Judgments Don't Belong On Your Credit Reports

I am of the firm belief that most derogatory items that are on your credit reports don't belong on there.  You see, if you dispute an item, the credit reporting agencies are required to verify the item.  I wrote in a post quite a while back that verification is only hearsay unless it is accompanied by validation or proof of claim, which would be the documentation.  I'm not just pulling this stuff out of my ear. No, there is case law to back up what I'm saying.

Also, verification according to Black's Law Dictionary is Sworn Testimony.  This testimony can be in a deposition, on the witness stand, or an affidavit, sworn under penalty of perjury and under oath, and notarized. Who can testify?  Only someone with first hand knowledge. Only someone who has the documentation to support the testimony and the testimony that supports the documentation.  This is how it works. One without the other is hearsay and according to the courts, it's incompetent and inadmissible.

Now back to credit bureaus claiming something is verified. Have you disputed something and they said it was verified?  Did they provide any documentation?  Did they send you the sworn affidavit testifying to the accuracy?  Hmmm, I'm guessing for everyone that has disputed with the bureaus the answers are Yes, No, and No again!

Have you disputed a judgment and you know it's not accurate?  The amounts are not always accurate. The dates they report are not accurate, usually.  But bigger than those things, is the fact that they come back claiming "Verified" when there are only 3 entities that can verify according to Black's Law Dictionary and case law directly from quite a number of courts. You can verify it - and surprisingly many people actually unintentionally do that when they dispute a judgment. The plaintiff can verify it. And the court/judge has the capability to verify it but that is against the law for them to communicate with the bureaus regarding a specific consumer/case.  In fact, Equifax got slammed a little over a year ago in Chakejian v. Equifax and the court said they cannot claim the court or any government agency furnished information or verified information pertaining to a public record.

The bureaus don't get their information from the courts and plaintiff's don't furnish public record information nor do they verify it with the bureaus. What credit bureaus do is hire a 3rd party "vendor" to check the courts' public records and they furnish it and they claim to verify it. Wait a minute!  Do you see the words "3rd party?" Now remember what the courts and Black's Law Dictionary said about verification?  A 3rd party can't legally claim to verify anything because they lack 1st hand knowledge. They're not even qualified to be furnishing the information!

So, now you know why I'm saying that judgments don't belong on your credit reports.  If you have a default judgment, that is considered a "Void Judgment" because  the court lacked jurisdiction.  If you were sued by a 3rd party collector, they lacked and will always lack Personal Jurisdiction over you. No jurisdiction, no valid judgment! 

Of course, if you fought the lawsuit and didn't fight it properly, they will have a judgment against you because you didn't challenge jurisdiction properly and you didn't word things properly in your response and/or testimony in the case.  If you didn't challenge jurisdiction, you gave them jurisdiction and the courts generally are biased and favor the plaintiff.  You have to say the right things and word things properly and challenge properly and effectively in order to win.

It's the same thing when disputing with the bureaus.  You can fight the judgment and dispute and challenge the judgment with the bureaus, but they are liars, cheats, lawbreakers, and are biased in favor of the companies that pay them.  Judgments should come off easily because they cannot truly be verified. But if the language is not correct, its a 50/50 shot.

There are things you can do in preparation for disputing and I've talked about that on other posts.  These things will give you a little more leverage and help you get them removed.  But if you want someone with over 30 years of experience, who knows the exact verbiage that has given me a 100% success rate of removing the judgments from credit reports, contact me.  I can help you get them off.  I can help remove your judgments whether they are paid or not. Usually after doing some prep work, they come  off with the first dispute. Occasionally the bureaus push back a bit and we have another go at it but as of the date of writing this article, the success rate is 100%.

I want to help you remove these judgments from your credit reports. If you're running out of time to remove these or have been told pay a judgment showing on your credit reports in order to get a car or mortgage or a place to live, or a job, or a promotion, I know how to get them off your reports quicker than most companies, and quicker than disputing it on your own.  The verbiage I use is effective. It is proprietary. It works.

Call or email me today so I can help you get these off your reports and on with your life.  7 years is too long to suffer because the bureaus prefer to be thugs to consumers than to aid them with accurate, verified reports.  Fighting for 6 - 12 months or longer to get the bureaus to remove them when you need to close escrow in 45 days is too long. Let me help.  It's what I'm good at, what I'm passionate about, and I want you to be able to get the things you need that these judgments on your reports are preventing you from attaining.

My phone number is 951-801-2828 and my email address is futurefico@gmail.com. Contact me right away to allow me to help you start getting your life back.

If you have found this blog helpful to you, please consider donating as a sign of your appreciation for information I have freely given to you.  The "Donate" button is on the right side bar.  Thank you for your generosity.

Removing Default Judgments From Credit Reports & Public Records

Have you ever gone and applied for credit or pulled your credit to qualify to buy a car or house and the finance manager or loan officer tells you that you  have to take care of a judgment in order to qualify and you say, "What judgment?"  I hear it quite a bit. This usually happens because you got sued and never were properly served. I see this happening a lot to people who have been sued by 3rd party debt collectors.

If you've read much of my blog, you know that I absolutely loathe debt collectors. These companies are the scum of the earth.  They have no business meddling in your life. They play dirty, violate the law, and should never get a dime from any consumer.  What is really rotten is when they sue you.  They file a lot of lawsuits because they know that most consumers will not fight back and they get default judgments.  If they think you might be a fighter, or they just don't want to take the chance of that, many times they will improperly serve you a summons and complaint or not even serve you at all. If you don't know about the lawsuit, you won't fight it and they'll win by default.

Courts do NOT furnish these judgments, or any judgments for that matter, to your credit reports. They don't verify them with the credit bureaus either when you dispute them.  These are furnished to the bureaus by data diggers. They scour the public records to find new public records and I believe they are paid to furnish them to the credit bureaus.  These data diggers are considered "Vendors" by or to the credit bureaus and they are the ones who both furnish and verify the disputes with the credit bureaus.

This really pisses me off because they are not qualified to do either of these things and when you demand that the bureaus give you the contact information for the person who verified, they lie and give you the court's address and contact info and never expose the true furnisher of the information nor who claims to have verified the information.  I say that they are not qualified because in order to verify something, you have to have first hand knowledge and the full documentation to back it up. They have neither.

But let's talk about how you remove them. Before I explain the following process, let me state that paying off a judgment does not make it come off your credit report. When you are repairing your credit, you will dispute the judgment with the credit bureaus.  You need to give a specific error.  You can say things like, I have never had a valid judgment for $xxx.  Or, I didn't lose any lawsuit on 1/1/01 or whatever date they are reporting.  You need to spin it if it looks sort of accurate.  You can challenge the court location, dates, amounts, plaintiff, missing information, inaccurate information, even the age being obsolete if its too old to even be on a credit report. You must be VERY CAREFUL not to admit anything about the judgment.  Use "I don't recall..." if you have to but don't even hint at admitting to it.

At the same time you are disputing with the bureaus, send a letter off to the court requesting their method of furnishing information and verifying information with the credit bureaus.  Do not get specific. Do not include your social security number. Do not include any case numbers. Do not reference ANY specific case.  You are only inquiring about whether or not they furnish information and verify information with the credit bureaus.  Make sure you include a self addressed stamped envelope so that they can send you a response quickly.

You should have the response from the court back before you even get your bureau responses back. This is most of the time.  Sometimes courts fail to respond.  When this happens, I think that there's a clerk or court employee that is intentionally trying to make it difficult for you to remove your public record items because they believe you deserve it.  I'm just very suspicious of them like that. I like to see the good in people but I've seen so much that I just have a hard time giving them the benefit of the doubt.  Anyhow, hopefully they will answer your inquiry properly so that you will have some good ammunition for your next round of bureau disputes.

Hopefully your bureau disputes will come back showing that the judgment has been deleted.  But if it comes back as "Verified", you will need to do another round.  This time, your dispute will be, you told me to contact the court regarding the verification of this item. Please see the attached letter I received from the court when I did as you told me to do. They had nothing to do with this information and they certainly didn't verify it.  Please either give me the contact information of the liars who claimed to have verified this or delete it.  Make sure you have attached a copy of the letter from the court and you can also include an FTC staff opinion letter that I use and highlight, that states bureaus are allowing inaccurate public record information on credit reports.

This time, your bureau responses should come back showing the judgment deleted.  But, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Bureaus will occasionally claim they can't use the supporting documentation that you sent with your dispute and its still verified.  Even though the correct and lawful response would be that it has been deleted, unfortunately, bureaus are big lawbreakers too.

We are moving on now to the next section. Whether or not you removed your judgment from the credit report it will still be in the public records.  If you are buying or selling property, when they do a Title search, they will find this judgment and underwriting for your mortgage may require that you pay it off as will escrow for sellers to be able to close.  Credit repair does NOT remove the judgments from public records.  But, getting the judgment vacated with the court sure does!

Now, this is good for everyone who hasn't been able to get it off the credit reports.  I also want to reiterate that this is ONLY FOR DEFAULT JUDGMENTS!  Removing a judgment from a public record should cause your next dispute to the bureaus to finally delete it off your credit reports.

DISCLAIMER:  THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVISE!! THIS IS "HOW TO" INFORMATION BASED ON MY OPINIONS, MY EXPERIENCES, RESULTS FROM PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE AND MY KNOWLEDGE GAINED FROM RESEARCH AND PRACTICAL APPLICATION RESULTING IN CONSISTENT SUCCESSES ONLY. I AM NOT CLAIMING TO BE A BAR ATTORNEY. (I refuse to stoop to that level or be insulted to that degree).

You will need to get the judgment vacated at the court level. This means you will need to file a Motion to Vacate and Set Aside the judgment, and Motion to Stay the Execution of the judgment. You will also need an Answer to the lawsuit which will be entered as an attachment to your Motion to Vacate.

Court rules vary from state to state and county to county. Sometimes courts have rules specific to that court.  There are 2 arguments that can be raised to get a judgment vacated.  The first one is the one most often used and pretty much the only one that an attorney would use. It is a Motion to Vacate for Lack of or Improper Service.  What this means is that you weren't served at all or they didn't serve you properly.  They may have served the wrong address. But for whatever reason, you were not timely and properly notified that you were being sued.  There is also an argument to be made that you were in the hospital at that time or out of the state/country, and didn't get served properly.  They may have done what is called "Substituted Service" because they weren't able to serve you personally.

You will need to pull the full case file and buy a copy of everything in that file. You will want to see the Summons and Complaint (sometimes called a Warrant of Debt), the proof of service, any affidavits that were included, and anything else in that file.  You will be using these items and the information they contain, especially in their Complaint, which has "Causes of Action" to form your defense for both your motions and your Answer.

Remember I talked about court rules?  Well, its very common to see a deadline to file a Motion to Vacate within 6 months of discovering that you had a judgment.  So, when you find out about it and you want to use this defense, you will usually need to get your motion filed into the court and served upon that plaintiff within 6 months.

Now the 2nd argument that can be raised to be granted a Motion to Vacate, and again, this is ONLY for DEFAULT judgments, is the court's lack of Jurisdiction. A default judgment is considered a "Void" judgment and it can be challenged AT ANY TIME - There is NO Statute of Limitations to challenge a default judgment.  The court lacks jurisdiction because there are 4 requires items for every case.  A Plaintiff; A Defendant (Whoops, that was missing); Subject Matter; and A Competent Witness.  

When the court grants a default judgment, there was No Defendant. That means the court lacked Personal Jurisdiction.  If when you pull the file you find that the Plaintiff didn't include an affidavit from a "Competent Witness" (one who has first hand knowledge and is qualified to testify - not hearsay!), then the court also had no Subject Matter Jurisdiction.  Also, subject matter jurisdiction can be challenged at any time and the case cannot move forward until the PLAINTIFF establishes, proves it.

Here is the beauty of vacating default judgments, especially when using the argument of the court's lack of jurisdiction. As I stated, default judgments are Void judgments and can be challenged at any time with NO statute of limitations.  What this means is that if you look at the Date of Last Activity for the original account, and had there not been a judgment it would now be outside that Statute of Limitations for debt, once that judgment is vacated, that debt is now considered Time-Barred and they can't come back and sue you again!  While a judgment is active, they can pursue payment until the statute of limitations for judgments expires.

So keep in mind these Statutes of Limitations:

State statute of limitations on debt is based on the Date of Last Activity (when you last made a payment.

State statute of limitations for judgments - based off the date of judgment and runs for usually at least 10 years but it varies by state.

Statute of Limitations for vacating a Default Judgment - ABSOLUTELY NONE!

So the moral of the story here is, be excited for default judgments. If you get sued, even served properly, but are not prepared to fight and doubt you could win (you probably could if you knew how to fight it properly), don't be afraid to get that default judgment.  You have the ability to reopen the case when you are ready. vacate it, and if you can hold off the vultures trying to collect on that judgment until the debt statute of limitations has passed, you can totally get rid of it from the public records as well as your credit reports.  

Oh, PS.  It is much more wise to vacate a judgment than to file a bankruptcy to get out of paying off a judgment.  Filing a BK will add 10 more years of crap credit to your credit reports and they are a pain in the butt to remove. Save those BK filings for emergencies such as one of your strategies for avoiding foreclosure. By the way, if you are facing foreclosure and want to fight, you can contact me for a referral to a friend of mine who is massively successful, its what he does for a living, and just so you know that he knows what he's doing, he's been in his house now without making a payment for over 11 years. 

If you would like someone to help you remove your judgments from your credit reports, I can help you with that. Though it is illegal to guarantee results, my partner and I do use an escalated and proprietary process that generally removes them in approximately 30 days and we have a 100% success rate.  I would love to help you remove your judgments, your tax liens, your collections, etc. and help you raise your scores so you can have that fresh start you so deserve! You can find my contact information on the top right of this blog. Both my email and phone number are there for you to reach out to me.

If you have found this blog helpful to you, please consider donating as a sign of your appreciation for information I have freely given to you.  The "Donate" button is on the right side bar.  Thank you for your generosity.

How To Remove Judgments and Bankruptcy / BK From Your Credit Report

Have  you searched everywhere online to find out how to remove judgments or a bankruptcy and asked all kinds of people, self proclaimed credit repair specialists or mortgage brokers, real estate agents, YouTube videos, DIY articles, answer websites, and other places?  If you've run into anything that is slightly related to the credit bureaus or strongly related to them, such as the bureau sites themselves, or credit report sites, or the FTC website, you will get the same regurgitated answers.  They will always tell you they have to stay on for 10 years. Hogwash, I declare!  I dare one of them to show me the law that says it has to stay on there that long.  In fact, that's almost the opposite of what the law says.

If you read articles and ads from credit repair sites, they will stop short of telling you how they do it because they want your business.  Oh, and the FTC doesn't want your business, but it sure seems like they want to help the bureaus make money off of you.  They prefer to deter you from getting help from someone who knows how by saying you should never pay someone because you can do it yourself.  Of course there's always the sites that are promoting the annoying Lexington "Law" type credit repair sites.  Click on that link, which is pretty much always an affiliate link, and someone's gonna make money off of you.  "Law firm" credit sites will tell you they take them off all the time but they are not interested in helping you learn how to do it because they want to make a couple thousand bucks off of you, or maybe just a grand before you get fed up and cancel months down the line.

I'm gonna tell you how to do it.  But first, one more thing.  The law about how long it has to stay on there. The FCRA says that negative accurate information CAN stay on NO LONGER than 7 years plus 180 days from the date of first delinquency and 10 years for things like judgments and bankruptcies.  See how they spin it to make you feel defeated?  I really get irritated with the misinformation and spin they all put out there.  And if you really want to help people get rid of negative items off their credit, why don't you give them the information if you're such an expert?  Are you really that worried that you will lose customers if you help people who want or need to do it themselves?  What? Are there really so few people out there with bad credit that you have to grab everyone you can?  Puhleeease!  Seems to me there are millions of people out there that need help with their credit.  There's enough work to go around while still helping those who want to do it on their own.

Okay, removing these items is for the most part, a 3 step process.  I'm not saying it works all the time, but if the bureaus would obey the law, it would work 100% of the time.  However, you will have a much higher chance of success if you do it this way.

Step 1:  Send a letter to the credit bureaus that are reporting the judgments and/or bankruptcy and tell them that you do not have a judgment or BK for $XXX dollars. Don't lie about the amount.  Now, if the amount is 100% correct, to the penny, remember, they don't report the change (35 cents, etc.) so if there's any change noted in the judgment at the courthouse, what is reported on your credit report is an error.  Same thing for BK. Usually I see bankruptcy reporting with $0.  Really?  $0 liability? Why on earth would someone file if they owed nothing?  If the public record is actually reporting a correct amount, then use a different mistake.  If you can't find one, make up something by claiming you "don't recall" having a bk or judgment on 01/01/2008 or whatever date. Not recalling the exact date that the county recorder entered into the record is not a lie, its a spin.  They have the burden of proof.  Also, many times they list the wrong court house.  Make sure you look at that also.  Okay, so that's the first step.  Dispute the negative judgment or bk (or both) with the credit bureaus.

Step 2:  Take a look at the address for the court for who is supposedly furnishing the information.  Judgments are usually county or local courts, bankruptcies are in federal court.  You need to write a letter to each of the clerks of the courts that are supposedly furnishing the information to the credit bureaus.  I keep saying "supposedly" because really they are not furnishing the information 99.99% of the time.  This letter you send the clerk is very basic.  You say, Dear Clerk of the Court,  I recently disputed information that was on my credit report that is not reporting accurately.  They verified the information and have told me I need to contact the furnisher of the information.  I am requesting that you send me your procedure for verifying information with the credit bureaus.  Thank you for your assistance.   Sincerely, pissed off consumer.  Okay, maybe you're not pissed off but in my opinion, you have every right to be!  Do not wait until you get the response from the bureaus to send this out.  Send it out at the same time as your bureau dispute to shorten the time for getting it off your credit report.

Step 3.  You now received the letter back from the clerk of the court.  Holy cow! It says that they do not verify with the credit bureaus. What a shock!  This means that those blood suckers are going to be sending you a credit report with a big fat lie on it!  Be prepared.  Now, you also get back the response from the credit bureaus, and you're gonna get it and say, "Shannon was absolutely right!  Now there's a real expert" - haha, just kidding!  But, 99.99% of the time, I will be right.  You may be a lucky one who got a data entry peon who felt like deleting just because, and that is great!  But for the rest of you victims, the report will claim it is verified and contact the furnisher of the information.  Its time for the 3rd action.  You send back a letter to the bureaus.  You say, "I sent you a dispute because this information is not accurate.  You verified it.  Please see the enclosed letter from the clerk of the court. You lied about verifying it with them. Further, please see the letter from the legal counsel for the FTC that I have enclosed.  I've highlighted where they have stated that public records often have mistakes on them.  YOU LIED about verifying a mistake.  PLEASE DELETE THIS IMMEDIATELY!"  I would say, 75% of the time, your response from the credit bureaus will show the item deleted.

And that's how its done!  Now, I mentioned an opinion letter from legal counsel for the FTC.  You can go on their website and read through all of the boring opinion letters till you find it, or you can email me and I'll email it to you, for only $499, but today only I'm reducing it to ONLY $47.  JUST KIDDING AGAIN!  I'll send it to you for free! You like free? I sure do. (Yes, I'm making fun of marketers, in case you didn't catch it).

Do you want to know some background on how the bureaus break the law, or at the very least, don't comply with the law, when it comes to removing public records?  If you do, keep reading, if not, then just email me if you need the letter.  Okay, here goes.

Except for the very minuscule number of courts that do furnish information or verify information to the credit bureaus, courts, their clerks, their secretaries, the judges, the trustees, etc., do not furnish information to credit bureaus.  They receive information from subcontracted scavengers that scour the public records and LexisNexis to find the judgment and bankruptcy dirt on consumers. So the furnishers of the information have no actual knowledge of anything, have no first hand information, are not a party to any of it.  They dig it up, read it and furnish it, then get paid. 

When you dispute, the bureaus have a responsibility to "investigate" but they do not contact the court or any other entity that could possibly have actual first hand knowledge. They put the courts' addresses on there to make you think that the courts furnish and verify, but that's a BIG FAT LIE!  What they really should have on there is the name and contact information for their little gophers who go dig up this stuff.  But, by law, or by legal definition, they have no right to "VERIFY" anything.  

Black's Law Dictionary 2nd Ed. - Verification:  Confirmation of the correctness, truth, or authenticity of a pleading, account, or other paper, by an affidavit, oath, or deposition. See McDonald v. Rosengarten, 134 111. 126, 25 N. E. 429; Summerfield v. Phoenix Assur. Co. (C. C-) 65 Fed. 296; Patterson v. Brooklyn, 6 App. Div. 127, 40 N. Y. Supp. 581. 

What this definition is saying is that the person "verifying" must be able to testify to its accuracy under oath, either by affidavit or in court or court proceedings such as a deposition. Now, in order to testify to such accuracy, the "person" would have to have 1st hand knowledge otherwise it is considered "hearsay" because the furnisher of the information is relying solely on public information that has been known to have mistakes. Here's what the courts say about "hearsay": 

“Testimony, whether live or in the form of an affidavit, to the effect that the witness has reviewed a file and that the file shows that the debtor is in default is hearsay and incompetent; rather, the records must be introduced after a proper foundation is provided.” New England Savings Bank v. Bedford Realty Corp., 238 Conn. 745, 680 A.2d 301, 308-09 (1996), later opinion, 246 Conn. 594, 717 A.2d 713 (1998); Cole Taylor Bank v. 
Corrigan, supra, 230 Ill.App.3d 122, 595 N.E.2d 177, 181 (2d Dist. 1992). 

“It is the business records that constitute the evidence, not the testimony of the witness referring to them.” (In re A.B., 308 Ill.App. 3d 227, 719 N.E.2d 348 (2d Dist. 1999) 

These are both Federal court cases on hearsay.

Now, do you see that not only are the bureaus liars, they are committing fraud, both mail and wire fraud, when they send you the report through the mail or make it available for you to check it online, and see "Verified"?  The person who furnished the information cannot possibly have 1st hand knowledge.  They shouldn't even be allowed to submit information to the bureaus because the FCRA commands ACCURACY and there's no way these scum can know if the information they found in the public records or elsewhere was input accurately.  They are not a party to the action, they are NOBODIES! 

Well, that was fun right?  It was for me.  I have fun teaching you this information and love that I am one of the few that tell you the actual truth.  Hopefully I have helped some of you fight this corrupt system that is supposed to be consumer friendly, but has so many loop holes for creditors and collectors, and sabotages aimed at consumers.  Here's to your success removing those judgments and bankruptcy entries from your credit reports!  

Please remember, if you just don't want to do it by yourself, I would love to assist you.  Give me a call or shoot me an email.  My contact info is right up  at the top of this page on the right.

If you have found this blog helpful to you, please consider donating as a sign of your appreciation for information I have freely given to you.  The "Donate" button is on the right side bar.  Thank you for your generosity.