Pine Bluff - Airdate: September 4th, 2008

How much would you be willing to pay to get your credit cleaned up and your credit scored raised? Three-hundred dollars? Three-thousand dollars?

Two women in the Pine Bluff area have been paid that and more to help restore peoples' credit.

But as Seven-On-Your-Side's Jason Pederson reports in tonight's "Your Money" report - beware of quick-fix credit claims.

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Collectively this group of people say they paid almost $5,000 to improve their credit scores. And they say there are dozens more just like them.

They say they trusted credit counseling service and the two women who run it, Sherrye Mance and Tiffany Morris.

Many paid $375 dollars. Others 13-hundred or more. What they say they got in return was lies and avoidance.

(Quincy Pridgeon/Pine Bluff) "When I was talkin' to Sherrye she said my credit score was a certain number but my bank, when they ran it, he said it wasn't close to what Sherrye and them were telling me."

 

(Ken Maddox/Star City) "It's a scam and they know it's a scam so it was premeditated. So I want to see something happen to them. But first I would like to get all our money back."

Henry Cameron with Consumer Credit Counseling says there is no quick fix when it comes to credit repair.

Scam artists use tricks that may result in a short-term improvement, but Cameron says legitimate debts will come back.

(Henry Cameron/Consumer Credit Counseling) "There's no magic formula to improving your credit overnight. For most people it took them years to damage their credit and its not gonna be taken care of in a matter of a few months."

Cameron says consistently paying bills on time over time and reducing credit card debt are the two biggest ways to improve your credit score…and only you can do it.

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