<prompt> Human: Hello my knowledgeable friends in rPF! I have a question for you, but first a little background:My wife and I just got the ball rolling on the process of finding a house and getting out of this horrible cycle known as RENTING. We really have no idea what were doing in the real estate world. My dad referred us to his realtor friend who is very nice, and of course the very first thing we need to tackle is financing. She put us in touch with a friend of hers who is a loan officer and she recommended the Home in Five program, which is for lower income people and covers most if not all of the down payment and closing costs as well. In order to qualify for the program however, we must meet certain requirements. One of those is that each of us must have a 640 credit score or better. I have a 701, but my wife is at 592. So the loan officer has now put us in touch with Sam her credit repair service agent to help us improve my wifes score. I just got off the phone with him and hes telling me that within the next 1 - 2 months he can get my wifes score up to where it needs to be. Payment for this service is due on day 30 for 399, and 89 for every 30 days of service after that.My question to you fine ladies and gentleman is this: Do you recommend we use this service or should we just take care of it ourselves? I think by opening a line of credit in my wifes name and utilizing it properly we can raise her score quickly enough, and I already monitor our credit using Credit Karma. What should we do?  <response>: What these credit repair companies typically do is repeatedly dispute all bad references on your credit bureaus. What they are hoping is that the companies that placed the item on your CBR will not respond then it will be removed. If they do, then they continue disputing. Meanwhile, your CBR score will bounce around. Theyre basically a rip off and any referals come with kickbacks. Basically theyre a scam. Save the money and pull all 3 CRUs yourself for free. Review and dispute inaccuracies. Oh, and get another mortgage person. No reputable mort person would refer someone to a CBR fixer. 