Does Credit Repair Work?

A female writing notes
Order your credit report by snail mail, not online

Yes, credit repair works! Every business day of the year, good folks are getting bad credit deleted from their credit files. The Fair and Accurate Credit Reporting Act (FACTA) gives consumers the legal right to dispute credit they believe is false, outdated, incomplete, belongs to someone else, or is in any way not 100 percent correct.

By law, the credit reporting agency must verify the fairness and accuracy of the account. If they cannot prove that it is right, then they must delete the disputed item. In America, the law says “innocent until proven guilty,” and that applies to credit as well.

“Why didn’t credit repair work for me?” people ask.

The answer is simple: It is because you went about disputing the incorrect credit the wrong way; and therefore, you shot yourself in the foot, as the saying goes.

Two Most Common Mistakes People Make When Disputing Credit

1) Disputing online.

Listen, the credit bureaus did not set up their online credit reports and dispute system for your benefit. They did it, because it is less work for them, and it prevents people from getting negative credit removed from their credit files.

None of the successful credit specialists I interviewed — from California to New Jersey — use the online system. Why? Because it does not work in the consumer’s favor. They order credit reports by mail and they dispute the same.

2) Writing the wrong type of letter.

People write a lot of things that won’t and don’t work for having bad credit removed. For example, if you write “I didn’t receive my bill on time,” or “I was traveling and my sister was supposed to make the payment,” or “They never sent me the bill at my new address after I moved,” or “I was in the hospital,” then you will not get the negative item removed. Instead, you will “cement” it in your file.

Writing a sad, heartbreaking story won’t work either. One lady I know wrote that the reason her account didn’t get paid was because her family was a victim of 9/11. Talk about a good reason! But it did not work. The representative told me she sent condolences but did not remove the negative item.

There is Hope!

When you write the same type of letter that the successful credit pros write — and use the method they use — then you will get the same positive results they get. I used to work for a brilliant man whom I consider to be the #1 credit expert in the world, and I saw the results with my own eyes. I referred friends in the mortgage business to him, and they saw the same positive results.

Using these methods, which I have written down in clear, easy, step-by-step directions, here is what Jerrid emailed me on May 27, 2015:

Hi Carolyn, I just wanted to let you know that I followed the processes from your book and letters and I have had a charge off from Bank of America with a $3700 balance removed completely from all 4 reporting agencies.  Bank of America sent me a letter after the dispute and agreed to not recoup the balance and would not present this to any collectors or take any legal action.

His credit score increased by 65 points!

On June 14, 2015, Amanda Jones posted this on Amazon:

I have read about 3 other credit repair books and this is by far the BEST!! She answers the who, what, how, and why of all techniques where others have been somewhat vague. Plus, it is a good read finished in one day. I thought I was ready to send out my dispute letters but now will revise approach based on what I learned in this book.

You can read additional feedback here.

Credit Repair Does Work!

The Federal Trade Commission reported that 1 in 5 Americans has a mistake on their credit report.

CBS News reported there are 40 million errors on American credit reports.

This should not be! Now is the time to clean up your credit and restore your good name. I will write more on an upcoming blog. For now, if you know someone who needs credit restoration, please feel free to pass along this information, because everyone needs to know there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Now available on Amazon
Now available on Amazon

 

Equifax Forced to Pay $18 Million to Oregon Woman

Like David winning against Goliath, Julie Miller of Oregon won $18.6 million in a lawsuit against the giant credit bureau Equifax.

Julie Miller, Oregon. Photo: New York Times
Julie Miller, Oregon. Photo: New York Times

Julie tried eight times to get the credit company to fix inaccurate, derogatory information from 2009 to 2011, but the bureau was unresponsive. According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, it is illegal to report negative information that is untrue.

Equifax reported collection accounts that were false, the wrong social security number, and the wrote birthdate. Thanks to this bad information and resulting poor score, she was unable to get a loan she needed to care for her disabled brother.

Finally, she filed lawsuit for “damage to her reputation, a breach of her privacy, and lost opportunity to seek credit.” She won $18.6 million, an amount sufficient to turn her life around.

Tragically, Miller is not alone. As many as 21 percent of citizens have at least one error on their credit report, according to a recent study by the Federal Trade Commission. Moreover, five percent of these errors are significant enough to cause people to be denied the credit they deserve.

It is your legal right to receive one free credit report per year to check for credit inaccuracies. The only website I recommend for ordering your credit report is the one owned by the credit bureaus: www.annualcreditreport.com. Ordering your report from any other site is likely to give you an inaccurate score, possibly incomplete information, and thus would be a waste of your time and energy.

For more information about doing your own credit restoration or getting a derogatory, inaccurate account removed see here. The information is still current now in 2013.