Monday, February 18, 2013

Credit Repair Law Firms? No Thanks!

One of the most famous credit repair law firms is Lexington Law.  Probably the next most famous one is Ovation Law.  There are many others.  I am completely for people utilizing legitimate credit repair companies, but I really take issue with ones like these that have monthly charges.  Also, though they may have started out as really good companies, they have just become big repair mills that don't personalize your disputes.  Also, they are not really "law firms" in the sense that they actually provide "legal services" other than credit repair. They mostly are credit repair companies that pay to use a law firm's or lawyer's name.

When you pay for a service that charges you monthly, you can bet they are going to do things that drag it out so they can keep getting that residual monthly income coming from you.  Most people want to see their credit improved as quickly as possible.  They don't want the service to write letters in a way that gets a "frivolous letter" response from the bureaus.  That can delay progress for months and sometimes, it really blows the opportunity of getting that item removed at all.

There is another thing I really don't like about these types of law firms.  They use "Good Will" letters to try to improve the credit. Why don't I like those?  Well, they are basically "Pay for Delete" letters and I am adamantly opposed to paying to delete bad credit.  Sometimes they delete, but many times, when they don't and you follow up to the bureaus and send in a copy of the agreement to delete, they get stubborn and refuse to take it off.  Sending in a copy of an agreement is like admitting that the negative tradeline is yours.  I don't ever recommending sending proof of an account to the bureaus unless it is a completely clean bit of proof that there were no lates and it was paid off completely.  You have to remember that the burden of proof lies with the creditors, collectors, and the bureaus. If they can't prove something, it has to come off.

Something else I don't like about these "Good Will" and "Pay for Delete" letters, is that you are basically offering to settle with the creditors and collectors.  This is so bad!  Once a trade line is bad, it is always bad. It just becomes a "paid" bad. If its a couple late pays that are making it bad, its best to try to remove the lates, then there's nothing bad. You have to remove the "bad".  Usually this means needing a deletion.  Plus, when you "settle" with one of these types of letters, they have the right to send you a 1099 tax form for the amount you didn't have to pay and then you get to pay taxes on that as if it was income. Not a good thing.

The other thing that I know they do, is to include a "Cease and Desist" to their clients' creditors. That is a very dangerous thing to do.  If it is not a time barred debt (outside of your state's statute of limitations) you are allowing yourself to be put in a position to be sued.  I use a "Limited Cease and Desist" paragraph in my letters.  This is what stops the phone calls to you at home, your cell phone, your work, and anyone you might possibly know that they would try to call.  It forces them to communicate with you in writing only.

I have a lot of second hand experience with these types of credit repair companies.  Second hand because many of my clients, past and present, have used them and came to me afterwards.  It is always the same story.  They've paid for months and months, past a year, spent upwards of $1500 and slim to zero results.   They then have me write letters for them and poof!, all of a sudden they start seeing results.  Credit repair is most successful when it is strategically done and both the creditors/collectors and the bureaus have consumer laws, case laws, and other legal documentation put in front of their faces.

My goal with credit repair is to help people see deletions and improvements as fast as possible.  There is no sense in dragging it out.  If you truly want to help people, then you would want what's best for them.  If you are only interested in making a load of money off of people's bad credit, then you charge them up front and drag it out, month after month, year after year.

Credit repair can be done for yourself.  Hopefully, if you're looking to do this, you will look through the different posts I have here so you can see how to do it most effectively. Credit repair is an undertaking that you have to stay on top of, be consistent, keep records and send disputes that fall within the legal timelines so that you don't accidentally give the bureaus more time to stall and drag their side out as well.  For many people, its just a lot of work they would rather delegate to someone else to do.

If credit repair is something you need, but you just don't want to have to be writing letters all the time, I would love to help you. I provide help completely legally and use many different laws and tools to implore them to remove the bad credit from your reports. Contact me through my email or phone number above anytime if you would like some help with repairing your credit or just need some guidance while you do it yourself.

14 comments:

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  2. PLEASE PEOPLE, THE COMMENT SECTION IS FOR COMMENTS SPECIFICALLY ABOUT THE POST OR QUESTIONS REGARDING THE POST.

    THE COMMENT SECTION IS NOT TO SPAM MY BLOG AND LINK TO YOUR WEBSITE. I MODERATE COMMENTS AND WILL NO LONGER BE ALLOWING ALL THESE SPAMMY COMMENTS ON MY BLOG. THEY WILL BE MARKED AS SPAM.

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Replies
    1. Hi Matt,
      As you can see, I moderate comments. I'm not able to edit them but I have installed a script that prevents other credit repair sites from spamming my blog. I don't know why your full comment didn't show up as unlinked, but your comment was about learning more.

      I'm not afraid of competition, that's not why I moderate or block spam links. I do that because spam is a nuisance to both me and my readers. I do feel however, that it is rude and unethical to spam my blog that shares great free information with a substandard credit repair site that is more of a scam than an actual asset to consumers.

      I created this blog to teach people how to do it themselves, educate on the truth about the credit industry, consumers' rights and legal sources to assist in the endeavor. If you want to know how to repair your credit, keep reading. There's lots of valuable information here and I give it away free. Its worth thousands and thousands of dollars and took years and years of research to learn, comprehend and know how to apply what I've learned and used for many, many clients successfully.

      You have also "friended" me on a social network that I am on quite frequently in a credit repair group. I give lots of great information there as well to help others learn. Read everything you can, study, research and put it into practice. I have no doubt if you put action behind what you learn, you will have some success.

      I just find it kind of funny that you tried to spam my blog with a link to a crappy credit repair site but ask me questions about how to repair credit. Doesn't say much for the company you are are affiliated with now does it? Obviously they don't know squat and don't teach their affiliates squat about this business because its not about educating and helping others, its about money, plain and simple. And that's a fact!

      Delete
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  12. You have to remember that the burden of proof lies with the creditors, collectors, and the bureaus. If they can't prove something, it has to come off.

    Reliant Credit

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are correct Reliant. The hard thing is to enforce the removal of non-validated and unverified information. Sometimes they come off easily, and sometimes they just keep fighting back and get away with it.

      Delete

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