LEGAL PERSPECTIVE

Unfortunately today we live in a society that determines what things should cost us (house, car, etc) by our credit file. If your credit report is good, chances are you will partake in many of the better things in life. The complete opposite is true if your credit report is bad.

Very few creditors will extend fair credit to you with blemishes within your credit history.

Our credit system is not set up to allow people to make mistakes -or even have bad luck.  What if you had to make the simple choice between eating and making a car payment? What if a job lay-off, medical emergency, or some other personal crises prevented you from making a timely payment? Should you be forced to pay added intrest for this for the next 7 to 10 years… serving a credit prison sentence?

How is a system like this allowed to operate in our democracy? The credit bureaus have placed themselves in the position of both judge and jury in relation to your credit file. Do not forget one very important difference… A judge will give you a chance to defend yourself BEFORE ruling. We are supposed to have the opportunity in America to face our accusers BEFORE judgment is passed. This is entirely untrue when it comes to your credit records.

The truth is creditors and credit bureaus have been swapping information about you behind your back and without your permission for a long time. In effect, it is hearsay and it can cause you severe economic hardship.

The current system does not give you the opportunity to defend yourself before inscribing your credit file with negative and damaging information (even if it is not yours). Their perspective is that you must prove to them that the negative information on your credit report is incorrect, invalid, erroneous, or otherwise non-verifiable before they will remove it. In other words, in the eyes of the credit bureaus… you are guilty until proven innocent.

We are brought up to believe that one is innocent until proven guilty. Why we are not extended the same courtesy by the credit bureaus? Why do they not give us a chance to defend ourselves before they place negative information on our report? Fact is, consumer rights cost them money.
The sole focus of credit bureau companies is profit.

Your credit file is their product. The credit bureaus have no government affiliation (except for spending millions on lobbying efforts). These private corporations sell your personal financial information to anyone that will pay for it…who generally accepts it as gospel. (Although it has been proven many times that mistakes do happen all too often.)
Creditors then reciprocate by giving back to the bureaus any information that they may have on you.

What can be done?

• a democracy, everyone is entitled to a defense.

• Consumers have the right to obtain representation and face their accusers armed with their legal rights.

• The credit bureaus should have to back up the information that they sell about you. Congress and the law agree. If your defense is presented properly, whether your credit report is accurate or not, it is usually more difficult and costly to prove the information is correct than to simply remove it.

• It should require more than just a form letter to validate my credit. It does. If the bureaus state the information was only verified, our attorneys will increase the intensity of the challenge and request validation until it is permanently removed.

Legal Links

Equal Credit Opportunity Act – ECOA

Credit Repair Organizations Act – CROA

Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act

Fair Credit Reporting Act – FCRA

Fair Debt Collection Practices Act – FDCPA

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What is credit repair all about?

A straight forward explanation with nothing to sell,

just the facts.

If you ever heard about credit repair and wondered what that was all about or how could it even be possible to have negative, accurate information like bankruptcies, credit card charge offs and the like removed from your credit report… this is the blog post for you. I’m going to give you the readers digest version because I have never seen so much misinformation about any other subject in my life. There is nothing for sale here, just a straight forward answer on what’s going on.

So you have heard about credit repair, or have seen a sign or saw an advertisement claiming to give your credit report a quick clean power wash. ….but your gut tells you it’s too good to be true. If this was possible everyone would be doing it, right?

Well here is a breakdown of what IS and ISN’T possible – and why.

Indeed, yes it is true; you can have negative information of any type removed from your credit report, even if it was really your obligation.

How can that be so? Because your credit report is nothing more than a serious of allegations made against you. Since we live in a country in which you are innocent until proven guilty – YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHALLENGE THAT INFORMATION. The government has passed many pieces of legislation, most notably the Fair Credit Reporting Act, that are designed to protect you, the little guy from unfair practices that were hurting consumers. According to the non partisan

U.S. Public Interest Research Groups…

“Altogether, 79% of the credit reports surveyed contained either serious errors or other mistakes of some kind.”

This realization in the 1990’s prompted several states and eventually the U.S. congress to pass laws protecting you, giving you recourse against these huge for profit companies. Please remember this, you are the credit bureaus product, they sell information about you to potential employers and creditors – or almost anyone who wants to pay for it. If they are going to besmirch your name they have to cross a lot of t’s and dot a lot of i’s before doing so. Just ask yourself these 2 questions:

1. Can you imagine a world in which someone can keep information about you, information that determines how much your house and car cost and NOT be able to challenge it?

2. Can you imagine a world in which the collection companies, used car lots, satellite dish installers and credit card companies (the people saying you owe them money)  are in compliance with all the rules they have to follow BEFORE they put negative items on you account?

–OF COURSE NOT! STOP LETTING THESE PEOPLE SCARE YOU!

What’s it all mean? It means that again, just like in a court of law you are innocent until proven guilty except when it comes to your credit report there is no trial – it’s up to you to ask for one. . The process of credit repair is simply asking, often repeatedly, for the credit bureaus and creditors to prove what they claim to be true, to show documentation, to show that they followed the laws and so on. As you can imagine, when done properly, a lot of the negative information on all of our credit reports is so worthless that no one (neither the credit bureaus nor creditors) is either willing or able to follow the laws when asked to verify the information. Which brings us to the moral and ethical Question of credit repair, which I think people struggle with until they realize how flawed the U.S. credit system really is. If they aren’t willing to spend a one dime to defend the allegation why should it cost you 1,000’s of dollars in added interest on all the things you finance?

Why doesn’t everyone just stop paying their bills and then hire a lawyer or a company to dispute the information? Because…NOTHING IS GUARENTEED to be removed by disputing and run from any company  or person who tells you a particular item will come off. As you know if you don’t pay your debts, it will cause you pain. If there was a sure fire way to get a collection item or bankruptcy item removed from your report the world turn upside down! BUT KNOW THESE FACTS…good companies are averaging 70% deleation ratios because most items are a joke… and ANY TYPE OF ITEM CAN BE REMOVED from your credit report and it happens more often than not, you will learn why in just a minute. For now let’s recap, on the two important facts here.

1. In credit repair, nothing is guaranteed; if you don’t pay your bills, there will be pain; but credit repair can limit that pain drastically. The person disputing the item (you, a credit repair company, a lawyer) is banking on one of several things to happen. That the credit bureaus and your creditors didn’t follow all the rules and laws before they put information on to your credit report or that they simply don’t want to invest time and money fighting with you, your lawyer or a credit repair company. (Some might say that the information is erroneous or outdated or unverifiable, but in reality persistently asking for big bureaucratic companies to verify information is how a good portion of items get deleted.)

2. Because NO ONE, no company, no person or government is allowed to load things on your credit report without following some rules – ANYTHING on your report can be removed. This means any type of item can be removed, bankruptcies, credit card charge-offs, foreclosures, a tax lien from the Supreme Court (if they have those) – anything can be removed. Every citizen has the right to say “STOP – You are besmirching my character and I demand to know why and where you got this information so that I can make sure you are in compliance with the law, if you are not know that I will hold you accountable.”

You may say “But wait, I know I’ve heard that bankruptcies and certain items stay on your credit report for 7-10 years”. WRONG, well kind of wrong. The whole truth is that theses items are not allowed to stay on for MORE than 7-10 years. That’s the max, that doesn’t mean they can’t come off quicker. In fact the “7-10 rule” was passed to limit how much damage can be done to you, to restrict the credit bureaus. They are not intended to make sure you suffer for at least 7-10 years.

The real question you should be asking now is, well it’s not guaranteed, but how probable is it that credit repair can help me increase my credit score?

If you need any one item removed from your report then I would say hiring a credit repair company could be a drastic step. If you are someone that just needs an increase in score then I would say a solid company, with a good BBB track record could defiantly offer you a return on your investment. This is because the cost of bad credit is so high; the added interest payments are ridiculous. Why should not paying a cell phone bill add an extra 50 bucks a month on your car for 5 years? An extra 100 on your mortgage for 30? Why should the bank giving you a mortgage receive an extra 100k dollars over 30 years for a $1,000 worth of mistakes?

The U.S. Credit system makes no sense. For people looking to get financed for a home the return on investment made with a reputable company to fix your credit can be well worth it.

Good luck, hope this helped.

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