If you’ve ever looked online for a credit repair service, you may have come across Lexington Law. Lexington Law has a reasonably ubiquitous presence in the online credit repair world. They claim to have helped hundreds of thousands of their customers improve their credit scores.
So it begs the question: What is Lexington Law, and what do they do?
Lexington Law is a national online credit repair service with offices in Utah and Arizona. Since 2004, the company has worked extensively on credits repair issues for their many clients.
How Does Lexington Law Work?
Lexington Law has a five-step process for working with clients.
Step 1: Free 10 minute phone consultation: The first step to getting started with Lexington Law is having a free 10-minute, one-on-one conversation with a trained credit repair professional at Lexington Law.
Your free 10-minute consultation with the Lexington Law representative will include discussion about your Transunion Credit Report summary, your credit score evaluation, and recommended solutions for resolving your credit issues.
Step 2: Case Intake: Once you decide to hire Lexington Law to repair your credit, they will then proceed to help you obtain your credit report from the three major credit bureaus: TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian.
They will analyze each item on your credit report to determine the problem areas.
Step 3: Legal Action: Lawyers at Lexington Law Firm will review your credit report and then write your creditors and the credit bureaus to determine the authenticity of the items on your credit report.
At this point, Lexington Law will also determine the best credit repair strategy for your particular case.
Step 4: Credit Score Analysis: This is an elite service for Lexington Law’s Concord Premier clients. With this service, premier clients will receive a monthly customized credit score improvement analysis that includes tips on how to improve their credit score. They will also receive–by phone, e-mail, and webchat–coaching from Lexington Law’s paralegals on ways to effectively enhance their credit profile.
Step 5: Follow-up and Escalation: This phase is where Lexington Law leverages every law and federal statute to fight your case with your creditors.
What Does Lexington Law Do?
Lexington Law works with clients all over the United States to repair their credit. Here are some of the things Lexington Law does for their clients:
Negative Items removal: Negative items such as charge-offs, collections, late payments, bankruptcies, foreclosures, and repossessions can hurt your credit score. Lexington Law helps clients remove these negative items from their credit reports.
Dispute Inaccurate Credit Items: Having incorrect items on your credit report can put a damper on your effort to build or rebuild your credit score. Lexington Law helps clients dispute and remove inaccurate entries from their credit files.
Provide Credit Repair Consultations: Working with Lexington Law begins with a free 10-minute credit repair consultation. But your consultation doesn’t stop there. Over the course of the period you’re working with Lexington Law, you will be able to contact them via phone, e-mail, and webchat, especially if you are a premier client.
Can Lexington Law Improve Your Credit Score?
Lexington Law claims to have removed over 10 million negative items from their clients’ credit reports. There is no way to verify this claim independently. However, judging from comments from their customers, there seem to be mixed reviews about their performance.
Here’s the thing: Credit repair companies, including Lexington Law, does not have the power to remove legitimate items from your credit report. If you legitimately owe a creditor, and you’re trying to have that debt remove from your credit report, even Lexington Law cannot help you.
Credit repair services like Lexington Law are there to help you remove inaccuracies and negative items from your credit report. They take advantage of consumer protection laws and statutes that you may not be aware of to help fight your case with the credit bureaus and your creditors.
Generally, removing negative and inaccurate items from your credit report can help improve your credit score.
If you notice some of the items on your credit report to be inaccurate, and for some reason, you can not contest those inaccuracies yourself through any one of the credit bureaus, then yes, Lexington Law may be able to help you.
How Much Does It Cost To Hire Lexington Law
Lexington Law has three levels of service: Concord Standard, Concord Premier, and PremierPlus. Depending on the level of service you choose, Lexington Law will charge you a monthly fee of between $89.85 to $129.95.
Concord Standard – cost $89.85 per month.
Concord Standard is the most basic service that Lexington Law offers. With this level of service–which costs $89.85 a month–Lexington Law will do two things: Use the credit bureaus to challenge items on your credit report, and intervene with your creditors on your behalf.
By the way, anybody can do this at absolutely no cost through any one of the three credit bureaus. Credit Karma also has a free feature that lets dispute items on your credit report.
Concord Premier – costs $109.95 per month
Concord Premier is the midlevel service. In addition to what they provide in their standard offer, they also offer what they call “InquiryAssist,” Score Analysis, Report Watch, and TransUnion Alerts.
Unless you are new to how credit scores and credit monitoring works, I don’t need to tell you that you can get everything mentioned in their Concord Premier service for free using any one of the three credit bureaus. Websites like Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, and most reputable credit monitoring services also provide that service free of charge.
PremierPlus – costs $129.95 per month.
PremierPlus is Lexington Law’s top tier service. In addition to the services they provide in Concord Standard and Concord Premier, Lexington Law PremierPlus members get to enjoy the following: cease and desist letters to creditors, FICO score tracking, identity protection, and personal finance tools.
What Do I Think Of These Services?
So here’s the thing. Each of the three major bureaus offers free FICO and Vantage 3.0 credit score tracking, a PremierPlus service that Lexington Law provides for a monthly fee of $129.95.
The credit bureaus also provide free identity monitoring. If you are signed up with one or all three of the credit bureaus, you will get an alert if there’s a change to your credit file. For example, if a lender checks your credit history or a credit card or loan gets opened in your name, you will get an alert. Even if there are changes to your credit limit, personal information, including name, address, or phone numbers changes, you will also get an alert.
There is no need to pay Lexington Law a hefty fee of $129.95 every month for services you can get for free quite easily on your own — yes, including the cease and desist letters.
Pros And Cons Of Working With Lexington Law
If you are new to how credit works, navigating negative and inaccurate items on your credit report might seem like a daunting process, so I understand why people might feel the need to hire firms like Lexington Law. But is Lexington Law good for you? Here are some of the pros and cons of using their service.
Pros
- Lexington Law does help you remove negative and inaccurate items from your credit score.
- Lexington Law may be useful if you are unwilling or unable to go through this process yourself.
- Using Lexington Law may save you time if you are a busy person.
- Lexington Law has a team of lawyers that can leverage the law in your favor.
- Lexington Law has educational resources on their blog that you can access freely without subscribing to their service.
Cons
- Lexington Law can be costly — as much as $129.95 per month.
- The services Lexington Law offers can be obtained free-of-charge if you use any one of the three major credit bureaus, or Credit Karma and Credit Sesame.
- Lexington Law does not represent you in a court of law — not if you live outside of Arizona and Utah.
- Lexington Law usually takes many months, sometimes years, to remove items from your credit report. Getting this service could mean many monthly installment payments on your part.
Should You Use Lexington Law To Repair Your Credit?
The decision to use Lexington Law comes down to personal preference. Like I said previously, everything Lexington Law does for its clients, from disputing negative and inaccurate items to credit score tracking, can be done free-of-charge using any one of the three major credit bureaus.
However, I understand that doing these things for oneself can be complicated for some people. So for these people, it might be a great idea to hire Lexington Law.
Is Lexington Law A Legitimate Company?
The short answer is yes. Lexington Law is a legitimate company that operates nationwide with physical offices in North Salt Lake, Utah, and Tucson, Arizona.
The company maintains an extensive online presence, with millions of visitors thronging to their website every month.
The company also has scores of lawyers on staff to handle their clients’ credit issues.
Is Lexington Law A Real Law Firm
Yes, Lexington Law is a real law firm. However, they only practice in a select number of states.
If your particular credit repair requires legal representation in a court of law, you should talk with a Lexington Law representative before retaining their services.
Most credit repair issues–especially the ones Lexington Law handles–do not require legal representation in a court of law. Issues like disputing negative and inaccurate items on your credit report are things that you can resolve freely through the credit bureaus.
Is Lexington Law Worth It?
From my perspective, the answer is no. In my opinion, negotiating with your creditors, and then paying them pennies on a dollar to settle your legitimate debts will be a much better use of your money. The debts that are illegitimate or inaccurate should be disputed through the credit bureaus — for free.
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Bottom Line
Having a good credit score is essential to your financial well-being. There are lots of goodies that can come with having a good credit score. Things like low-interest loans, great credit cards with all kinds of perks, easy approval for loans, perceived good reputation, higher credit limits, easy approval for rentals and mortgages, and peace of mind are just a few. So it’s understandable why anyone would want to repair their credit. However, you don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for credit repair. In fact, in most instances, you don’t have to pay anything at all.
Most of the services that Lexington Law provides are easily obtainable– mostly for free– through the three major credit bureaus, and sites like Credit Karma and Credit Sesame. There is no need to retain Lexington Law for services like disputing negative and inaccurate items on your credit report. If you want to save money, then get online and dispute these items yourself.
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