This is an in-depth review of Credit Saint.
In this up-to-date review, we’ll break down:
- Who Credit Saint is
- How much Credit Saint costs
- Credit Saint‘s refund policy
- Things we like
- Things we don’t like
- Whether they’re worth the price tag
- Lots more
Let’s get started.
Who is Credit Saint?
Credit Saint is one of the best credit repair companies with the most competitive prices. They are based out of New Jersey, have been around for about 15 years, and are consistently ranked at the top of the credit repair industry rankings by sites like Consumer Affairs.
Credit Saint is also one of the few credit repair services with an A+ Better Business Bureau (BBB) rating, and has been accredited since 2007.
Part of their mission is to educate their clients about credit, stating that “what you don’t know CAN hurt you.” (Which we definitely agree with, by the way).
If your credit score is in the dumps and you need to remove some negative items from your credit report, or you need a full credit restoration, it might make sense to work with a credit repair company like Credit Saint.
Credit Saint pricing and credit repair plan options
Credit Saint has three different credit repair packages and plans for different levels of aggressiveness in repairing your credit, each with different features:
- Credit Polish. $99 First Work Fee & $79.99/mo.
- Credit Remodel. $99 First Work Fee & $99.99/mo.
- Clean Slate. $99 First Work Fee & $119.99/mo.
And here’s a closer look at what you get with each package for the cost.
Credit Polish
- Challenges to the 3 Credit Bureaus
- Score Analysis
- Creditor Interventions
- Score Tracker
- Work associated with challenging 5 inaccurately reporting items per dispute cycle
Credit Polish is the most basic of the credit repair plans and should be used for cleaning up minor issues on your credit report. It doesn’t include their dispute avalanche process or escalated information requests, and they also don’t tackle repossessions, judgments, or bankruptcies with this service.
Credit Remodel
- Challenges to the 3 Credit Bureaus
- Score Analysis
- Creditor Interventions
- Score Tracker
- Inquiry Targeting
- Experian Monitoring
- Work associated with challenging 10 inaccurately reporting items per dispute cycle.
The Credit Remodel package is highly aggressive and includes everything except the dispute avalanche process. This is most suited for someone who has some items like bankruptcies or repossessions that they’d like addressed.
Clean Slate
- Unlimited Challenges to the 3 Credit Bureaus
- Score Analysis
- Creditor Interventions
- Score Tracker
- Inquiry Targeting
- Experian Monitoring
- Work associated with challenging unlimited inaccurately reporting items per dispute cycle.
The Clean slate package is the most aggressive and includes everything they offer, down to the most challenging credit items. This package is best suited for someone with major credit problems.
Credit Saint 90-day money back guarantee (refund policy)
Credit Saint offers a 90-day money-back guarantee if they’re unable to get some negative items removed from your credit history.
Here are the terms from their website: “If you sign up for service with Credit Saint in any program, and do not see any questionable items deleted from your credit in 90 days, you will be entitled to a full refund.”
You can find the exact terms of their money-back guarantee on this page.
Credit Saint pros & cons
Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing whether Credit Saint is right for you:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| A+ BBB Rating. As one of the few services in this industry with such a high BBB rating, this company stands out among the most trusted. | High Setup Fees. Their first work fees of $99 – $195 are among the highest in the industry. |
| Transparent Package Pricing. Their pricing guide is very straightforward and easy to understand. | Not Available in all states. If you live in Georgia, Kansas, and South Carolina, you cannot hire Credit Saint to help with your credit repair |
| Customized Dispute Letters. They don’t use form letters to dispute your credit items—they prepare customized arguments to back their claims. | |
| 90-Day Money-Back Guarantee. It’s nice knowing they stand by their service if they’re not able to remove any questionable items from your credit report. | |
| Affordable Services. Their monthly fee is one of the lowest in the industry compared to others like Lexington Law, and you don’t pay for services you don’t need. |
What does Credit Saint do?
Because you have the legal right to ensure the accuracy of anything on your credit report, Credit Saint acts on your behalf to make sure that’s the case.
Remember: according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FRCA), anything that is not accurately reported on your credit report should be removed either by the credit bureau or the original creditor.
Credit Saint has a very simple and clear procedure for helping people clean up their credit. Let’s run through it quickly.
#1. Personal consultancy
To begin with, you will be assigned a personal advisory team of specialists that takes over your case and is available to answer questions and help you understand what is going on with your credit.
Someone on your personal team will consult with you in detail, in the beginning, to go over your credit report and let you know how they can help with your particular situation. During this consultation, they will also give you personalized advice on what you can do to improve and maintain your credit score.
Next, Credit Saint gets to work on your credit report.
#2. Disputing negative items
They start by communicating with your creditors and the credit bureaus to dispute negative or inaccurate items that may be listed, and they develop customized dispute letters that address your specific situation.
And depending on the package you signed up for, they will either aggressively attack items such as bankruptcies and repossessions, or they will simply continue to dispute late payments and charge-offs.
Credit Saint prepares one round of disputes every 45 days—after this cycle, they will pull your credit report and re-evaluate it with any positive credit changes that have been made, and give you a progress report.
At all times, you’ll have access to your own online account page where you can monitor the progress.
And here’s something to get excited about: nearly 95% of Credit Saint’s customers report seeing at least some progress during the first of its 45-day cycles.
Here are the types of negative items Credit Saint can help with:
- Bankruptcies
- Charge offs
- Collections
- Foreclosures
- Inquiries
- Judgments
- Late payments
- Liens
- Repossessions
How does Credit Saint help you repair your credit?
Remember there are five main factors that affect your credit score:
What Credit Saint does as part of the credit repair process is try to address some of the biggest credit score factors on your credit report by disputing things like late payments and inaccuracies—they will analyze your report as thoroughly as possible, looking for mistakes and items that can possibly be removed.
According to the FTC, one in five people in the US has at least one error on their credit report. That’s about 40 million credit reports!
And these errors can have a significant impact on your score: consider, for example, that someone takes out a loan that is mistakenly reported under your social security number and then fails to repay it. These types of errors are more common than you think and can tank your score very quickly.
And not all errors on your credit report are due to honest mistakes.
According to a recent report conducted by Javelin, more than 16 million US consumers were victimized by some sort of identity theft in 2017 alone, with these criminals stealing more than $16 billion from consumers in the same year!
What these thieves do many times is open credit accounts under their victims’ names—it’s not unusual for someone to check their credit report and see activity there that they didn’t initiate, and a lower credit score than what they expected.
In these instances, a credit repair service such as Credit Saint can go to work for you and clear up this unscrupulous activity.
These are the situations that may require the most aggressive package, which will allow the company to continue to fight these issues for you.
The other thing that Credit Saint does is advise you on how to build on the other factors that affect your credit.
For example, if they notice that you have high credit utilization, they might advise you to open another line of credit and pay down what you have. Or they might advise you to diversify your loan types.
If you have only credit cards, it’s a good idea to take out a loan for something else, such as a car or personal loan.
Lower interest rates
A low credit score can affect you in more ways than you may realize.
If you have a low score, you may already know that it’s harder to get a loan. In fact, being turned down for a loan is often the point at which people decide they need a credit repair service.
But even if you are able to obtain a loan with a low credit score, your interest rates may be extremely high.
For instance, with a score of around 550, you can expect to pay about 17.186% interest on a 60-month car loan. But with a score of more than 720, your rate would only be around 4.55%, which makes thousands of dollars of difference over the course of a loan!
Better job opportunities
It’s extremely common these days for a potential employer to require a credit check as part of their background checks—they want to know they are hiring responsible and trustworthy employees.
As we all know, everyone falls on hard times once in a while and bad credit doesn’t mean you’re not a good person.
But someone who has never met you has very little to go on other than numbers they can pull and information they can obtain—so, unfortunately, a low credit score can make you miss out on some great job opportunities.
What Credit Saint cannot help with
It’s important to know that no credit repair company can promise to raise your score by a certain amount, or guarantee that you’ll have items removed.
No matter how good their success rate is, there are certain laws and regulations they must abide by!
And this includes the fact that creditors do not have to remove accurate items from your report—we strongly advise you to stay far away from any company that makes any such promises.
How long does Credit Saint take to repair your credit?
Credit Saint uses a 45-day repair cycle, and most customers report seeing at least some progress in the first one.
But you should know that many times during the dispute process, there is some back and forth correspondence that takes time.
During this process, you may have to present further documentation and second disputes may have to be sent.
You should continue to see progress for as long as you are subscribed to Credit Saint’s services, but they will alert you when they feel they have accomplished all they can.
How do you sign up for Credit Saint?
Signing up for Credit Saint is an easy process—you can call them toll-free at 877-637-2673 or you can sign up on their online form and wait for a rep to call you.
Either way, you’ll get a no-obligation, completely free consultation to find out if their services are right for you.
You can also cancel your services at any time by calling their toll-free number or emailing them a notice of cancellation.
What are customers saying about Credit Saint?
Credit Saint gets consistently great reviews and is highly rated across all the ranking websites we found due to their skills and experience. Customers love them for their caring customer service and outstanding results.
One customer reported to Consumer Affairs that their realtor recommended Credit Saint to them after being turned down for a mortgage. After just one year, they not only qualified for the mortgage but got it at a 4% interest rate.
Another reviewer praised Credit Saint for boosting his credit score by 80 points, while a Phoenix customer credited Credit Saint for a 160-point credit boost.
Linny of Florida was impressed that the Credit Saint Representative urged her to buy the smallest package for her needs rather than upselling her, while Kris of Florida said Credit Saint helped her get her FICO score from 525 up to 740.
Wrapping up
Repairing your credit alone can be tricky—there are tons of regulations and hoops you sometimes need to jump through when dealing with creditors, so it’s usually best to leave this to trained professionals who do it on a daily basis.
Credit Saint is one of the most well-known and well-respected credit repair companies in the industry—they know what it takes to boost your credit score and they know how to handle the tricky legalities you and I don’t usually know a lot about.
While there are many companies in the same game, Credit Saint is up there at the top of the ones we recommend. Their quality service, high BBB rating, and great customer reviews make them stand out among the best.
