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If you have followed along you now know the basics of
challenging the reporting agencies:

- How to obtain your annual credit reports

- Reviewing your reports

- Choosing items to dispute

- Deciding on a dispute method

- Following up and keeping track

- Dealing with collections

Now, in fairness to you, you have the basic knowledge
necessary to start fixing your credit. Yes, there are
a zillion little details that may improve the speed
and effectiveness of your efforts, but basically you
can get started now.

If you are inclined to learn by trial and error go
ahead and send out your dispute letters today. You
may be the kind of person who enjoys learning by doing
and the necessary information is available at your
fingertips.

Sometimes we all can lose sight of our reasons for under-
taking a challenging project. Here are a few reminders
of the benefits you gain by taking control of your
credit & debt:

- Improved self-esteem

- Maximize your cash leveraging ability

- Have lenders offering you multiple loan options

- Slash thousands off of your borrowing costs

- Enhance employability during pre-employment checks

- Reduced insurance premium costs

- Increased investment income opportunities

- Financial flexibility to do the things you want

- Enhanced self-confidence

You may have seen a number of tips and informative ideas
regarding credit and debt. Although a lot of the inform-
ation available is consistent, sometimes you'll find dif-
ferences of opinion as to planning, methods and ethics.

For example, some advisors may call on you to cut up your
credit cards and close the accounts. While this may be a
useful tactic to prevent overspending, it can reduce your
scores dramatically if done without understanding the ef-
fects on scoring models.

Others may suggest that it is wrong (morally) to dispute
any reported item that you know to have some truth to it.
They may even suggest that you 'can't' dispute an accurate
item.

Well, the truth is that you can dispute any item on your
report as long as you can present a legitimate reason to
demand that the reported item be verified. Every day
people's scores are improving because they have disputed
and had removed reported items that were totally accurate.

I leave the moral and ethical issues for you to decide.

Debt and Collections

Just as the FCRA regulates the reporting agencies and sets
out consumer rights in reporting credit and scores, the Fair
Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) was established to reg-
ulate collection practices and sets out the rights of people
subject to collection activities.

Few of us really know what are rights are when it comes to
dealing with heavy handed collectors. The FDCPA provides
for consumers to demand that collectors 'validate' the debt
they are attempting to collect before collectors can demand
payment. Validation includes proving that the collection
agency has the right to collect a debt as well as proving
that the original debt was in fact yours.


Although many collectors may attempt to begin collections
immediately upon gaining a new debt account the law holds
that they must first provide you with this proof before a
collection request can be made.

A review of the FDCPA and related casework is very helpful
in providing the tactics to shut down a collection attempt.
Much like disputing reports with the credit reporting ind-
ustry, collections can be disputed and often successfully
thwarted by a validation demand which disputes the right of
the collector to collect and demands written proof that the
debt actually belongs to you.

Thinking of Settling?

If you seek to make a settlement agreement with a collector
you may want to start your offer at about 25% of the original
debt. Note that the collector may have paid as little as .06
or .07 cents for every buck owed.

More Tips:
-Never talk to a collection agency on the phone.
-Get your deal in writing before you even think about paying.
-Keep good records.
-Post your letters receipt requested via registered mail.
-Keep a copy of everything.
-If you call (Why are you calling?), keep a log of when, and
who you spoke with.
-Follow up all phone correspondence (again, why are you calling?)
with a registered letter.
-Penalties and extra interest are bogus fees added on by the
collection agency.
-Time is on your side.
-Never appear too eager to settle
-Don't Forget; negotiate your credit rating before you accept
any deal.

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Following Up and Keeping Track

If you are fortunate and have some good luck, all of the items you
disputed will have been corrected and your new reports sent out to you
within 30 days. It's more likely that one or two of the agencies have
challenged your disputes and/or that you haven't heard back from them.

For the agency that did change your report, or remove items from your
report, great! Now you need to send another dispute letter to that
same agency to deal with any of the remaining items that you didn't
dispute the first time. Same procedure, keep copies of everything
send off the new dispute return receipt post and hope for the best.

If your dispute was challenged by the agency as frivolous, you will
want to send out a second dispute letter making note of the original
dispute, it's date, and perhaps a reminder of the law under the FCRA.

It is up to you to convince the agency that your dispute is genuine
and not the result of a 'dispute mill' or a service that basically
challenges everything on the report.

Again, personalizing the letter will help the agency see your dispute
as the honest effort of an abused consumer to correct a harmful
error.

There are numerous ways to overcome the objections of the agency's
review. Use your imagination to add to the possible responses you can
provide to support your claim.

I have seen six or seven standard responses to dispute letters from the
three agencies. The most common response is the claim that the dis-
pute is either unjustified, dishonest or frivolous. Sometimes they will
answer with a stalling tactic by asking for more specific information.
Whatever the response to your dispute, there are many ways to reply
and hold them accountable for verifying the item under dispute.

While you are waiting for the initial response to your first disputes
it is a good time to get organized so that when the responses come you
will be able to track each dispute and respond accordingly.

Start with three file folders. Mark each one with the name of a dif-
ferent reporting agency; Experian, Equifax, Transuniuon (EXP,EQX, TRU).
Always keep a clean unmarked copy of your report from the specific
agency in the file, ex.: TRU file folder holds the TRU report.

For every piece of paper that relates or applies to a specific agency,
keep a copy of it in that agency's folder. Copy everything! You
should still have 2 copies of the credit reports from each agency, one
which you've made notes on and one that is clean. Copy each dispute
letter for the folder and save the postal return receipts in the proper
folders. Make a copy of every response letter you receive. Copy,
Copy, Copy. You may need some of this stuff later.

One of the things that you are doing by tracking and copying everything
is building a case. It's awfully hard for the agencies to keep up with
all the disputes coming through their offices. Those of us who keep
really good track of the process can prove when they've fallen behind
and are subject to regulatory requirements. It's at this point when
our work pays off since you may be able to force the removal of items
when the agencies have fallen behind on reasonable timeliness of
response.

Think about the ways you might personalize the many dispute letter
templates available so that your dispute appears credible and original.

Credit Repair- continued

Why not just call the reporting agencies? On line? Why Mail?


You are welcome to call the bureaus if you wish. However, it's
been my experience that calling them is never as effective as
working with them through the mail for several reasons:


- You will always have a precise record of the dialog.
- You will have a paper trail of evidence if you need it.
- A telephone conversation is too easy to misinterpret,
misunderstand or misrepresent.
- A telephone dispute may move too quickly
- An on line dispute forces you to respond to the agency,
our tactic is to force the agency to respond to us.
- A letter requires more attention, staffing and
resources.
- It takes longer to process a written dispute than an
on line or telephone dispute.
- Writing is not as efficient as going on line or calling.


Keep in mind, that once the agency has received your dispute it
must be reviewed and then processed. Since the FCRA was written
a reasonable response time has been held to be about 30 days.


So, if the agency can take your phone call or on line dispute and
immediately review and process it, you've lost out on some
valuable delay time. If your letter takes a day to go through
their office, another day to review and finally it makes it's way
to the dispute process, you've managed to slow down the process
and increased the likelihood of a positive outcome.


You would think that the agencies would want to have accurate
concise information in their consumer reports, but the way they
discourage disputes will make you wonder!


Once a dispute has been placed with an agency they are obligated
to verify the original report by contacting the original credit-
or asking for proof of the report details. The agencies are ex-
pected to get that verification and respond to you in about 30
days. If they can't get the verification they must change or
remove the reported item from your account.


This is why we want the possible delays a written dispute may
cause.


There are several possible responses to your dispute which the
reporting agencies are apt to send back to you. The best result
is that they have corrected the error or removed the negatives
that you disputed. When doing so they are required to send a
new copy of your report to you and to any other organizations
that viewed your report recently.


The less satisfactory response is when the agency responds that
it considers your dispute to be ungrounded or 'frivolous'. In
fact, many, many disputes are quickly passed off as frivolous
and not even followed up on by the agencies. At this point a
quick follow up letter demanding action and maybe even hinting
at legal action is often useful.

Try to keep your cool. You are dealing with a huge operation.
It may be as simple as them trying to save money by not taking
your first letter seriously. If you never get back to them,
they win, ...and they didn't have to spend any more resources
on your request.


Also, try to remember that the person who opens your letters
probably has no clue what your dispute is, what previous response
her company gave you and may be more sympathetic to you if you
don't trash her company in a follow up letter.


Be courteous, accurate, clear and state your demand plainly.
Adding some personal touch to the letter may make it more
believable. i.e.: "My brother the mortgage broker says that
you guys have to correct this error."

Pay Day Loans

Many people take out a Pay Day Loan to raise cash for unexpected expenses, to start a home-based business, or even to buy holiday gifts. The interest rates of these loans can border on Usury!

Have you taken out a pay day loan? What was your experience- good, bad, or ugly? Did it help, or did it just get you deeper into debt? Post your thoughts here!

Credit Repair- the next step

You've reviewed your report information, so let's study our enemy a bit. The bureaus are a storehouse of consumer credit info. They sell the stored data to creditors,
marketing companies and others.

The information in your file was provided to them by your
original creditors, courts, collection agencies, insurers and
other organizations.

The big mistake in the system is that the reporting agencies do
not have to verify the truth or validity of the information
reported to them. As a result, independent research has found
mistakes as high as 40% among the major reporting
agencies.

Ultimately that had to change and The Fair Credit Reporting Act
(FCRA) was passed to take care of some of the problems of the
industry.

What we are talking about today is your right to dispute any item on your
reports and to receive a timely response. The FCRA
holds the agency responsible to verify the disputed item with whomever reported the item to
the agency.
It helps to know what items are
hurting us most and how to dispute those items most effectively.

Often the easiest items to have changed are old items that were
paid late. Next you may wish to dispute derogatory items that
you don't recall ever signing for or otherwise authorizing.

Many service companies will dispute every negative item on your
report. While this can be done, it is more effective to pick and
choose a few high value targets and dispute those. You can always
find a way to challange the rest of the stuff later. Meanwhile, some
of the easier disputes will begin to raise your scoring.

Even though you might be tempted to dispute an incorrect current
address or employer, save that for later. There are a couple
reasons for this, 1) correcting this will not increase your score,
and 2) this blatantly incorrect information may be useful later.

I suggest using the US postal service to submit your disputes.
Either hand write or type a convincing and personalized dispute
letter to the agency that you wish to dispute an item or two with.
Include the item information; creditor name, account number, etc.
and include a copy of the agency's credit report with the items high-
lighted. Provide your SS# and Date of Birth.

Mail this using return receipt confirmation so that you'll know it was
recieved by the agency. Repeat this process with the other two
reporting agencies and keep copies of everything you have sent.
(All of this can be simplified with the use of my Step-By-Step Guide)

Mailing Addresses:

Equifax Credit Information Services, Inc
P.O. Box 740241
Atlanta, GA 30374
800-685-1111

Transunion
P.O. Box 1000
Chester, PA 19022
800-916-8800

Experian
P.O. Box 2002
Allen, TX 75013
888-397-3742


Mail in dispute letters rather
than disputing via telephone or online.

Making Sense of Your Credit Reports

The reports you have received should have some instructions to
help you understand most of the details reported.

Using a mark up copy, start by error checking all of your personal
information at the top of the report; name, name changes, address,
previous addresses, employment, previous employment, SS#, birthdate,
and any other information. Get a yellow and a blue highlighter. High-
light errors, misspellings, and typos in yellow. Then mark all negative,
adverse or derogatory items in blue.

Do the same thing for the public records & judgments section, the
inquiries section and finally the consumer credit accounts section.

You will likely find a number of entries that you don't recognize
or that have some incorrect details. Some of the items may be
accounts that report to the agencies using a different office or
corporate name than the one you might be familiar with. So give it
a couple days of review and thought before you are certain that an
entry truly doesn't belong on the report.

Clues to determining if items are in fact your accounts are; checking
the start date and last activity date of a reported account as well
as the item's account number.

Make a list of all the items that show discrepencies. It might be
useful to set up a spreadsheet for this list. It will be an excellent
tool for tracking the repair process as you move forward.

How to increase your credit score

Step #1:
Know what you're dealing with

Before you learn the ins and outs of credit repair, the quirks
of the credit reporting agencies, your legal standing to correct
the credit agencies or the tactics to employ in your dialog with
them, you must learn what they are saying about you.

You MUST get your credit reports - all three of them. The three
major credit reporting agencies will likely have a report on you.
You need to see what's on each of these three reports.
The easiest way to get your reports is to visit this link:

https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

This site will walk you through downloading each of the three
credit reports. You can order your credit score from each of
the three agencies for about $9 per report.

Once you have recieved your reports be sure to print and copy
them so you will have one original, one working copy to mark up
and one copy to send out as needed.

The reports can be confusing to read so go easy on yourself and
expect it to take you a day or two to read the instructions and
contents of each report.

If you've completed this step, getting your credit reports and
credit scores, you are already way ahead of about 50% of the
people who really need credit report help. Good for you!

A Fresh Start Overseas?

Sometimes, when things look bad in your location, you seriously consider moving one. "Change your place, change your luck" as the old Yiddish saying goes.

If you have had credit problems and live in the United States, do those problems follow you when you move abroad? It probably depends on which country becomes your new home. I've been looking into moving to New Zealand. Your bad credit doesn't follow you there, but when you start off, you have "no credit". I guess no credit could be better than bad credit!!

Banks are very eager to lend money for mortgages there. No hassles, no hearing "NO". Bankers in New Zealand, for the most part, are anxious to help you and take making their customers happy seriously- diametrically opposed to the US banker who could care less about you unless you happen to be a multi-millionaire. Bank fees are higher than we are used to paying, though- $3 per check is the usual charge for check-writing.

One thing to watch out for: in New Zealand, credit card rates are very high.
Outrageously high, to be exact, with 29% being the norm.

I'll have to research what other countries do about credit for new immigrants wanting to set up residence there. If anyone knows about situations in other countries, please feel free to comment.

How do you view your credit cards?

Credit cards are a benefit to consumers but can be a detriment at the same time. It all depends on how you view your credit cards.

Some people think of credit cards as a month long commitment. They purchase items almost exclusively with a credit card during the month, but then pay off the debt at the end of each month. This is a wise way to use a credit card as it builds excellent credit for the person who can consistently pay the card off every month. In addition, with most cards, if you pay off the balance within the same month there is usually no interest fees.

Other people view there credit cards as extra money that is to be used for special occasions like a nice dinner out on the town or vacation at spring break. This is fine as well, providing you know that you are going to be paying on it for a little while. Usually the type of consumer who uses their credit card in this fashion is expecting to have to pay on their card for several months to pay off the debt. In this case, they can also expect to pay more than they actually did for the vacation or dinners due to the interest fees applied.

Finally, there is the type of consumer that the credit card companies love most-the ones that will rack up the bill to the maximum and then only pay the minimum amount due per month. By doing this, the consumer is adding hundreds to thousands of extra dollars onto the cost of the purchases that they had made. In addition, by not paying off the balance by the end of the month, the consumer is being charged anywhere from 1% to 30% depending on the agreement at the time of signing up for the credit card.

This is what you need to watch out for, since the credit card companies will try to take advantage of people who don’t read the fine print. Be sure, before ever signing up for a credit card that you read the fine print and make sure you are getting a credit card that does not have a ridiculously high interest rate tacked onto it.

Think about how you view your credit card and take control of the situation. You don’t have to put up with the interest rates and the monthly bills. It does, however, require you to take action and not to allow yourself to be put in a bad situation.

How do you know if bankruptcy is right for you?

Debt solutions abound on the internet and on radio and television. But how do you know that this is right for you? What about bankruptcy? Most people never even consider this an option, and for the most part, they would be right. However, for some bankruptcy is the ace-in-the-hole that will get the person out of debt.

Usually by the time someone is at the point of thinking about bankruptcy, they have already learned the lessons of how to budget money and pay on time. Some people were immature when they racked up huge credit card debts and are now having to deal with there poor choices when they were younger. These things happen and bankruptcy is a choice.

It should be stated that bankruptcy is not the first or even the last option. It should be the option that isn’t even thought about until all other avenues have been explored. So what is this low ground that gives the green light to bankruptcy?

After you have talked to credit councilors and talked to creditors to try to work out an arrangement. Usually creditors are willing to work with you most of the time. If they don’t then they are back to square one, trying to track you down and find out where you are working. If you haven’t tried calling creditors yet, then bankruptcy is not something you should even be thinking about.

If you have done all of the above and have come to realize that you are never going to be able to pay off your debts and still keep a roof over your head, in your current career path, then bankruptcy is probably a choice you should consider. Just remember, that you are only allowed to go bankrupt once every seven years. Therefore, if there is just a small glint of hope that you think you could possibly pull yourself out of debt, then you should try that first.

As far as bankruptcy lawyers go, one is almost as good as the next. They all have to follow the same procedures and unless you have some high stakes involved in your bankruptcy, such as you are the owner of a multimillion-dollar company and need the expertise of a corporate lawyer, then go for the middle range price.

The lawyers available span across the spectrum in terms of cost. Some are cheap, (stay away from them. They might not show up for your court hearing!), while other charge way too much for the processes involved here. You should call around to find a lawyer that makes you feel comfortable and isn’t charging you an arm and a leg.

Hopefully, this information about bankruptcy will help you. In the next article, I will go into more detail about these ins and outs of going bankrupt.

Welcome to No Credit Hassles!

Hello friends,
As you may have noticed there is a lot of information about credit repair online. I am in the process of finding the best credit repair information I can to share it with you here. Now please keep in mind, I am not an expert, I am only doing this as research and using this site to store and sort all of the credit repair information I can find. Please seek professional help in your area if you are in need of advice.

Debt and credit repair are two of the hottest topics on many peoples minds these days. So in an effort organize information I will setup seperate sections on credit, debt, mortgages, low interest credit cards and more.

Here's to your better credit!

The Credit Repair guy