Repair Your Credit By Legally Removing All Negative Accounts: It’s All Legal, I promise! (Just Don’t Report It To The Authorities)

I am sure that by now almost everyone has seen advertisements on the radio, television or the internet from companies or companies affiliated with law firms claiming to be “credit repair experts.” They boldly claim to be successful at removing from credit reports any derogatory accounts including short sales, foreclosures, and bankruptcies.

Most of the claims in these advertisements say, “We can clean your credit report and save you thousands,” “We remove foreclosures and bankruptcies from your credit report and best of all; it is all legal.”

Well, believe me when I tell you that Read more

November 7th, 2008 · Filed Under Credit Information, Credit Repair scams, Predatory - Subprime Advertisement

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Erase Your Debt and Increase Your FICO Credit Score fast and easy….I DONT THINK SO!!

When people are looking to lose weight, they always try to find the fastest and easiest way to do it. Some businesses know this and take advantage of it. They market to those people by telling them to use diets that don’t work and if they do work, the results turn out to be temporary.

The same business platform is used to market to people with poor credit. Consumers with poor credit are always looking to lower their debt and increase their FICO credit score fast so they can in turn purchase a home, car, etc.

But the reality of it is that, Read more

November 15th, 2007 · Filed Under Credit Repair scams

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Credit Repair Scam caught by Project Credit Despair

As I mentioned before on my other posting, there is a big business in credit repair but the majority of these credit repair companies claiming to do wonders don’t have true facts to stand on. The true fact is that they cannot legally change or delete accurate and true negative or derogatory information from your credit report.

Another true fact is that negative or derogatory information could be deleted legally from the credit report, but Read more

August 1st, 2007 · Filed Under Credit Repair scams

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Beware of Credit Repair Companies

“I have a few credit cards but 2 of them with a balance of $210. I went into bankruptcy years before but ever since then, I’ve been charging my credit card and paying it off in a few months as I heard this would help my credit. I decided to go to Mexico for vacation and I came back 1 month later. While reviewing my bills, I realized I had missed a payment for my credit card and since I needed to refinance my home I realized that I may be in trouble. A family friend and real estate agent, advised me to go to his friend’s office. His friend had a credit repair business. I paid him $500 trusting his promise of bringing my credit up about 100 points so I could refinance. Weeks went by without any results.”

This is one of many similar stories that I have encountered one too many times with clients that come in my office because they had been misguided by their previous real estate agent or loan officer. Agents and loan officers who trust worthless “credit repair” companies. Read more

July 18th, 2007 · Filed Under Credit Information, Credit Repair scams

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Free Credit Report sites? Or shall I say FAKE credit report sites!

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC); emphasizes the importance of the public being informed of FREE credit reports SCAMS!

While surfing the internet, you might have seen web sites offering credit reports, sometimes for free or you might have received an email offering you the same.

BE AWARE that some of these may not actually provide credit reports, but may be using these websites and emails to capture your personal information and sell this information to fraud experts therefore you could end up another identity theft victim.

Here are some precautions you should follow when visiting this sites or responding to emails that offer credit reports:

  • If you get an email offering a credit report, don’t reply or click on the link in the email. Instead, contact the company cited in the email using the telephone number or web site address you KNOW to be genuine.
  • Be skeptical of unsolicited email offering credit reports. Keep an eye out for email from an atypical address like XYZ123@website.net, or an email address ending in anything other than “.com”. For example: “.ru”, “.de”, etc
  • Check whether the company has a working telephone number and legitimate address. You can check addresses at web sites like www.switchboard.com, and phone numbers through reverse lookup search engines like www.anywho.com.
  • Check for misspellings and grammatical errors. For example, an area code that doesn’t match an address, often are giveaways that the site is a scam. Also look at the company’s web address, is it a real company’s address or it is a misspelled version of a legitimate company’s web address?
  • Check to see whether the email address matches the web site address. If you entered the company’s web address into the browser and it re-directs you somewhere else, that’s a red flag and you should stop there.
  • Find out who owns the web site by using a “Whois” search as the search at www.networksolutions.com.
  • Exit from any web site that asks for unnecessary personal information, like a Personal Identification Number (PIN) for you bank account, the three-digit code on the back of your credit card, or your passport number and issuing country. Legitimate sites don’t ask for this information.
  • All legitimate sites will want to verify who you are, and will respond to an electronic request for a credit report by asking you for an additional piece of information. If a site does not ask a follow-up question, the site is almost certainly a fake.
  • Use only secure web sites. Look for the “lock” icon on the browser’s status bar, and the phrase “https” in the URL address for a web site, to be sure your information is secure during transmission. All real sites are secure.
  • Watch your mailbox and credit card statements: if you’ve responded to a bogus site, you may never receive the credit repot they offered for free. If you paid one of these sites for a credit report, your credit card many never be charged. If you find that you have unauthorized charges, contact your financial institutions and credit card issuers immediately.
  • Report suspicious activity to the FTC and the U.S. Secret Service. Send the actual spam to the Electronic Crimes Task Force (in California at LA.ECTF.reports@usss.dhs.gov) and to the FTC at spam@uce.gov. If you believe you’ve been scammed, file your complaint at www.ftc.gov and then visit the FTC’s Identity Theft web site www.consumer.gov/idtheft to learn how to minimize your risk of damange from identity theft.

I hope this article has been informative for you.

I also wanted to note that the only website that is allowed to offer and give FREE credit reports is www.annualcreditreport.com (once a year from each of the 3 credit bureaus). There are other companies that offer you free credit report but they put it in the small print that you have to purchase one of their products before you can get your free credit report.

February 10th, 2006 · Filed Under Credit Repair scams

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Credit Clinics? Can they really help?

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission), which protects consumers throughout the nation against deceptive and unfair practices in the marketplace, cautions consumers to be wary of companies commonly called “credit clinics”. These “credit clinics” entice many consumers to “repair their credit.” These companies make claims to repair credit for a fee, but in reality they do absolutely nothing for a consumers that a consumers cannot do for themselves for little or no cost with information on their side.

These are some things to be on the look out:

Companies that guarantee to remove bankruptcies, late payments or similar derogatory information from credit reports
Companies that ask consumers to write to the credit reporting company and repeatedly seek verification month after month, even though the information has already been determined to be correct.
Companies that charge high fees for services to repair credit
Companies reluctant to give out their address
Companies that pressure you to make a decision immediately

If you would like a brochure about credit clinics contact the FTC and request a brochure titled “Credit Repair: Self Help May Be Best”

Federal Trade Commission
Consumer Response Center
Room 130
600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.
Washington, DC 20580

www.ftc.gov/credit

December 22nd, 2005 · Filed Under Credit Repair scams

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