection attorney or a nonprofit credit counselor, we say so and point you to one.

Question 37

Are you affiliated with the government?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

No. We are a private company. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or any government agency. The federal student loan programs we assist with are available directly to you for free at StudentAid.gov.

Question 38

Will you guarantee a result?

Lumea Financial · Accepted Answer

No, and no honest firm in either practice will. On credit, we cannot guarantee that a specific item will be removed or corrected, or that your score will change by any amount, because those outcomes rest with the bureaus and the furnishers. On student loans, eligibility and approval rest solely with the Department of Education and your servicer.

Straight answers, with nothing left out to make us look better.

Credit repair basics