Use reviews as clues, then test every claim against the contract and complaint record
Open three tabs before you trust a star rating. One tab is the review the neighbor sent you. The second is the company’s written service agreement. The third is the public complaint record you can read without creating an account. If you cannot find a written agreement before the call, ask them to email it and stop the shopping trip until it arrives. A company that will not send the agreement is asking you to buy a story. Save the email with the agreement attached so you can prove what version you were shown. A review can tell you how a company behaved after a person paid. It cannot tell you whether that person’s file looked like yours. It also cannot tell you what the contract actually allows the company to do. Start by copying one concrete claim from the review, such as “they handled the disputes and sent me copies.” Then search the service agreement for the same work: who files, who keeps copies, and how you cancel. If the review praises a result the contract never promises, treat the review as advertising that happens to be written by a stranger. Florida readers who want a second opinion should still do this paper test. The test takes one evening. Hiring on a rating alone can take a year to unwind.
People type do credit repair companies work after they have already read ten glowing stories and two angry ones. The angry ones often mention fees, cancellation, or missing updates. Those themes are more useful than the adjectives. Write fee, cancel, and update as three headings on a pad. Under each heading, paste one sentence from a review and one sentence from the contract. If the contract is silent where the review is loud, the review is not evidence. If the contract is harsh where the review is sweet, believe the contract. A company can collect five-star comments and still keep a cancellation clause that locks you in. Your job is not to average the stars. Your job is to see whether the written process matches the story you are being sold.