Saturday, February 15, 2014

Credit Bureaus Break The Law And Fight Your Credit Repair Efforts

I've been wanting to talk about this for a long time now.  I have been very successful in my efforts to help people clean up their credit reports for many, many years now.  I tell people that it used to be fairly easy.  I would examine the credit reports, find the errors, find the information that was negative, write letters to the collectors, creditors, and bureaus, and within a couple months, most of the items would be removed.  I could look at a credit report and tell the client, this will easily come off, this will take a few letters, this might give you some trouble, and this might not ever come off. I knew how to remove pretty much anything negative on credit reports, and any inquiries or personal information that the client wanted off.  You see, I know for a fact that no company has to leave any information on anyone's credit report for 7-10 years.  In fact, none of it has to ever be reported at all.  There's no law that requires any company furnish information about a consumer to any credit bureau.  But, that's not what they will tell you!  And its not so easy to get good results all the time anymore.

When I say "they", I mean the credit bureaus, creditors, collectors, the FTC, and plenty of website owners, bloggers, article and editorial writers, any of them that just regurgitate the lie that bad credit has to stay on your credit  report for years and years and only time will heal.  They love to say if it belongs to you, even if its negative, it has to stay on.  Now, I can give a pass to the writers that are just incompetent egomaniacs striving to justify their self acclaimed "expert" status.  They're lazy and haven't bothered to really research the laws on the subject, but the rest of them "in the business", they are flat out, just BIG FAT LIARS!  They know full well or should know full well, that these claims are a load of crap.

In recent years, the industry folks that we must communicate with, have made it so much more difficult to clean up the credit reports.  There is a push back against obeying the law by these lawbreakers. They don't seem to care that they have no proof, they've committed fraud, they've allowed errors or false information to make their way onto consumer credit reports and stay there.  They have found that they can make so much money even while breaking the law, its more profitable to keep breaking the law and hope that the consumer gives up.  In fact, they are so twisted in their games, that collectors and creditors are coming out of the woodwork and suing consumers a lot more often now and issuing 1099-C's without proving squat, that my mind is boggled.  They sue just because most people won't or don't know how to respond and they get default judgments.

Credit repair is not as simple anymore as just writing letters and stuff comes off the credit report.  Credit bureaus are in flagrant opposition of the law and they know it, but they seem to think that if they keep spewing lies, and bloggers and self proclaimed "experts" keep repeating it enough, the consumer is stupid enough to believe it and accept that their reports are just going to have to stay bad for 7-10 years.  Consumers aren't stupid!  Some may be lazy. Some may not have very good research skills or access to a computer to study and learn, or a library with relevant information, but my readers aren't stupid and they're consumers.  You aren't stupid because you kept looking for answers. You're on this blog learning the truth. You didn't just accept their lies. You knew in your gut that what you've been told is not the truth. You kept looking till you found someone who would confirm it to you.

I want to share a segment that 60 Minutes did on credit bureaus. After the video, I've got a link to Experian's response.  What a crock!  I'll make a few comments after the video about the video and about their response.


First I have a comment about some claims made in the video.  There is No Way I believe only 40% of consumers have errors on their reports. Maybe more like 94% would be closer to the truth. I find it funny that the FTC claims there is only 1 out of 5 consumers with "an" "error" on their report.  I think the operative words in his statement are "an" and "error".  He could have dropped the word "an" and said "errors" instead of "error" and then it would have been more than his claimed "1 out of 5".  This is complete spin.  He could have also used the phrase "obvious errors" and been more accurate, because without actual investigations, they cannot "accurately" determine how many errors there actually are.

Now, here is a rebuttal by Experian. (Read my comments before you click on the link so you can see what I'm talking about). http://www.experian.com/blogs/news/2013/02/11/60-minutes/
This is comical.  They falsely claim they are 100% in compliance with the FCRA. What a big load of BS! Even worse, I think every single person and company doing credit repair should join together and file a huge class action lawsuit for their slander.  They have the gall to insinuate that we are all scammers and commit fraud with their statement, "...the result of dispute requests from fraudulent credit repair companies who attempt to scam consumers into disputing accurate data..." which clearly shows how much they hate consumers who attempt to clean up their credit and anyone who attempts to help them or hold the bureaus accountable and compliant with the law.

You can also see by their statement, the itty bitty section I quoted, that they continue to spew the lie about negative information if accurate, needing to remain on the credit reports.  Well, I'm no dummy and I don't think any of you are either. They're not going to fool us by trying to phrase their false claims into a sentence that has the potential to sound factual. I'd rather research the law and rely on what that says, any day, over what any bureau rep or one of their lobbyists, tries to force me to believe.

So, though its harder now and takes longer, credit repair does work. We need to use laws against them. We must continue to hold their feet to the fire. They tell the truth that you can repair your credit yourself but that's about the extent of their honesty. Sometimes people don't want to handle that burden all by themselves.  Most of us who help others fix their credit do so with a good heart and a desire to help others.  If you would like help with your credit, I would love to help you. You will see that I do have a heart for helping others.  You can call me and talk to me or email me and I'll respond.  My contact info is up on the top right corner under my picture.  You can also leave a comment below if you like this post or I've helped you with your credit.  If you have questions, please email me as well as posting a comment.  That way, others with the same question will get the benefit of my answer but in your email, I can be a lot more specific for your needs.

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1 comment:

  1. I enjoyed reading this, it's 100% truth! As a legal negotiator, founder of the first online divorce companies, I went from doing bankruptcies to advocating against them. I now do credit repair services and also have a 100% success rate and it is often very frustrating when people ask me why they need someone like me. You nailed it here, it's not as easy as it once was.

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