Credit repair involves the removal of inaccurate entries from your credit reports, especially those that might be unfairly damaging your credit score. Companies like Ovation Credit Repair facilitate that process, saving you the hassle of disputing items solely by yourself.
Unfortunately, a disproportionate percentage of these companies are untrustworthy, so you must research them carefully to avoid scams. This Ovation Credit Repair review will discuss the business’s legitimacy, explain what it offers, and help you determine whether you should pay for its services.
Pros
Additional features such as credit monitoring, educational resources, and financial management tools
Cons
May require more consumer involvement than competitors
Less robust refund policy than top competitors
Who Is Ovation Credit Repair?
Ovation Credit Repair is a credit repair company that also provides credit monitoring services, credit education resources, and financial management tools. Founded in 2004, the business’s team of experts has helped thousands of customers remove inaccurate, negative items from their credit reports over the last two decades.
Ovation was acquired in 2018 by LendingTree, the well-known online marketplace that facilitates various consumer and commercial financing arrangements.
⚠️ The credit repair industry attracts scam artists looking to take advantage of desperate people. When you’re researching service providers, watch out for potential red flags, especially guarantees of instant or miraculous results.
📗 Learn More: How to Spot Debt Relief and Credit Repair Scams
How Does Ovation Credit Repair Work?
Ovation primarily offers traditional credit repair services, which means it works to remove inaccurate entries from your credit reports. When you sign up for one of its service packages, you must share your credit report details with the business to activate its Dispute Manager tool.
From there, you’ll work with Ovation’s team of case advisors to identify the entries in your reports that you believe are inaccurate. They’ll document your reasons and collect your evidence, then go to work disputing the entries for you.
Subsequently, you can monitor their progress through your dashboard, which lets you review all correspondence with bureaus and creditors. You’ll also receive email notifications when Ovation manages to remove items from your reports.
Ovation claims that most clients first see results in 30 to 45 days, which is how long the bureaus have to respond to disputes. However, the average program lasts six to eight months, allegedly due to the number of entries clients ask to dispute.
📗 Learn More: What is Credit Repair? How It Works and How Much It Costs
Additional Features
Ovation offers multiple secondary features in addition to its credit repair services, though you have to purchase its more expensive subscription option to qualify for most of them. They include the following:
- Financial management tools: Ovation offers tools and calculators to help you improve your personal financial position, including a budget builder and debt repayment calculator.
- Credit monitoring services: You can track changes to your TransUnion credit report through Ovation. That can help you quickly resolve any issues that harm your credit score and identify early signs of identity theft.
- Recommendation letters: At your request, Ovation will send a personalized recommendation letter to prospective creditors to increase your chances of qualifying for financing.
- Creditor letter templates: Credit repair involves disputing inaccurate information with a credit bureau, but it can also be beneficial to contact the creditor reporting the incorrect data. You can use Ovation’s templates to create letters for this.
These features are nice, but their practicality is limited, and for most people, they’re probably not worth the extra cost. You can access similarly effective, if not superior, financial tools, letter templates, and credit monitoring services elsewhere without paying.
For example, Ovation can only monitor your TransUnion credit report, but you can track your TransUnion, and Equifax reports for free using Credit Karma.
📗 Learn More: What Is Credit Monitoring and Do You Actually Need It?
How to Sign Up for Ovation Credit Repair
To access Ovation’s services, you must complete a free consultation. You can submit a request online or call the company during business hours to schedule the appointment. Here’s the contact information:
| 📞 Phone Number | 866-639-3426 (Option 3) |
| ⏳ Hours | Monday to Friday: 8 AM – 9 PM EST Saturday: 10 AM – 4 PM EST Sunday: Closed |
During the initial consultation, an Ovation analyst reviews your credit and finances to see if they can help you. Generally, they’ll want to confirm that you’re trying to remove inaccurate entries from your reports, not just the harmful ones. You typically can’t remove accurate negative entries, a common source of confusion.
They may also tell you whether or not paying for Ovation’s services is worth the expense in your situation. Of course, you shouldn’t count on their honesty too much. Generally, if you only have a few discrepancies in your reports, you should consider disputing them yourself.
How to Cancel Ovation Credit Repair
Whether you’ve successfully repaired your credit with Ovation or find yourself disappointed in the results you’re getting, you can terminate your subscription at any time. There are no long-term contracts or cancellation fees. The best way is to call the company during business hours.
How Much Does Ovation Cost?
Ovation offers two credit repair packages: Essential and Essential Plus. They both have a “first work fee” due upfront and a recurring monthly fee to retain access to Ovation’s services. Here’s a quick rundown of what each package includes and how much they cost.
| ESSENTIAL | ESSENTIAL PLUS | |
|---|---|---|
| Disputes per billing cycle | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Dedicated case advisors | Yes | Yes |
| Financial management tools | Yes | Yes |
| TransUnion credit monitoring | No | Yes |
| Personalized recommendation letter | No | Yes |
| Access to creditor letter templates | No | Yes |
| Access to fast track (priority status) | No | Yes |
| Initial fee | $89 | $89 |
| Monthly fee | $79 | $109 |
| Cost for 90 days | $326 | $416 |
Ovation offers discounts to customers who fall into a few different categories. Discounts only apply to your monthly fees. They include the following:
- Senior discount: If you’re more than 65 years old, you can get a 10% discount on your monthly fees.
- Military discount: Retired and active duty personnel can earn a 10% discount on their monthly fees.
- Couples discount: If you sign up with a partner, friend, or family member, you can get 20% off your monthly fees, but you can’t stack it with the previous two discounts.
You can also earn one-time credits by fulfilling a few requirements. First, you can get $30 off your monthly bill when you refer another person. If you refer a couple who signs up together, you’ll receive a $50 credit.
You can also earn a $50 credit if you sign up for Ovation after hiring another credit repair company and being dissatisfied with its services. You’ll have to prove that you’re switching to Ovation from a direct competitor.
Variability Between States
Rates may vary between states due to differing regulations. Ovation explicitly notes that consumers in Mississippi and Oregon have access to different prices and services. If you live in either state, you must call them to learn about the current offerings in your location.
Ovation Refund Policy
Ovation has a refund policy designed to give you more confidence in its ability to deliver. It states that if Ovation ever “fails to provide the agreed-upon services,” you won’t have to pay your monthly fees for the period.
That wording is vague, but it seems to indicate that you can get your fees for the current month waived or refunded if you’re disappointed in Ovation’s efforts or performance. However, you won’t be able to get your money back for the initial sign-up fee or previous monthly charges.
Ovation Credit Repair Reviews
Ovation Credit Repair has been in business for many years and has an established digital presence. Here’s an overview of its customer review profiles on several of the more popular platforms:
As you can see, Ovation’s reviews tend to lean positive. Compliments frequently come from customers who appreciate the quality of service they’ve received, often specifically referencing their representative’s patience, kindness, and helpfulness.
Notably, there aren’t as many positive reviews that report successfully using the service to remove negative credit entries. They’re present but less common, indicating that many of the ratings are from people who may be too early in the credit repair process to give an accurate account of the full experience.
As for criticisms, there are several issues that customers consistently report. Most frequently, negative reviews state that the customer shelled out hundreds of dollars and didn’t see their negative entries disappear or their credit scores increase.
In addition, these reviewers often accuse Ovation of failing to communicate with them and intentionally dragging out the process to accrue additional monthly fees.
Billing problems also seem to be a fairly common complaint, with multiple negative reviewers claiming they struggled to cancel their subscriptions after growing dissatisfied with the service.
All that said, you should always take customer reviews with a grain of salt. Though a valuable resource, they can also present a skewed depiction of the average customer’s experience.
📗 Learn More: How to Evaluate Online Reviews When Making Purchase Decisions.
Best Alternatives to Ovation Credit Repair
If you don’t think Ovation Credit Repair is a good fit for you but still have an interest in hiring a credit repair company, there are still many alternatives you can consider. Here are two of the best options:
- Credit Saint: With a solid reputation, a 90-day money-back guarantee, and flexible dispute options, Credit Saint is arguably the best credit repair company. However, its subscription fees can be high, and the number of disputes per cycle is low for the cheaper tiers. Read full review
- Sky Blue: If you’re looking for an affordable option, Sky Blue might be the best choice. Its only subscription plan has a $79 start-up charge and a $79 monthly fee, and couples can get an impressive 50% discount. It also offers a 90-day money-back guarantee and has a favorable reputation online. Read full review
Of course, the other primary alternative is to go the do-it-yourself (DIY) route. That’s probably the best option for the average consumer with only a few entries to dispute.
Not only is it free, but it’s also a valuable learning experience. Consumers often struggle to understand how credit scores work, and engaging with the system can increase your ability to manage your credit and prevent further issues.
Perhaps most importantly, you don’t have to worry whether you’ve hired a repair company that might mishandle your disputes or drag out the process to collect additional monthly fees.
If you’d like to dispute the negative items in your credit reports yourself but want some guidance, consider investing in credit repair software. It can help organize and facilitate your disputes for less than the cost of a full-service credit repair company.
📗 Learn More: 5 Best Credit Repair Companies of March 2023.
Is Ovation Credit Repair Worth Using?
Ovation Credit Repair is one of the better credit repair companies. It’s a legitimate business with a respectable track record and offers features many competitors lack, such as credit monitoring, financial management tools, and creditor letter templates.
Whether it’s worth using depends primarily on your suitability for paid credit repair. If you have dozens of entries to dispute and more money than time, then hiring Ovation is a fair choice. You might get a better deal or have a more favorable experience with one of the other top-tier providers, but the difference is likely negligible.
If you only need to remove a handful of entries or have a limited budget, avoid hiring Ovation or any other credit repair company and go the DIY route instead.
📗 Learn More: Is Credit Repair Worth the Cost in 2023?
Our Methodology
We compared Ovation Credit Repair to the other entries on our short list of credible, reputable credit repair companies. These are the criteria we used.
- Effectiveness: no credit repair company can remove legitimate negative entries from your credit report, but we look for companies that carry out legitimate disputes quickly and effectively.
- Price: we looked not only at the total price but at the overall value proposition. A low price doesn’t help if you get nothing for it.
- Customer reviews. Reviews aren’t a perfect guide, and some negative reviews often come from people with unrealistic expectations. A pattern of complaints is still a red flag.
- Support. Most credit repair companies provide the same basic services, and customer support is often a key differentiating factor.
Not all factors are equally important to all customers, so you’ll have to choose the points that are most important to you.
