What is the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA)?
The Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA), 15 U.S.C. § 1679, is a federal law that regulates paid credit repair companies. It requires a written contract, a three day cancellation right, and no fees before services are performed, and it bans guaranteeing results or advising you to dispute accurate information.
What is the Credit Repair Organizations Act?
The Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA), codified at 15 U.S.C. § 1679, is a federal law that regulates companies that sell credit repair services for a fee. It sets rules for how those companies can operate and what they must disclose to you before you pay for anything.
Why CROA exists
Congress passed CROA in 1996 after years of complaints about credit repair companies that collected large upfront payments, made promises they could not keep, and disappeared before doing any real work. The law was written to stop those practices and give consumers enforceable rights when they hire a credit repair company.
What CROA requires
A company covered by CROA has to give you specific protections before you pay for services.
- A written contract that spells out the services, the total cost, and the estimated timeline
- A three day right to cancel the contract for any reason, with no penalty
- A written statement of your rights under the law, including the right to sue for violations
- No fees collected until the promised services are fully performed
What CROA prohibits
CROA also bans specific practices that used to be common in the credit repair industry.
- Guaranteeing a specific credit score increase, dollar amount, or timeline
- Charging you before the work is done
- Advising you to dispute information you know is accurate, or to make false statements to a credit bureau or lender
- Making false or misleading claims about what the company can do
Your rights if a company violates CROA
If a credit repair company breaks these rules, you can sue for damages, including your money back plus attorney fees. You can also report the company to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), or your state attorney general.
Where CreditRefresh fits in
CreditRefresh is software, not a credit repair company acting on your behalf. You review your own credit reports, and every dispute letter is generated for your approval before it goes out. You stay in control of what gets disputed and when.
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No. CreditRefresh is dispute automation software, not a traditional credit repair company. The app pulls your credit reports, an AI flags errors and FCRA violations, drafts dispute letters, and you review and approve each one before it is sent. There is no agent representing you, no monthly retainer for services, and no contracts.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is the federal law, codified at 15 U.S.C. 1681, that governs how your credit information is collected, shared, and reported. It gives you the right to see your file, dispute inaccurate information, have errors investigated within 30 days, limit who pulls your report, and sue over violations. Every CreditRefresh dispute runs on FCRA rights.
When the standard dispute process has failed: a bureau missed the FCRA 30-day deadline, returned a clearly inadequate investigation, refused to investigate, or a furnisher keeps re-reporting a corrected item. The CFPB is an escalation tool — file at consumerfinance.gov/complaint after normal disputes haven't worked.
Yes. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, every consumer has the legal right to dispute inaccurate information on their credit reports directly with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The bureaus must investigate within 30 days. This guide walks through the full manual process, step by step, and explains where automated tools like CreditRefresh fit into the picture.