Payday Loans, Title Loans, and Credit Repair: Small-Dollar Credit and Its Traps

Summary. What these products actually cost, why the cycle happens, and what protections exist.

The arithmetic nobody does at the counter

A payday lender advances $300 and takes a post-dated check or an authorization to debit for $345 in fourteen days. The fee is $45.

Forty-five dollars sounds like a modest price for a two-week bridge. It is also, expressed as an annual percentage rate, approximately 391%.

That is not a rhetorical flourish. It is the same conversion used for a mortgage or a car loan, and the reason the Truth in Lending Act — 15 U.S.C. § 1601 and following, implemented at 12 C.F.R. Part 1026 — requires the APR to be disclosed is precisely so that a fee and a rate can be compared.

The APR is on the disclosure. Almost nobody looks at it, because the fee is the number the borrower is thinking about and the fee is small.

Why the fee is not the problem

If the loan were actually repaid in fourteen days, $45 on $300 would be expensive but survivable.

The loan is generally not repaid in fourteen days, and the product's economics assume it will not be. A borrower who could produce $345 out of the next paycheck would not have needed $300 from a storefront. So on payday the borrower pays the $45 fee and rolls the principal, and does it again, and again.

Industry data has consistently shown that the majority of payday loan volume comes from borrowers in extended sequences of renewals, and that a large share of loans are taken within days of repaying a prior one. The two-week product is, for most borrowers, a multi-month product priced as if it were two weeks.

The arithmetic that matters: $45 every two weeks on a $300 principal is $1,170 a year in fees on a debt that never gets smaller.

The three products

Payday loans

Also called deferred presentment or deferred deposit transactions. A small advance — commonly $100 to $1,000 — due on the next payday, secured by a post-dated check or an authorization to debit the borrower's account.

The mechanics that cause harm:

The account authorization. When the loan comes due and the account is short, the lender may present repeatedly, and each failed presentment generates an NSF fee from the bank — frequently $30 to $35 each — on top of the lender's own returned-item fee. A single $300 loan can generate several hundred dollars in bank fees before anything is repaid.

The rollover. The borrower pays only the fee and extends the principal. Some states limit or prohibit rollovers; the limits are frequently evaded by repaying and re-borrowing the same day, which is a "new loan" in form and a rollover in substance.

Loan stacking. Multiple simultaneous loans from different lenders, each unaware of the others. Some states operate a statewide database to prevent this; most do not.

The collection tools. Threats of criminal prosecution for a bad check are common and are unlawful in most contexts — a post-dated check given as loan security is not a bad check in the criminal sense, and prosecutors in many states have expressly declined to be used this way. A threat of arrest over a payday loan should be reported.

Note also 15 U.S.C. § 1693k, which prohibits conditioning an extension of credit on repayment by preauthorized electronic fund transfers. A lender who requires ACH authorization as a condition of the loan is operating against that provision.

Federal rules addressing payday, vehicle title, and certain high-cost installment loans appear at 12 C.F.R. Part 1041, and this is an area where the regulatory position has shifted more than once.

Title loans

The most dangerous of the three, because the collateral is the car.

A loan secured by a lien on the borrower's vehicle title. Amounts typically run 25% to 50% of the vehicle's value, terms are often thirty days, and rates commonly run 200% to 300% APR. The borrower keeps the car; the lender holds the title and, increasingly, a starter interrupter or GPS device.

Why it is worse than a payday loan:

Default means repossession, and repossession means loss of transportation to work
The vehicle is frequently worth several times the loan, and in many states the lender keeps the surplus after sale — a $1,200 loan can consume a $5,000 car
Self-help repossession is permitted in most states without a court order, so long as there is no breach of the peace
Rollovers are common here too, and the loan grows while the collateral does not

What the law does provide: most states require notice before sale and an accounting afterward; many require commercial reasonableness in the sale; and a repossession accomplished through a breach of the peace — a confrontation, a threat, breaking into a locked garage — is wrongful and gives rise to damages.

And the practical point: a borrower facing title loan repossession should retrieve personal property from the vehicle immediately, and should know that in many states there is a right to redeem before sale by paying the amount due.

High-cost installment loans

The category that has grown as payday lending has been restricted. Larger amounts, longer terms, and rates that are lower than payday rates and still very high — 60% to 200% is common.

What to watch for:

Credit insurance and add-on products financed into the loan, which inflate the principal and the interest on it
Loan flipping — repeated refinancing that resets the term, charges new fees, and front-loads interest
Balloon payments
Prepayment penalties and rebate methods that make early payoff less valuable than it should be
Security interests in household goods, which serve no real collateral purpose and exist to create leverage

Rate caps and the structures built to avoid them

The state patchwork

Small-dollar credit is primarily governed by state law, and the variation is as wide as anything in consumer law.

Some states cap rates at 36% or lower on small loans, which effectively ends storefront payday lending
Some prohibit payday lending outright
Some authorize it with a fee schedule, a maximum principal, a maximum term, limits on rollovers, a cooling-off period between loans, and a statewide database
Some have effectively no cap

Find out which state you are in before anything else. It determines whether the loan is lawful, whether the fees are collectible, and whether the borrower has a claim.

Where a loan violates a state rate cap or licensing requirement, the consequences can be severe — in various states, the loan is void, the interest is forfeited, the borrower may recover payments made, and statutory penalties and attorney's fees are available. A loan made by an unlicensed lender in a state requiring licensure is frequently unenforceable.

The evasion structures

Three recur, and a borrower should know the shape of each.

Rent-a-bank. A nonbank lender partners with a bank chartered in a state without a rate cap, the bank is nominally the lender, and the nonbank buys the receivable immediately. The argument is that federal banking law lets the bank export its home state's rate. This has been extensively litigated, and the analysis turns on who the "true lender" is — who has the predominant economic interest and bears the risk. Outcomes vary; the structure remains contested.

Tribal lending. A lender claims sovereign immunity through affiliation with a tribe. Courts have distinguished between arms of a tribe, which may have immunity, and non-tribal operators paying a fee for the affiliation, which do not. The "arm of the tribe" analysis looks at the actual relationship, not the label, and the outcomes have not favored purely nominal arrangements.

Choice of law and arbitration. Contracts specifying a distant forum, a foreign or tribal law, and mandatory individual arbitration. Provisions eliminating all substantive rights have sometimes been found unenforceable, but the clauses do real work in practice.

The practical point for a borrower: none of these structures makes the money magically owed. Complain to your own state's regulator and attorney general — the state's interest in enforcing its own rate cap against a lender doing business with its residents is substantial, and enforcement in this area has been active.

The Military Lending Act

10 U.S.C. § 987, with implementing regulations at 32 C.F.R. Part 232, applies to active duty service members and their dependents and does the following:

Caps the "military annual percentage rate" at 36%, calculated inclusively — it counts finance charges, most fees, and the cost of credit insurance and add-on products, which is why it is harder to evade than an ordinary rate cap
Prohibits mandatory arbitration clauses
Prohibits requiring an allotment for repayment
Prohibits security interests in the vehicle title for covered loans
Prohibits prepayment penalties
Requires specific oral and written disclosures
A violation makes the credit agreement void from inception, and provides for actual damages, statutory damages, punitive damages, and attorney's fees

Why it matters beyond the military: the 36% all-in cap is the benchmark that state and federal proposals reference, and it demonstrates that a workable inclusive cap is administrable. It also means that a service member presented with a 200% title loan is looking at a void agreement, which is a very different conversation.

Credit repair

The industry that sells a remedy for the damage the products above cause, and it is regulated because the sales practices were bad enough to require it.

The Credit Repair Organizations Act — 15 U.S.C. § 1679 and following — governs organizations selling services to improve a consumer's credit record.

Prohibited practices, at § 1679b:

Making any untrue or misleading statement to a credit bureau, a creditor, or a consumer
Advising a consumer to make an untrue or misleading statement — which is what "file a new credit identity" advice amounts to
Any act that is a fraud or deception on a person in connection with the offer or sale of the services
And the central one: charging or receiving payment for any service before it is fully performed

That last prohibition is the operative one. A credit repair company that takes money up front, before the promised results are delivered, is violating the statute — and that is the business model of most of the industry.

Required disclosures, at § 1679c: a separate written statement of consumer rights, before any contract is signed, stating among other things that the consumer can dispute inaccurate information directly and for free.

Also required: a written contract with specified terms, and a three-day right to cancel.

Remedies: actual damages or the amount paid, punitive damages, and attorney's fees. Waivers of these rights are void.

What credit repair can and cannot do

It cannot remove accurate, timely, negative information. No one can. A late payment that happened, reported accurately, within the reporting period, stays.

What actually works, and is free:

Disputing genuinely inaccurate information with the credit bureaus — the reinvestigation duty is triggered by a dispute to the bureau, and the mechanics are in the identity theft materials
Disputing with the furnisher as well
Getting obsolete information removed when the reporting period has run
Blocking information resulting from identity theft
Negotiating with creditors directly, including asking for deletion as part of a settlement
Adding a consumer statement to the file
Paying down utilization, which moves scores faster than almost anything else
Time. Which nobody can accelerate.

Nonprofit credit counseling — accredited agencies, frequently free or low-cost — does the useful part of this work without the advance fee.

Alternatives that exist and go unused

Before a payday or title loan, these are worth ten minutes:

A payment arrangement with the actual creditor. Utilities, medical providers, and landlords negotiate far more readily than borrowers expect, and it costs nothing.
A credit union small-dollar loan. Many federal credit unions offer payday alternative loans with capped rates and application fees, and membership is frequently available through employment, geography, or a small donation.
An employer advance or an earned wage access program, where offered.
Utility and rental assistance through community action agencies — see the utility materials.
A local emergency assistance fund — county, faith-based, or community organization.
Selling something, borrowing from family, or a hardship withdrawal, each of which people avoid for reasons of pride that cost far more than the pride is worth.
A pawn transaction, which is worse than a bank and better than a title loan in one crucial respect: the loss is limited to the pawned item, and there is no personal liability and no deficiency.

And the comparison worth making explicitly: $45 every two weeks on a $300 payday loan is roughly $1,170 a year on a debt that does not shrink. Almost any alternative, including one that feels humiliating, is cheaper than that.

Four borrowers

The $300 that cost $1,900

Ottoline Achterberg-Ruiz borrowed $300 against her next paycheck to cover a car repair. Fee: $45, due in fourteen days.

On payday, after rent and groceries, she had $180. She paid the $45 fee and rolled the principal.

She did that seventeen times over eight months. Total fees: $765. The principal never moved.

Then the account went short on a presentment. The lender presented three times over four days. Her bank charged $35 per returned item each time, plus the lender's $30 returned-item fee. That month cost $180 in fees on a $345 debit.

Total, over eight months, on a $300 loan: approximately $1,900, and she still owed $300.

What she did when she finally called legal aid:

Checked the lender's license with the state financial regulator. It was licensed, and the fee was within the state's schedule — so the loan was lawful.
Checked the rollover rules. Her state limited rollovers to three and required a cooling-off period between loans. The lender had evaded it by having her repay and re-borrow the same day. That was a violation.
Revoked the ACH authorization in writing, to both the lender and her bank, and placed a stop payment.
Complained to the state regulator with the transaction history attached.
Complained to her bank about the multiple presentment fees.

The regulator's investigation produced a refund of a portion of the fees. Her bank refunded two of the NSF charges. And she got a payday alternative loan from a credit union at a capped rate to retire the principal — which she could have done in month one.

The lesson. The fee was lawful. The rollover pattern was not, and the transaction history is what showed it.

The $1,200 that took a $6,000 car

Fitzgerald Beauvais-Nkemdirim borrowed $1,200 against his 2016 sedan, worth about $6,000. Thirty-day term, roughly 240% APR, with a starter interrupter installed.

He rolled it twice. On the third month he was $190 short. The car was repossessed from his driveway at 4 a.m.

What he did that mattered, and fast:

Retrieved his personal property. He called within hours and demanded his tools, a car seat, and documents. Personal property in a repossessed vehicle belongs to the borrower, and lenders must make it available.

Asked about redemption. His state gave a right to redeem before sale by paying the amount due plus reasonable repossession costs. He got the number in writing and had five days.

Demanded the pre-sale notice. Most states require written notice before sale stating the time and place, and a commercially reasonable sale.

Documented the repossession itself. The agent had opened a closed gate to reach the car. In his state that raised a breach of the peace question, which if established makes the repossession wrongful and gives rise to damages.

Asked about the surplus. In his state the lender was required to account for the sale proceeds and return any surplus above the debt and costs — which on a $1,200 debt against a $6,000 car would be substantial.

He borrowed the redemption amount from his sister, got the car back, sold it himself for $5,400, and retired the debt with $4,000 left over.

The lesson. A title loan default is not the end of the analysis. Redemption rights, notice requirements, surplus accounting, and breach of the peace all operate — and the car is almost always worth far more than the loan.

The loan that was void

Perpetua Ilunga-Sandoval, a Navy petty officer, took a $2,500 installment loan at a storefront near the base. The contract: 189% APR, a mandatory arbitration clause, an allotment authorization, and $600 in financed credit insurance.

Every one of those violated the Military Lending Act.

The military annual percentage rate is capped at 36%, calculated inclusively — counting the credit insurance and the fees, her rate was far above it. The Act also prohibits mandatory arbitration clauses, prohibits requiring an allotment, and requires specific oral and written disclosures.

A violation makes the credit agreement void from inception, and provides actual damages, statutory damages, punitive damages, and attorney's fees.

She contacted the base legal assistance office — free for service members — which sent a letter. The lender refunded everything paid and voided the balance within three weeks.

The lesson. Service members and dependents have a categorically stronger position than other borrowers in this market, and the base legal assistance office is free and knows this statute cold.

The credit repair company

Cassius Oyelaran-Whitcombe paid $89 a month for eleven months — $979 — to a company that promised to remove seven negative items from his credit reports.

They sent dispute letters. Five items were accurate and stayed. Two were removed and reappeared when the furnishers reverified.

What the company did that was unlawful:

They charged before performing. The Credit Repair Organizations Act prohibits charging or receiving payment for any service before it is fully performed. A monthly subscription paid in advance for future disputes is exactly that.

They never gave him the required disclosure statement — a separate written statement of consumer rights, before any contract, stating that he could dispute inaccurate information himself, directly, for free.

The contract lacked required terms and there was no notice of a three-day right to cancel.

And they had advised him to open a new account with a different identifier to "start fresh," which is advising a consumer to make a misleading statement — separately prohibited, and a path to criminal exposure for him.

He recovered the $979 plus fees through a consumer attorney, on a claim the statute made economical because it shifts attorney's fees.

The lesson, in one sentence: nothing a credit repair company can lawfully do is anything you cannot do yourself, for free, in an afternoon.

Getting out

A borrower already in the cycle needs a sequence, not a warning. Here is one.

1. Stop the bleeding at the bank.

Revoke the ACH authorization in writing, to the lender and to your bank, and place a stop payment on the specific authorization. Note that the underlying debt survives — you are stopping the automatic debits and the cascade of NSF fees, not cancelling the obligation. Do this first, because bank fees frequently exceed the loan fees.

Consider closing the account and opening a new one at a different institution if debits continue. A lender presenting on a closed account cannot generate fees.

2. Find out whether the loan is lawful.

Is the lender licensed in your state? Check the state financial regulator's licensee search. Two minutes.
Does your state cap rates on loans of this size? If the loan exceeds the cap, in many states it is void or the interest is forfeited.
Does your state limit rollovers or require a cooling-off period? Compare that to your actual transaction history.
Does your state require a database check or limit the number of simultaneous loans?
Are you a service member or dependent? If so, the 36% inclusive cap applies and a violation makes the agreement void from inception.

3. Get the transaction history.

Request from the lender, in writing: every loan, every rollover, every fee, every payment, and every date. The pattern is where the violations live — same-day repay-and-reborrow, rollovers beyond the statutory limit, and simultaneous loans are all visible only in the history.

4. Refinance out, at any rate below what you are paying.

A credit union payday alternative loan — capped rate, small application fee, and many credit unions will lend specifically to retire high-cost debt
A community development financial institution small-dollar loan
An employer advance
A family loan, documented
Even a credit card cash advance, which at 25% is a fifteenth the cost of 391%

5. Negotiate an extended payment plan.

Many states require the lender to offer one on request — frequently after a specified number of rollovers, at no additional fee, over several installments. Ask for it by name, in writing, and cite the statute if you can find it.

6. Complain, in parallel.

The state financial regulator · the state attorney general · the CFPB · and, for collection conduct, the mechanisms in the debt collection materials. Complaints in this area produce refunds at a meaningful rate, because licensed lenders do not want a regulator examining their rollover patterns.

7. If you are sued, answer.

A default judgment on a payday or title loan is entirely avoidable and it converts a contestable debt into a wage garnishment. The defenses that actually work here: the lender is unlicensed · the rate exceeds the state cap · the rollover pattern violated the statute · the plaintiff is an assignee that cannot prove the chain · the amount includes unlawful fees · the Military Lending Act voids the agreement.

Collection conduct in this market

The products are legal in many states. A substantial share of the collection conduct is not, and it is worth knowing what crosses the line.

Threats of criminal prosecution. The most common unlawful tactic in this industry. A post-dated check given as security for a loan is generally not a criminal bad check, because the lender knew the funds were not there. Prosecutors in many states have publicly refused to be used for this. A threat of arrest over a payday loan is a violation and should be reported to the state regulator, the attorney general, and the CFPB.

Calls to employers and relatives. Contacting third parties about the debt, beyond limited location inquiries, is prohibited under federal collection law when a debt collector does it, and under state law in many places when the original lender does.

Repeated presentment. Presenting a check or an ACH repeatedly to generate fees, or splitting a payment into multiple attempts, has been the subject of enforcement action.

Misrepresenting the amount or the legal status of the debt.

Continuing to contact after a written cease-communication request to a debt collector.

Threatening wage garnishment without a judgment. Garnishment requires a judgment in nearly every state; a threat of immediate garnishment on an unadjudicated debt is a misrepresentation.

Document every violation — date, time, number, name, and exact words. Statutory damages plus attorney's fees make these claims economical, and consumer attorneys take them on contingency.

Adjacent products worth knowing about

The small-dollar market keeps producing new shapes, and each one raises the same questions in different packaging: what is the all-in cost expressed as an APR, what happens on default, and what state law governs it.

Earned wage access. An advance against wages already worked, offered through an employer or directly to a consumer, frequently for a small "expedite fee" or a voluntary "tip." Employer-integrated programs with no mandatory fee are genuinely useful. Direct-to-consumer versions with fees and tips can price out at triple-digit APRs, and several states have begun regulating them as loans. Ask what the fee is as a percentage of the advance over the days until payday.

Buy now, pay later. Point-of-sale installment credit, usually four payments over six weeks, frequently interest-free if paid on time. The risks are late fees, the ease of stacking multiple plans across retailers, and the automatic debit hitting an account that is short. Dispute and chargeback rights are weaker than a credit card's, and returns can be genuinely difficult to resolve.

Refund anticipation loans and checks. Advances against an expected tax refund, priced as fees against a refund arriving in days. Free filing assistance and direct deposit make these unnecessary for most filers — the IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program and similar services are free and available.

Pension and structured settlement advances. A lump sum in exchange for assigning future payments, at effective rates that are frequently extraordinary. Structured settlement transfers require court approval in nearly every state, and the court's job is to find the transfer in the payee's best interest — which is real protection, and which is why some operators structure around it. Assigning federal benefits is separately restricted.

Auto title pawn. The pawn version of a title loan in some states, with pawn rules rather than lending rules — which occasionally means fewer protections, not more.

Pawn transactions. Higher effective rates than a bank and one structural advantage over everything else in this article: no personal liability and no deficiency. If the item is not redeemed, the loss is the item. For a borrower with no realistic path to repayment, that ceiling is worth something.

Rent-to-own. Not a loan in form, so lending rules frequently do not apply. The total of payments for a household good routinely exceeds two or three times the cash price. Ask for the cash price and the total of payments, and compare them. Many states require both to be disclosed.

Small-dollar bank products. A number of banks and credit unions now offer small advances at capped costs to existing customers. Ask your own bank whether they have one — it is frequently the cheapest option available and it is rarely advertised.

What actually improves a credit report

Since credit repair is the second half of this article's subject, it is worth stating plainly what works — because the free version and the $89-a-month version do the same things, and one of them is free.

Pull all three reports and read them. They differ, because not every furnisher reports to all three.

Dispute genuine inaccuracies with the credit bureau, not only the furnisher. The reinvestigation duty is triggered by a dispute to the bureau. Dispute with each bureau separately; they do not share disputes.

Look specifically for: accounts that are not yours · balances that are wrong · a paid account showing a balance · a discharged debt not marked discharged · duplicate reporting of the same debt by the original creditor and a collector · a date of first delinquency that is later than it should be, which extends how long the item stays · an account reported as open that was closed · a hard inquiry you did not authorize.

The date of first delinquency is the item most worth checking. It controls when the negative information must fall off, and a furnisher who re-ages an account by reporting a later date has extended the damage — which is both inaccurate and correctable.

Get obsolete information removed. Most negative information has a reporting period, and items past it must come off. Bankruptcies, judgments, and collections each have their own rules.

Block information resulting from identity theft, using an identity theft report — a faster and stronger mechanism than an ordinary dispute.

Negotiate directly with creditors, and ask for deletion as a term of the settlement. Get it in writing before paying. "Paid, settled for less than full balance" and "paid in full" read very differently.

Pay down utilization. The ratio of balances to limits moves scores faster than nearly anything else, and it responds within a billing cycle. Requesting a credit limit increase without borrowing more does the same thing.

Keep old accounts open. Length of history matters, and closing an old card shortens it and raises utilization at once.

Add a consumer statement where a dispute did not resolve in your favor. It is limited but free.

Then wait. No lawful process accelerates time, and any company promising to is describing something that either does not work or is not lawful.

And if you want help: an accredited nonprofit credit counseling agency does the useful part of this — budgeting, creditor negotiation, and a debt management plan — for free or at low cost, without an advance fee and without promising what cannot be delivered.

A closing note on the framing

There is a version of this subject written entirely as a warning: do not take these loans, they are predatory, the arithmetic is terrible. All of that is true, and by itself it is not useful to the person reading it at 11 p.m. because the car needs a $340 repair and work is at six.

The honest framing is narrower. People take these loans because the alternatives at that moment appear to be worse or nonexistent, and frequently the immediate alternative genuinely is worse — a job lost for want of transportation is a larger catastrophe than a 391% APR on $300.

What is actually true, and what this article is for:

The immediate decision is rarely the expensive one. The eighth rollover is. A single two-week payday loan repaid on schedule costs $45. The same loan carried for eight months costs $765 in fees and still owes the principal. The place to intervene is week three, not day one — and almost nobody intervenes at week three, because by then the fee feels like a fixed cost of living.

The alternatives that exist are almost never checked. A credit union payday alternative loan, a utility payment arrangement, a community action agency crisis grant, an employer advance — each takes a phone call, each is dramatically cheaper, and each is usually discovered months later by someone who says "I didn't know that existed."

The lawfulness question is worth two minutes. Is the lender licensed? Does the state cap the rate? Were the rollover rules followed? In a meaningful number of cases the answer produces a void loan, a forfeited interest charge, or a refund — and nobody ever asks.

And the products designed to fix the damage are frequently a second harm. Credit repair sold in advance, exit companies, recovery services, refund advances — the pattern is consistent enough to state as a rule: when a company finds you, promises a result, and asks for money before delivering it, the transaction is the problem rather than the solution.

None of that is a moral judgment about anyone who took a payday loan. It is a description of where the leverage actually is, which is earlier and cheaper than most people believe.

Frequently asked questions

Is the loan legal? Depends entirely on the state. Check whether your state caps rates on small loans, requires licensing, or prohibits the product — and check whether this lender is licensed with the state regulator.

Can they have me arrested for a bad check? Generally no. A post-dated check given as loan security is not a criminal bad check in most jurisdictions, and threats of arrest are a collection violation. Report them.

Can they take my car? On a title loan, yes — and in most states without a court order, so long as there is no breach of the peace. But notice before sale, a commercially reasonable sale, and an accounting are generally required, and many states give a right to redeem before the sale.

They keep debiting my account. You may revoke the authorization and stop payment, in writing, to both the lender and the bank — and note that conditioning credit on preauthorized electronic transfers is prohibited. Repeated presentments generating NSF fees are worth complaining about to the bank and to the regulator.

What if the lender isn't licensed? In many states an unlicensed loan is void or unenforceable, interest is forfeited, and payments may be recoverable. Complain to the state regulator and attorney general.

Does the 36% cap apply to me? Under the Military Lending Act, if you are an active duty service member or a dependent. A violation makes the agreement void from inception, with damages and fees.

Should I pay a credit repair company? No company may lawfully charge you before performing the service. And nothing they can do that is lawful is anything you cannot do yourself for free.

How do I actually fix my credit? Dispute genuine inaccuracies with the bureaus, get obsolete items removed, pay down utilization, negotiate directly with creditors, and wait. That is the whole list.