Frequently asked questions

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

You are paying for expertise, accuracy, and time, not for access. It is a lot like hiring a CPA to file taxes you could technically file yourself. The federal rules are complex and changed significantly in 2026. We help you choose the right strategy, prepare the paperwork correctly, avoid costly mistakes, and manage the ongoing recertifications and servicer issues that trip most people up.

No, and no honest company can. Eligibility and outcomes are decided solely by the Department of Education and your loan servicer. What we can do is make sure your plan, loan types, documentation, and payment counts are all aligned so you have the best possible shot at the result you are after.

No. A legitimate firm never needs your FSA ID username or password, and anyone who asks for it is a red flag. You keep control of your own account. We guide you through what to do rather than logging in as you.

Your first evaluation is free. If you choose to work with us, you receive a clear, written quote before you pay anything. Fees depend on the complexity of your case and the work involved, and they are tied to the services we actually perform.

Then we will tell you. Sometimes the smartest move is a simple form you can file on your own, and we would rather earn your trust and your referral than sell you something you do not need.

Yes. The 2025 federal law and the end of the SAVE plan reshaped repayment and forgiveness, with most changes taking effect July 1, 2026. Our guidance reflects the current rules, and because implementation is still rolling out, we verify the specifics of your situation before recommending anything.

Only information that is inaccurate, incomplete, unverifiable, duplicated, misdated, or older than its legal reporting window. If an item is accurate, current, and the furnisher can verify it, no one can lawfully have it deleted, and any company that says otherwise is not being honest with you. In practice a large share of reports do contain errors, so there is usually real work to do.

No, and by federal law no credit repair company may charge you before it has performed the services it promised. We have no setup fee and take no deposit. Your first invoice arrives after your first round of challenges has been prepared and sent.

Yes, and we will tell you how. You can get all three reports free every week at AnnualCreditReport.com and dispute directly with each bureau at no cost. What you pay us for is reading three inconsistent reports accurately, knowing which items are worth challenging and on what grounds, documenting them properly, and working the responses round after round instead of giving up at the first form-letter denial.

Each challenge carries a 30-day investigation deadline, or 45 days if documents are added mid-investigation, so a single round takes about a month. Most files need several rounds, and complicated ones take longer. We will not give you a finish date, because the timeline depends on how the bureaus and furnishers respond.

We cannot tell you that, and neither can anyone else honestly. Your score is calculated by FICO or VantageScore from whatever your report says on the day it is pulled, and the effect of any single correction depends on everything else in your file. We can tell you what we found, what we are challenging, and what came off.

Disputing information does not lower your score, and a dispute notation does not count against you. Some mortgage underwriters prefer that active disputes be resolved before closing, so if you have a loan in progress, tell us and we will time the work around it.

Yes. The Credit Repair Organizations Act specifically regulates this industry rather than banning it, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act gives you the right to dispute inaccurate information and requires the bureaus to investigate. What is illegal is charging in advance, making false promises, and creating a new credit identity. We do none of those things.

No. A CPN is a fabricated identifier, and using one, or using an EIN in place of your Social Security number on a credit application, is federal fraud. If any company offers you this, end the conversation. We will help you fix the file you actually have.

Any time, with no penalty and no long-term contract. Separately, federal law gives you three business days after signing to cancel in writing for any reason at no cost, and we include that cancellation form with every agreement.

That is the reason we built both practices under one roof. Federal student loans are frequently the largest thing on a borrower's credit report and one of the most commonly misreported, and a default resolved on the student loan side often needs a correction on the credit side before it shows up properly. Active clients on one side get a discount on the other.

No. We are a credit repair organization and a student loan consulting firm. We do not provide legal advice or represent you in court, and we do not provide tax advice. When a file looks like it belongs with a consumer protection attorney, we will tell you and help you find one.

No. Debt settlement negotiates down what you owe, and credit counseling sets up a debt management plan through a nonprofit agency. We do neither. Our work is on the accuracy of what is being reported about you, and on the strategy for building the file back up.

It depends on your income, household size, and loan balance. For many borrowers the payment drops substantially, and some qualify for very low payments. Any number we give you before enrollment is an estimate. The final amount is set by your loan servicer based on the documentation submitted.

Generally, government organizations at any level and 501(c)(3) nonprofits qualify. Some other nonprofits may qualify based on the services they provide. A new 2026 rule gives the Department of Education more authority over employer eligibility and is being litigated, so we verify current status as part of your review.

It is possible in specific situations, most commonly through PSLF if the parent borrower works for a qualifying employer and the loans are structured correctly, or through disability discharge. The paths are narrower than for other federal loans, and the 2026 changes narrowed them further. We review your case honestly before recommending a strategy.

Rehabilitation usually involves making nine affordable, agreed-upon payments over ten months, and it removes the record of default from your credit report. Consolidation combines your loans into a new Direct Loan and can be faster, but the default notation may remain on your credit history. The right choice depends on your goals, which we review with you.

Under current federal rules, TPD discharges have generally not been treated as taxable federal income. State tax treatment can vary, and tax rules can change. We are not tax advisors, so we recommend confirming your specific situation with a tax professional.

There is no reliable timeline. The program has a large backlog and is affected by ongoing litigation, so decisions can take a long time. We track your application and keep you updated, but we cannot promise a specific date.

No. A Direct Consolidation Loan carries a weighted average of your existing interest rates, rounded up. Consolidation is about simplification and program eligibility, not about reducing your rate.

Paying does not require removal, and usually does not cause it. The account typically stays and simply reports a zero balance and a paid status until it ages off. There are reasons to pay anyway, including the newer scoring models that disregard paid collections and lenders who require it before closing, but do not pay expecting deletion. Talk to us before you pay, because paying can also reset the statute of limitations on the debt in some states.

Both are serious derogatory marks and both stem from the same underlying delinquency. What often does the most damage is having them stack: a charged-off original account showing a balance alongside a collection agency reporting that same balance. Untangling that is usually the highest-value work on a charged-off account.

It can matter more than people expect, especially on an otherwise clean file, because payment history carries the most weight of any factor and a first derogatory mark is a bigger relative change than a second or third. Its impact does diminish over time.

No. Never. Pulling your own report is a soft inquiry with zero score effect, and you are entitled to do it every week for free at AnnualCreditReport.com. This is the most persistent myth in consumer credit.

A fraud alert asks lenders to take extra steps to verify your identity before extending credit, and it lasts one year, or seven years if you have a confirmed identity theft report. A freeze is stronger: it blocks access to your report entirely until you lift it. Both are free at all three bureaus, and you can have both at once.

Not if it is accurately reported. It comes off ten years from the filing date for Chapter 7 and seven years for Chapter 13. If the chapter, the filing date, or the discharge status is recorded wrong, that is a legitimate inaccuracy and worth correcting, and occasionally the correction moves the removal date.

Not meaningfully on your credit report. It generally still reports as a repossession and carries similar weight. The practical advantages of surrendering voluntarily are avoiding repossession fees and having some control over the timing, not a softer credit outcome.

Not by federal rule. The CFPB rule that would have done that was vacated by a federal court in July 2025 and is not in effect. What remains are the credit bureaus' own voluntary policies: paid medical collections are removed at any amount, unpaid medical collections under $500 are not reported, and there is a one-year waiting period before any medical collection can appear.

It depends which route you take. Completing loan rehabilitation removes the default notation from your credit report, which is one of its main advantages. Consolidating out of default resolves the loan but generally leaves the default in your history. Either way, the individual late payments that led up to the default remain for their seven years. Servicers also fail to update the reporting after a successful resolution more often than they should, which is a legitimate challenge.

For most people, lowering revolving utilization, because it carries substantial weight and updates every month. Paying a card down before the statement closing date, rather than just before the due date, changes what gets reported. Nothing about it is a trick and it works.