Credit repair usually starts with one problem — a default that’s blocking a home loan, a judgement that shouldn’t be there. Credit restoration is the bigger job: taking a damaged file and working through all of it, listing by listing, across every bureau, until everything that can lawfully come off is off and everything that remains is at least accurate.
That distinction matters, because a file that’s been through years of financial stress rarely has just one problem. It has a default, plus the duplicate the debt collector added, plus a string of enquiries from the desperate applications that followed, plus repayment history reported wrong during a hardship period. Fixing one listing and leaving the rest is half a job.
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Australian Specialist
Credit Clean Australia
Find What Is Hurting Your Credit Score
Understand what's affecting your credit score and what options you may have to fix it by booking a credit file assessment below.
Your Assessment Includes:
- Both Equifax & Experian credit files audited
- Potentially incorrect or disputable listings identified
- Understand what’s affecting your credit score
- Clear options and next steps
ASSESSMENT
EXPERIAN
GUIDANCE
Book Your Credit File Assessment
Book Your Credit File Assessment
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Open selected time in a new tabWhat You Get in Your Assessment
Next Steps
Next Steps After Your Assessment
Investigation
We investigate the circumstances behind each listing on your credit file, identifying potential breaches of the Privacy Act or non-compliance with the Credit Reporting Code. This is completed with you over the phone through 40+ simple yes, no, or unsure questions, along with your personal circumstances at the time.
Approved or Denied
If our investigation identifies multiple potential breaches, you may be approved for our credit restoration services. If not, your application will be declined, and your consultant will explain why, providing complete clarity.
Note: Approval does not guarantee the removal of any listing.
Disputes & Result
Formal removal requests are lodged with Equifax, Experian, and relevant credit providers, with escalation to AFCA, the OAIC, courts, or other bodies where required.
If a breach is confirmed, listings may be removed, in most cases boosting your credit score and helping future finance applications.
What credit restoration covers
We work on the five listing types that make up consumer credit reporting in Australia:
- Defaults — listed for five years. Only lawful if the debt was $150 or more, over 60 days overdue, and the required written notices were sent first.
- Court judgements — listed for five years. Challengeable where the court record is misstated, and in some cases resolvable through the court process itself.
- Credit enquiries — listed for five years. Frequently the most numerous problem on a damaged file.
- Serious credit infringements (clearouts) — listed for seven years. Some of the most damaging entries a file can carry, and held to strict listing requirements.
- Repayment history — two years of month-by-month conduct on your accounts. Incorrect history is corrected, not removed; in genuine cases we’ve had it corrected to 0, meaning on time.
What we don’t cover: bankruptcies and Part 9 debt agreements. They’re recorded under a separate system and no credit restoration service can remove them. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you.
How our credit restoration service works
1. The three-bureau audit
Australia has three credit reporting bodies — Equifax, Experian and illion — and your file at each can be different. A default may sit on one bureau and not the others; an enquiry may appear twice on one and once elsewhere. We hold direct membership with all three, and we pull all three files as an access seeker, which means no enquiry is recorded on your file for looking. Then we audit every listing: dates, amounts, identity details, whether the listing rules were followed.
2. Challenge what’s challengeable
For each listing with grounds, we run the dispute through the right channel — correction requests with the credit reporting body, formal complaints to the credit provider, and escalation to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority or the relevant industry ombudsman where responses don’t stack up. Court judgements can involve the court process itself; where they do, we coordinate the process and assist with documentation. Each listing type gets its own strategy — the grounds that succeed against a default are different from those that succeed against an enquiry. Our default removal and judgement removal pages cover the two biggest in detail.
3. Verify against a fresh file
This is the step most providers skip. When a creditor or bureau advises a listing has been removed, we don’t take their word for it — we pull a fresh copy of your credit file and confirm the change is actually showing before the matter is closed. A removal that hasn’t reached the file a lender reads isn’t a removal.
4. Score recovery
Your credit score is calculated from what’s on the file, so as wrongful listings come off and repayment history is corrected, your score has room to recover. How far and how fast depends on what remains — we can’t promise a number, and you should distrust anyone who does. What we can do is make sure the score is being calculated from an accurate file.
Book your credit file assessment
Where restoration starts: the credit file assessment
Every restoration engagement starts the same way: we review your credit file with you and tell you exactly what can and can’t be challenged — every default, judgement, enquiry and repayment history issue, with a straight answer on each and a clear quote before you commit to anything. The assessment is $39.95. If the honest answer is that your file has nothing worth pursuing, you’ll hear that too, along with when each listing expires.
What credit restoration can’t do
Restoration is not a magic wand, and the limits are worth stating plainly. Listings can only be removed when they’re inaccurate, unfair, out of date or were made in breach of the reporting rules. A correctly listed debt that’s genuinely yours stays until it expires — five years for defaults, judgements and enquiries, seven for serious credit infringements — and nothing lawful shifts it early. We investigate, and we pursue removal where grounds exist. We don’t guarantee outcomes, we don’t lend money, we don’t arrange loans, and we’re not lawyers.
Credit Clean Australia holds Australian Credit Licence 531718 and is a member of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (Member 81727).
Find out what your file needs
One damaged listing or a file that needs the full rebuild — the starting point is the same: all three bureaus reviewed and a plain-English answer on every listing, for $39.95.
Book your credit file assessment
Frequently asked questions
What’s the difference between credit repair and credit restoration?
In practice they overlap heavily. We use credit repair for targeted work on specific listings, and credit restoration for the full-file job: auditing all three bureaus, challenging everything with grounds, correcting repayment history and verifying each outcome. Same rules, same processes — restoration just applies them across the whole file.
How long does credit restoration take?
It depends on how many listings are in dispute and how creditors respond. Individual disputes generally carry response timeframes of around 30 days, and some straightforward matters resolve within that window. A full restoration involves multiple disputes running in parallel, and matters that escalate to an ombudsman take longer. You’ll get honest timeframes per listing at the assessment.
Will credit restoration improve my credit score?
Scores generally recover as damaging listings are removed and incorrect repayment history is corrected, because the score is recalculated from the corrected file. The size of the movement depends on what else remains, so we don’t promise numbers — we show you the before and after on the file itself.
Do you handle bankruptcies or Part 9 debt agreements?
No. They sit outside the credit reporting correction system and can’t be removed by any restoration service. If that’s what’s on your file, we’ll tell you at the assessment stage rather than sell you a service that can’t help. For more on what’s realistic, start with our guides.