The credit consulting FAQ.
Answered straight, no marketing language.

Score Pros is a credit and financial consulting company based in Temecula, California. We review your credit reports from all three bureaus, explain what's on them in plain English, and, if you choose to move forward, prepare a dispute for items that are inaccurate, outdated, or unverifiable for you to review and send yourself.

You book a free Credit Clarity Session, either by phone or through the form on this site. A credit specialist reviews your situation, walks through what's on your report, and explains your realistic options given what's actually there, not a generic script. There's no obligation to continue after that call, and no pressure to decide on the spot.

No. Most people who call us don't know exactly what's holding their credit back, and that's normal. Figuring that out is the point of the Clarity Session. Bring whatever questions you have and we'll work from there.

It's a structured conversation, not a sales pitch, where a credit specialist reviews your credit situation, answers your questions, and explains what's helping or hurting your file. You leave with a clearer picture, whether or not you decide to work with us.

Yes. There's no charge for the session and no obligation to continue afterward. Billing only starts if you decide to move forward with a service and only follows work actually performed, consistent with CROA's advance-fee rule.

Nothing happens to you, and nothing gets charged. You keep the guidance from the call either way. Some people use that guidance to dispute items themselves for free using the bureaus' own online tools, some come back to us later once they've decided, and some decide to work with us right away because they'd rather not manage the letters and deadlines themselves. All three are fine outcomes to us; the point of the call is clarity, not conversion.

A dispute is a formal, written request to a credit bureau, or directly to the company reporting the item (called a furnisher), asking them to verify that an item on your report is accurate, complete, and still reportable under the applicable time limits. The request has to identify the specific item and the specific reason it's being disputed; a vague, generic letter is easy for a bureau to reject as frivolous. If the furnisher can't produce records verifying the item within the investigation window, federal law requires the bureau to correct or delete it.

An item is unverifiable when the furnisher can't produce documentation confirming it's accurate and belongs on your report, within the bureau's investigation window. That can happen because records were never kept properly, the debt changed hands and details got lost, or the item is simply outdated. Unverifiable does not mean fake. It means it can't be proven, and under FCRA, unproven items don't get to stay.

Under FCRA Section 611, bureaus generally have 30 days to investigate a dispute, extendable to 45 days if you submit additional information during that window. If they can't verify the item in that time, they're required to delete or correct it. We track every round and follow up when a deadline passes.

No, and you should be skeptical of anyone who tells you they can. If an item is accurate, complete, and verifiable, it's legally allowed to stay on your report for its full reporting period, typically seven years for most negative items. We help you challenge items that are inaccurate, outdated, or unverifiable, and we prepare the record that pushes furnishers to actually prove what they're reporting. We do not remove accurate reporting, and we won't promise to, no matter how much it's hurting your score.

Pricing depends on your situation, how many items are involved, and the plan that fits it, so we walk through it on your Clarity Session rather than quoting a number blind before we've even looked at your report. What we can tell you up front: no long-term contract, no advance fee, and you can cancel anytime with no penalty. If a company quotes you a flat price over the phone before reviewing your file, ask how they arrived at that number.

CROA prohibits charging for credit consulting services before they are performed. Our plans run month to month, you can cancel anytime, and there is no long-term contract. If a company asks you to pay a large sum up front before doing anything on your file, that's not a minor policy difference, it's a violation of federal law.

Yes. There's no long-term contract locking you in, and you can cancel your ongoing service at any point going forward. Separately, you have a written right to cancel the contract itself for any reason and at no cost, even if you've already started the process. Under federal law that period is three business days from the day you sign. Some states give you longer. California residents may cancel until midnight of the fifth working day after signing, and any payment made must be returned within 15 days of our receiving your notice. Your written agreement states the cancellation period that applies in your state.

CROA requires any company offering credit consulting services to give you a written contract before starting work, disclose your rights in writing, honor a right to cancel of at least three business days from your signature date, and not charge you for credit consulting services before they are performed. Some states extend that cancellation period: California gives you until midnight of the fifth working day after signing, with any payment returned within 15 days of the company receiving your notice. It also bans false or misleading claims about what a company can achieve for you, and gives you the right to sue a company that violates the Act. We build our contracts and billing around these requirements, not around avoiding them.

No legitimate company can guarantee a specific score increase, a specific timeline, or the removal of accurate information, and none can legally claim it can create a new credit identity or file for you using a different identifying number. If a company promises those things, that's a compliance red flag, not a selling point, and it may indicate an illegal scheme rather than a legitimate service. We'll tell you what's realistic instead: results vary by file, and no outcome or timeline is guaranteed.

Yes, always. You have the right to dispute directly with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion at no cost, and to pull your reports for free at annualcreditreport.com. No company, including us, is required for you to exercise this right. See our compliance page for the full breakdown of how to do it yourself.

Yes. Our Business Credit & Fundability service and our platform biz.getscorepros.com both focus on building a fundable business profile that's separate from your personal credit: getting your entity structure and identifiers matched exactly, establishing the D&B, Experian Business, and Equifax Business files, and sequencing a vendor tradeline strategy so you build toward bank-issued credit instead of skipping straight to it and getting declined.

Personal credit consulting focuses on disputing inaccurate items on your consumer report at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Business credit work is mostly building, not disputing: making sure your entity name, EIN, address, and bank account all match exactly, opening the right vendor accounts in the right order (Tier 1 net-30 vendors before store and fleet cards, before bank-issued cards), and positioning your PAYDEX and Intelliscore for lender review. Many owners need both handled together, since a lender frequently still checks the owner's personal file even on a business application, especially for newer entities.

No. We prepare your fundability and position your file so lenders can evaluate it properly, but no one can guarantee an approval amount, that decision sits with the lender. What we can do is make sure your file isn't the reason you get turned down.

If you have time, a manageable number of items, and want to learn the process, DIY can work well, especially through Approval Lab (structured courses and templates) or ScorePros AI (a tool that drafts letters you send yourself). If your file is complex, you're short on time, juggling multiple furnishers, or you'd rather a professional track deadlines and prepare every letter for you to review and send, hands-on consulting through Score Pros makes more sense. Neither path is wrong or more legitimate than the other; it depends on your bandwidth and how hands-on you want to be.

Score Pros (this site) is hands-on credit consulting: we prepare every dispute round and you review and send it. ScorePros AI ($49.99/mo) is a self-directed tool that reads your reports and drafts letters you review and send yourself. Approval Lab ($25/mo) is an education community with courses and templates for people who want to learn the full process. Score Pros Biz (biz.getscorepros.com) covers business credit specifically. You can start at any of them and move between them as your needs change.

Yes. Plenty of clients start with ScorePros AI or Approval Lab, get partway through the process, and decide they'd rather have a professional take it from there once life gets busy or the file gets more complicated than expected. Book a Clarity Session and we'll pick up wherever your file currently stands, including reviewing any disputes you've already sent.

It depends on how many items are in dispute, how furnishers respond, and how many rounds it takes. Bureaus have a 30 to 45 day investigation window per round under FCRA, and some items resolve in one round while others take several rounds over a period of months, particularly for older debts or accounts that changed hands between collection agencies. We'll give you a realistic read on your specific file after we've actually looked at it, not a blanket number pulled from a marketing page.

We won't tell you a number, and any company that does is making a promise it can't back up. Score changes depend on what's removed or corrected, what else is on your file, and how scoring models weigh it. Results vary, and no outcome is guaranteed.

Mainly how quickly the furnisher and bureau respond, whether they request additional documentation (which can extend the window to 45 days), and how many items and creditors are involved. Straightforward, well-documented cases tend to move faster than disputes involving multiple furnishers or older, harder-to-verify accounts.

Disputes are one lever, not the only one. Utilization, how much of your available revolving credit you're using, tends to carry the most weight after payment history. Account age, the mix of credit types you carry, recent hard inquiries, and whether you're an authorized user on someone else's well-aged account all factor in too. We talk through all of these on your Clarity Session, not just the negative side of your file.

Yes. Your credit report data and personal information are handled securely, accessed only by the team members who need it to work your file, and used only to deliver the service you signed up for. We don't leave report data sitting in unsecured spreadsheets or shared drives. See our Privacy Policy for the full details on what we collect and why.

Only the credit specialists working your file, and the systems needed to run billing and dispute tracking, such as our payment processor, can see it. We don't sell your personal or credit data, we don't use it for advertising, and we don't share it with our partner properties (GotMotos, Properties Incorporated, Vehicle Inspectors) unless you separately opt into one of those services yourself.