An honest credit repair company in Ohio will not charge you any upfront money.

Credit repair companies in Ohio, by law, are not allowed to charge you any upfront money for their services. In fact, under the Telemarketing Sales Rule, they are not allowed to charge you anything until they have provided you with all of the services that they have promised and proved that they provided those services by giving you a credit report that is dated at least 6 months after they have completed the services.  Neither the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) nor the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) trusts credit repair companies.  Hence, the FTC has enacted this Telemarketing Sales Rule which is designed to push credit repair companies out of business more than regulate them.  As I have been doing credit repair litigation for many years now, I can understand their position, but not to this extent.  Still, the law is the law, and you want to be sure that whoever you do business with, follows the law.

A good credit repair company in Ohio will offer you a written contract

Another law that governed credit repair companies in Ohio is the Credit Repair Organization Act (“CROA”). It’s a federal statute that requires credit repair companies to do certain things and to avoid doing others.  Here are some highlights of what that contract must contain:

• A description of the services that the credit repair company promises to provide;
• How the credit repair company will charge its fees;
• The length of time that the contract will last and the anticipated amount of fees that the agreement will cost you;
• May does not promise you any specific result;
• You have the right to terminate the agreement in 3 business days, from the date that you signed the agreement;

Disclosures about what they can and cannot do for you. The credit repair company must explicitly explain to you that it cannot remove correctly, albeit negatively reporting information from your credit reports.  It must also disclose to you that you can dispute negative information yourself with the credit bureaus and do not necessarily need the services of a credit repair company.

No legitimate credit repair company will false promises of results.

This should be the first thing you look for in a credit repair company.  If they promise you any specific increase in your credit score, they are lying to you.  You should know that credit scores as fluid and change daily depending on your outstanding balances on your credit lines, timely made payments, and the different kinds of credit that you have.  There is no way to predict whether a particular dispute will be effective at removing a tradeline and even if effective, what effect it will have on your credit score.

 Here are some examples of FALSE promises made by credit repair companies that we have seen:

1. We will get your credit score into the high 700s within 90 days;
2. We can get any bankruptcies removed from your credit report;
3. Stop paying on any judgments, we can get those fixed for you.
4. We have proprietary dispute letters that make the credit bureaus delete what we tell them to;
5. You will no longer have to pay your student loans as we will get those removed from your credit reports;

Many credit repair companies get into trouble for making these false claims.  Sadly, not all of them get caught as many of them fly under the radar.  They may be too small or too fly by night to get caught.  It’s up to you to protect yourself.

Check out Google and Better Business Bureau reviews before you hire a credit repair company in Ohio

Look for a credit repair company that has a track record of proven results.  Google reviews and Better Business Bureau reviews are great places to start your research.  You should also google the name of the credit repair company that you are considering to see if they are in or have ever been in trouble with the FTC or CFPB.  If so, find out what happened.

Conclusion

If you are trying to legitimately clean up your credit report from inaccurately reporting information, you should see a Credit Repair Law firm.  Come visit us at Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C. or call us at (216) 358-0591  or email us at Gary@crlam.com  We are happy to look at your credit reports for free and give you our opinion as to how we can help.

Join our 3 for Free program and we will send out up to 3 dispute letters for you for free.  You can also join our Auto Pilot program and we will pull your credit reports for free every two months to make sure that they stay free of inaccurately reporting information.  Call us today.

The post Credit Repair Services in Ohio– Top 4 tips on How to Choose a Legitimate company appeared first on Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C..

In Ohio, you should pull your credit reports and review them for inaccurate or unverifiable information.

These are two separate concepts.  Inaccurate information can include things that don’t belong to you, negative items that are reporting beyond the 7.5-year mark from the date of first delinquency, or any other information that is just plain wrong.  Unverifiable information is that which the furnisher of the information cannot verify.  Furnishers include banks and other lenders who report information on your credit report.  If a furnisher has gone out of business but it continues to report negative information on your credit report, you can dispute it and most likely, have it removed.

Send a dispute letter to the credit bureau disputing inaccurate or unverifiable information.

You must send your letter to the credit bureau and not the furnisher, to trigger your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”).  This statute is the law that gives you rights against the furnisher and credit bureaus if they don’t do what they are supposed to do for you. (Be patient, I will discuss this in the next step).

When you write your dispute letter, be sure to identify the tradeline, and the related account number and state specifically how it’s inaccurate.  Also, be sure to attach any supporting documentation to your letter that can help prove your point.

Both the credit bureau and the furnisher must conduct a reasonable reinvestigation.

Once the credit bureau receives your dispute letter, it must forward notification of your letter to the furnisher.  Then, they both must conduct a reasonable reinvestigation into your dispute.  The more supporting information you attach to your letter, the higher they must-see if you are right.  There is at least one exception to this rule.  If they deem your dispute to be frivolous (for example, you disputed the same debt a few months before, or you disputed everything negative on your credit report), then they have no obligation to investigate anything.

In Ohio, the credit bureau must provide you with the results of its investigation within 30 days.

If fails to do so, it must remove the disputed tradeline or collection item.  Sometimes, a credit bureau will not get a response from the furnisher before the 30-day period expires and merely remove the item from the credit report until a later date when the furnisher does respond.  In any case, once you get the results of the reinvestigation, if they are not in your favor, you have a serious decision to make.  Do you sue the credit bureaus and furnishers to remove the inaccurately reporting information or do you just live with it?  If the latter, then you are essentially admitting that the disputed information is accurate.  At that point, you will have to live with it.

If you decide to sue to get a negative item removed, your best move is to stop representing yourself and turn the matter over to an Ohio credit repair lawyer.

The credit bureaus and furnishers all have lawyers from very large law firms.  These lawyers get a steady diet of defending these cases and they, on balance are very astute.  If you think about filing your own lawsuit, I can tell you that of the thousands of cases that I have read over the years, the ones that have consumers representing themselves almost always lose.  It was not for lack of facts or passion for their own case, mind you.  They lost their case because the defense attorneys know the law, the nuances of it, and the civil procedure better than the consumer.

Conclusion

If you are trying to legitimately clean up your credit report from inaccurately reporting information, you should contact us at Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C. We have been fixing credit reports since 2008.  Visit us at www.ohiocreditlawyers.com or call us at (216) 358-0591or email us at gary@crlam.com  We are happy to look at your credit reports for free and give you our opinion as to how we can help.

Join our 3 for Free program and we will send out up to 3 dispute letters for you for free.  You can also join our Auto Pilot program and we will pull your credit reports for free every two months to make sure that they stay free of inaccurately reporting information.  Contact us today for your free, no-obligation consultation.

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The latest credit repair companies to get sued by the FTC and the CFPB since 2019:

May 2022 – FTC v Financial Education Services (“FES”)

FES is a large multilevel marketing company that sold credit repair services.  It was sued and shut down in May of 2022 by the Federal Trade Commission.  The FTC has accused FES of collecting money from the consumer in violation of the Telemarketing Sales Rule which prohibits credit repair companies from collecting any money from consumers before completing the credit repair services if the credit repair company uses the telephone in connection with selling its services.

The FTC has also accused FES of failing to give consumers written agreements in violation of the Credit Repair Organization Act and of lying to consumers and agents about what FES could accomplish for them in their credit repair programs.  The FTC has shut FES down and frozen the assets of the company, its related companies, and its owners.  That lawsuit continues.

FES was previously sued by the Georgia Attorney General back in 2019 for very similar things.  FES was forced to pay a $1.9 million judgment.

March 2022 – USA v Turbo Solutions

This is an interesting case as it was brought by the United States Attorneys’ office directly and not through the CFPB or the FTC.  The U. S. Attorney has accused Turbo Solutions and its owner, Alexander Miller of directing consumers to file fraudulent affidavits of identity theft to delete negative items on their credit reports.   If true, this is bad.  The government has shut down Turbo Solutions and its various entities and frozen their assets.

September 2021 – CFPB v Credit Repair Cloud

Credit Repair Cloud provides DIY software for people who want to get into the credit repair business.  The CFPB has accused CRC’s users of violating the Telemarketing Sales Rule and by extension, Credit Repair Cloud.

May 2019 – CFPB v Lexington Law

Lexington Law sounds like a law firm, but it acts as a credit repair company.  It charges monthly fees which the CFPB believes violates the Telemarketing Sales Rule. CFPB has also accused Lexington Law of some nefarious sales tactics including having some of its affiliates lie to consumers to get them to sign up for Lexington Law’s credit repair services.  That case is poised to go to trial in 2022.

There is just a smattering of the high-profile cases that the government has brought against credit repair companies.  There are, unfortunately, many people who hold themselves out as credit repair professionals that fly under the radar of government enforcement, but routinely fleece consumers out of their hard-earned money by making false promises.

If a Credit Repair Company makes any of these promises to you….RUN AWAY!

“We can remove everything negative on your credit report.”

This is simply untrue.  Even if you are a victim of identity theft, there is no guarantee that anyone can remove anything from your credit reports.  No one can remove legitimately reporting negative information from a credit report.  If that were true, then credit reports would be worthless.

You should also note that some credit repair companies dispute everything that is reporting negatively on someone’s credit report.  There are two problems with this; 1.  It’s illegal for you or your credit repair agent to lie to the credit bureaus.  That violates the Credit Repair Organization Act. 2.  The credit bureaus know that if someone has more than 1 negative item reporting on their credit report, the chances are very small that all of these items are improperly reported.  They ain’t stupid.

“We can improve your credit score to the high 700s within 90 days.”

You should know that no one can honestly tell you what your credit score is going to be in the absence of negative information. First, credit scores are fluid as they can change daily.  Secondly, credit scores are influenced by several factors including the amount of available credit you carry, timely made payments, and credit mix.  Moreover, not only is not possible to tell someone what will happen to their credit score but it’s not possible to advise as to any time frame.  Statements like this are just plain lies.

“We have proprietary dispute letters that force the credit bureaus to remove negative information on your credit reports.”

This is a total lie.  There is no magic to removing inaccurately reporting information on a credit report.  One simply has to write a letter and identity one’s self and the inaccuracy correctly.  Attach supporting documents to prove that the item is inaccurate.  That’s all.  Some sleazy people who claim to do credit report work will lie about having the silver bullet of credit dispute letters, but they are simply lying.

“We can remove bankruptcies from your credit report.”

Mostly not true.  I say mostly because we are working on a lawsuit now where a bad guy pretended to be our client and attempted to file bankruptcy in his name.  The bad guy did not have the correct social security number but the bankruptcy still reached our client’s credit report.  Short of this scenario, no it’s not possible to remove a bankruptcy reporting on a credit report even if the consumer never completed the bankruptcy plan and even if the bankruptcy was ultimately dismissed. Bankruptcies can stay on a credit report for up to 10 years.  It’s a public record.

Legitimate Credit Repair Law Firms (not Lexington Law as it’s not a credit repair law firm) are truly the only legitimate way to fix your credit.

Credit repair law firms are truly the only legitimate way to get your credit report cleaned up from inaccurate or obsolete information for several reasons:

• A reputable credit repair law firm will only dispute items on your credit report for which there is a legal basis. Moreover, because the good credit repair law firms stay on top of the law, they may find things on your credit reports that could be hurting your credit score that credit repair companies may not even know about.  This is what comes from staying current on the law and reading the latest case law.
• Reputable credit repair law firms do not charge you any monthly fees. You should know that even though a company may call itself a credit repair law firm, it may be acting as a credit repair company.  For example, Lexington Law is the largest credit repair company in the United States.  It does not function as a law firm but as a credit repair company.  Some people find this duplicitous.
• A credit repair law firm will only send 1 dispute letter to the credit bureaus. If the credit bureaus do not fix the problem, the law firm will sue the credit bureau on your behalf to get the problem fixed.  At the end of the case, the law firm should have collected enough money to pay its fees and pay you damages.
• This is the fastest way to remove an inaccurately reporting negative item or items from your credit report without having to write letters, month after month.
• Credit repair is highly regulated in most states and illegal altogether in Georgia. Lawyers are licensed to practice law in the states in which they obtain a law license.  They can enforce your rights, as a consumer, wherever the lawyer is licensed to practice.

Conclusion – Ohio   

If you are trying to legitimately clean up your credit report from inaccurately reporting information, you should see a Credit Repair Law firm.  Come visit us at Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C. or call us at (216) 358-0591  or email us at Gary@crlam.com  We are happy to look at your credit reports for free and give you our opinion as to how we can help.

Join our 3 for Free program and we will send out up to 3 dispute letters for you for free.  You can also join our Auto Pilot program and we will pull your credit reports for free every two months to make sure that they stay free of inaccurately reporting information.  Call us today.

The post Are Credit Repair Companies in Ohio, Legit? appeared first on Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C..

For Credit Repair to be effective in Ohio, the letter must be written by a legitimate credit repair entity.

Credit repair companies write dispute letters for a monthly fee.  Under the law, credit bureaus do not need to respond to these dispute letters that come from credit repair companies.  They must, however, respond to dispute letters that come from lawyers.  As lawyers, we legally represent our clients.  Sometimes, we will get a response from a credit bureau asking for proof of our representation.  We don’t send that proof; we merely sue them.

All three of the major consumer credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union have a department to screen the dispute letters that they receive.  They each have an algorithm to detect whether the letter came from a credit repair company or from the consumer.  Again, if they believe that the letter came from a credit repair company, they do not have to respond and frequently, they don’t.

Worse yet is when a credit repair company will dispute everything that is negative on consumer’s credit report. The chances of everything negative being inaccurate are infinitesimal unless the consumer is a victim of identity theft.  When a credit bureau sees everything negative being disputed, it often ignores the letter as having come from a credit repair company.

Letters from lawyers usually have a recipient taking notice, including the credit bureaus.  The letters we send are legitimate and comply with the law.  Our letters identify inaccurate items on credit reports that need to be removed or updated.  If bureaus refuse or fail to remove or update the tradelines that we identify as reporting inaccurately, we sue them.

In order for a dispute letter to a credit bureau to be effective in Ohio, it must specifically identify why the tradeline or collection item is reporting inaccurately.

Usually, this is what separates the legit from the illegitimate players.  Credit repair companies will often dispute everything that is negative on a credit report with phrases such as “this is not mine” or “I paid this” or “I was never late.”  None of these work unless the credit repair company attaches proof documents to the dispute letter.  Remember, the credit bureaus have been sifting through dispute letters for many years.  They know pretty quickly when a dispute letter is legit and when it’s not.

Our dispute letters are very simple.  There is no magic in them beyond identifying the tradeline that is reporting inaccurately, specifically identifying the issue with the tradeline and attaching the proof documents to back up our position.

Conclusion 

If you are trying to legitimately clean up your credit report from inaccurately reporting information, you should see a Credit Repair Law firm.  Come visit us at Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C. or call us at (216) 358-0591  or email us at Gary@crlam.com  We are happy to look at your credit reports for free and give you our opinion as to how we can help.

Join our 3 for Free program and we will send out up to 3 dispute letters for you for free.  You can also join our Auto Pilot program and we will pull your credit reports for free every two months to make sure that they stay free of inaccurately reporting information.  Call us today.

The post Do Credit Repair Companies Work in Ohio appeared first on Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C..

FTC v Financial Education Services et al.

Financial Education Services (“FES”) is a large multi-level marketing company that uses credit repair as its bait to reel in consumers and new agents to sell its products to consumers.  According to the FTC’s latest lawsuit against FES, the company’s agents lied to a lot of unsuspecting consumers and agents about the services that the company can provide.  According to some of the affidavits provided by the FTC, some FES agents misinformed consumers that FES could remove bankruptcies from credit reports.  Other FES agents allegedly misinformed consumers that FES could stop judgments and student loan collectors.   These statements, if made, were completely untrue and misleading.  According to the FTC, these statements were made by FES agents to get consumers to sign up for their $89 monthly credit repair plan.

FES is also accused of selling a product called “Credit My Rent” which purported allows a consumer, for a fee, of course, to have his rent reported to the credit bureaus.  According to the affidavits that the FTC gathered from the major consumer credit bureaus, this product was ineffective and they reported none of the rent payments.

CFPB v Lexington Law

Lexington Law is not a real law firm, but rather a credit repair company posing as a law firm.  While there is an attorney who is a minority owner of the firm, the vast majority of it is owned by another company called Progrexion.  Nevertheless, it’s the largest credit repair company in the United States.  According to the CFPB, Lexington used a large network of affilates who lied to consumers in order to get them into Lexington Law’s credit repair program on a monthly fee basis.  Lexington also charges fees on a monthly basis to consumers before completing the credit repair work that it promises to accomplish.  This is illegal as credit repair companies are prohibited, by law from charging consumers so much as a dime, before they complete all of the credit repair work for which they are hired.

USA v Turbo Solutions d/b/a Alex Miller Credit Repair

This is an interesting case because it was brought not by the FTC or the CFPB, but by the United States Attorney, directly.  According to the government, Turbo Solutions engaged in a lot of bad practices including having its customers file false affidavits of identity theft and then dispute everything negative on their credit reports.  If true, this is pretty heinous.  The government also accused the defendants of publishing lies on their website such providing guarantees of credit increases, and deleting negative accounts, irrespective of whether they were reporting inaccurately.

Other scams perpetrated by smaller, lesser known credit repair companies

Whats scary is that these are just some of the most recent cases filed by the government against big time players in the credit repair space.  We have seen, over the years, some credit repair scams perpetrated by smaller, lesser known companies.  These scams include:

1. Charging money, sometimes thousands of dollars in advance, before providing services;
2. Lying to consumers about results that they can achieve including:
   1. Removing any references to bankruptcy filings;
   2. Removing all negative credit information;
   3. Removing any reference to student loans;
3. Having consumers lie to the credit bureaus about the nature of their disputes including:
   1. Misinforming the credit bureaus that a debt does not belong to them;
   2. Filing a false police report or a false affidavit with the FTC about identity theft and then sending that to the bureaus as proof of their bogus identity theft claims;
   3. Misinforming the credit bureaus that a debt has been paid, when in fact, it was not;
   4. Misinforming the credit bureaus that the consumer was never late in paying a debt, when in fact, the consumer was.

What people don’t know can truly hurt them.

Bad acting credit repair companies think they are too small to get discovered by the government but they are wrong.  The credit bureaus each have a department dedicating to identifying letters that come from credit repair companies.  When they are able to string together enough of these letters, they can sometimes strike back.  For example in CBE Group v Lexington Law, the Plaintiff, a debt collector, filed a lawsuit against Lexington law for violation of the RICO statute by claiming that Lexington Law was flooding its offices with bogus dispute letters.  The case was ultimately dismissed by a jury.  However, if it had gone the other way, CBE Group would likely have had claims against the individual consumers who were represented by Lexington Law.

Conclusion

If you’re trying to legitimately clean up your credit report from inaccurately reporting information, you should see a Credit Repair Law firm.  Come visit us at Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C. or call us at (216) 358-0591  or email us at Gary@crlam.com.  We are happy to look at your credit reports for free and give you our opinion as to how we can help.

Join our 3 for Free program and we will send out up to 3 dispute letters for you for free.  You can also join our Auto Pilot program and we will pull your credit reports for free every two months to make sure that they stay free of inaccurately reporting information.  Call us today.

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In Ohio, you should review your credit reports at least every six months. If you have a common name, make it every three.

With free access to credit reports through CreditKarma.com and other service providers, you should pull your own credit reports at least every six months.  Credit reports are fluid and change daily. Be sure to look at not only the tradelines to be sure that they all belong to you, but that they are all accurate.  Also, be sure to see who has pulled your credit report so you can know if anyone has accessed your credit report illegally.

With the rise of identity theft, it’s easy to have your identity stolen.  Most people don’t discover that their identities have been stolen until several months later when debt collectors start to call to collect on a bogus debt.  Worse is when you go to buy a car or get a mortgage only to discover that there is already such a loan on your credit report.

Finally, if you have a common name like John Jones, you should pull your credit reports every three months to be sure that no one else with the same name has their credit information on your credit report.  This is called a mixed file and tends to hurt people who have above-average credit.

Dispute anything that you do not recognize as soon as you find it.

If you find information on  your credit that does not belong to you, your first question should be “how did it get there?”  If you have a common name and believe that it’s a mixed file, then you simply draft a dispute to the credit bureaus reporting the incorrect information.  If it’s the product of identity theft, then you will need to get a police report or file an affidavit with the Federal Trade Commission.  Either way, you had better dispute it quickly because time is not on your side.  The longer it stays on your credit report, the more it looks like your obligation.

If a debt does not belong to you, do not pay it, no matter how small.

Some people believe that the best recourse is the path of least resistance.  I would usually tend to agree, except when it comes to credit.  Once you pay a debt,  you have admitted that it’s yours.  If you pay a collection item “just to get it off of your credit report”, you should know that after you pay it, the debt collector has NO obligation to remove that collection from your credit report.  In fact, it can mark the debt as paid and keep it on your credit report for up to seven years.

If a credit bureau declines your dispute, you had better be prepared to file a lawsuit to get the inaccurate item removed.

There is a very short 2 year statute of limitations to sue a creditor and the credit bureau for failing to conduct a reasonable reinvestigation.  If you choose not to file the lawsuit to remove the inaccurately reporting item,  you might as well have admitted that its accurate and that it belongs to you.

Submitting letter after letter with the credit bureaus is a poor strategy for removing negative items.

Each credit bureau has an algorithm to determine whether a letter has come from a credit repair company or whether the language was lifted from the internet in some fashion.  Don’t forget that the credit bureaus get hit with millions of letters each year.  They are not stupid.  They know what they can and cannot do.  They don’t have to respond to dispute letters that come from credit repair companies nor do they have to respond to frivolous letters.  If you have disputed something and the credit bureau did not remove it, its unlikely that another letter is going to change that result.

Call for help when needed.

If you get to a point when you have exhausted your options on having a negative item removed, see a credit repair lawyer.  In fact, you should come see us.  We know how to write the right letter and how to dispute things legally and properly.  We can get you results.

Conclusion

If you are trying to legitimately clean up your credit report from inaccurately reporting information, you should contact us at Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C. We have been fixing credit reports since 2008.  Visit us at Arizona Credit Lawyers at www.azcreditlawyers.com or call us at (216) 358–0591 or email us at gary@crlam.com.  We are happy to look at your credit reports for free and give you our opinion as to how we can help.

Join our 3 for Free program and we will send out up to 3 dispute letters for you for free.  You can also join our Auto Pilot program and we will pull your credit reports for free every two months to make sure that they stay free of inaccurately reporting information.  Contact us today for your free, no obligation consultation.

The post Credit Repair Tips in Ohio appeared first on Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C..

Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad players in Ohio mixed in with the legitimate ones.  Equally unfortunate is the fact that you can’t always rely upon the reviews to give you a straight answer as to whether the credit repair law firm or credit repair company is going to meet your expectations.  Some bad actors either buy reviews that are fraudulent or have their buddies post good reviews, bragging about results that they never achieved.  Either way, it can be hard to tell who is legit vs who is not from just the reviews.

Here are some tips on how you can review credit professionals yourself to be sure that you are going to get the right service.

Before you start analyzing credit repair law firms and credit repair companies, you have to know the differences between the two.

The difference between a credit repair law firm and a credit repair company in Ohio

A credit repair company typically charges monthly fees to consumers, irrespective of whether it’s successful in removing negative items from credit reports.  A credit repair company only writes letters and does no litigation.

A credit repair law firm, by contrast, does more than write letters; it sues the credit bureaus and lends that report inaccurately reporting negative information on your credit report.  While under law, any credit repair professional has to send a dispute letter to the credit bureau to dispute any negative information, a good credit repair law firm will only have to send a singular dispute letter and then file a lawsuit on your behalf.  Moreover, a credit repair law firm will only charge fees to the defendants and not to you as the consumer.  With a credit repair law firm, nothing comes out of your pocket.  Understanding these differences will allow you to review credit repair professionals more clearly.  For a video explanation, click on this video.

Not all credit repair law firms are actually law firms.

Lexington Law, for instance, holds itself out as a law firm.  However, it charges consumers a monthly fee and does absolutely no credit repair litigation.  It’s actually a credit repair company and not a credit repair law firm. While it’s owned in part by a lawyer, that lawyer/owner, is a minority owner of the firm.  The biggest part of the firm is owned by a marketing company.  If you read the reviews for Lexington Law, just understand that it’s a credit repair company and not a credit repair law firm.

Credit Repair companies must comply with the Credit Repair Organization Act (“CROA”).

This means that they cannot charge you fees in advance of providing services.  For example, in CFPB v Lexington Law and FTC v Financial Education Services, the government is pursuing these credit repair companies for charging fees to consumers before delivering credit repair services.  To do so violates CROA.

Another thing you should know is that under CROA, you must be given a written contract that states the length of time that the credit repair company anticipates its needs to complete its services and the amount of money that they will charge you for the entire length of the contract.  The contract must also explicitly give you the right to terminate the agreement within 3 business days from signing.  In some states, this can be made for a longer period by state law.  Be sure to ask for a copy of the contract before you sign up with any credit repair company.

Avoid companies that make promises that seem too good to be true.

For example, some credit repair companies will promise you that they can increase your credit score to the low or mid 700s within 90 days.  This is just a lie.  Others will promise you that they can remove bankruptcies from your credit report.  This is another lie.  Credit scores are fluid and can change daily.  Bankruptcies, unless fraudulent or past the statute of limitations for reporting, can remain on one’s credit report for up to 10 years.

 Conclusion

If you are trying to legitimately clean up your credit report from inaccurately reporting information, you should contact us at Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C.. We have been fixing credit reports since 2008.  Visit us at Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C. at www.ohiocreditrepairlawyers.com or call us at (216) 358-0591 or email us at gary@crlam.com  We are happy to look at your credit reports for free and give you our opinion as to how we can help.

Join our 3 for Free program and we will send out up to 3 dispute letters for you for free.  You can also join our Auto Pilot program and we will pull your credit reports for free every two months to make sure that they stay free of inaccurately reporting information.  Contact us today for your free, no-obligation consultation.

The post Credit Repair Reviews in Ohio appeared first on Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C..

The FTC has been investigating FES/UWE for over a year.  In support of its Motion for a Receiver, it has collected over a dozen witness statements of former FES/UWE agents, many of whom claim they were lied to by other FES/UWE agents about what they could accomplish with credit repair.

Legit Credit Repair vs Illegit Credit Repair

Many credit repair companies unfortunately, are not legitimate and make a lot of deceptive promises to get your money.  The FTC has collected affidavits from many former FES Agents who swear that they were deceived by other FES Agents with these lies:

1. We can get your credit score up by over 100 points in 3 months or less;
2. We can remove everything that is negative on your credit report;
3. Do not pay the judgment against you, we can remove that too;
4. We can get the bankruptcy removed from your credit report;
5. If the credit reporting agencies do not respond to our dispute letters, they can be held legally accountable and must remove the negative items.
6. Our dispute letters are 100% effective at removing negative items.

None of these statements is true.  If anyone makes any of these statements to you, run away from them as fast as you can as they are lying to you.  Here are the truths about credit repair:

1. No one can predict a credit score increase or decrease. Credit scores are fluid things.  While 35% of  your credit score is made up of timely made payments, and 25% is dependent on how much credit you use, these things can change daily.  We once had a client for whom we were able to remove negative incorrectly reporting information and her credit score still went down.  Why?  She used a greater portion of her available credit.  This is called utilization.  Her utilization shot up from 50% to 90% during the time we were litigating her case.  If nothing else changed, her credit score would probably have gone up, but we have no way of knowing how much or when it would have gone up.
2. Chances are infintismal that everything negative on your credit report is inaccurate. The only time we have seen this happen is when someone, who usually has excellent credit, has had their identity stolen. When credit bureaus receive letters disputing all negative items on a credit report, they know that these letters are bogus.
3. Judgments do not appear on your credit reports. Back in 2018, the credit bureaus stopped reporting judgments.  They were mixing judgments up with the people against whom they were directed.  If there were 2 Bill Smiths in a single town, the credit bureaus would often place that judgment on their credit reports even though only one of them was the right defendant.  Even if you have a judgment against you, there is nothing a credit repair company can do to remove it.  To get a judgment removed against you, you need a lawyer to file a Motion to Set Aside the judgment.  Even then, its an uphill fight.
4. Bankruptcies cannot be removed from a credit report unless they are not legit. This is a very rare circumstance.  Many times, people erroneously think that because they did not complete a bankruptcy or after they filed, it was dismissed, that it should not be reporting on their credit reports.  This is simply not true.  Once someone files for bankruptcy, that filing is a matter of public record and stays on your credit report.  Chapter 13s stay on your credit report for up to 7 years and Chapter 7s stay on for up to 10 years.  No credit repair company can do anything about it unless the bankruptcy does not belong to you.
5. The credit bureaus are legally required to respond to consumer disputes within 30 days but often fail to do so. Legally speaking, if they cannot confirm the accuracy of an item on your credit report that you dispute, they must remove it until they can verify it.  However, if they fail to remove it after 30 days, unless you can prove that it is inaccurate, you do not have grounds to sue them credit reporting agencies.
6. There is no magic to writing a dispute letter. Every so often, you come across a snake oil salesman who professes to have a super secret dispute letter that will remove all negative items off of your credit reports.  Its just a lie.  A good dispute letter identifies yourself clearly, the tradeline that you are disputing and a valid reason for the dispute.  That’s it.  There is nothing more to a good dispute letter than that.

Call us to today to start your free credit repair journey with us.

 Now that you know the difference between legit and illegitimate credit repair, you should sign up with us today.  We will dispute items on  your credit report that do not belong on it because they are not legitimate or not verifiable.  It’s the only way to do credit repair in a legally compliant manner.  We do not charge any fees to you for sending out dispute letters.  We only make money when we file lawsuits to enforce your rights.  Even then, we only look to the defendants to pay our fees and costs so nothing comes out of your pocket.  At Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C., , we are credit repair lawyers; we are NOT a credit repair company.  Call us today at (216) 358-0591 or email us at Gary@crlam.com for more information.

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1. The Credit Bureaus are wise to credit repair companies and won’t respond to their dispute letters. As lawyers that sue credit bureaus, we are not a credit repair company; we are a credit repair law firm.  We have deposed all three credit bureaus.  Over the years, we have learned that each credit bureau has a department along with software that recognizes the telltale signs of when a dispute letter was created by credit repair company.  Under the law, they don’t have to respond to such letters (more on that later).  When they get such a letter from a credit repair company, they usually respond with a letter declining to investigate the dispute and telling you to contact the bureau, yourself.

2. Paid credit repair companies earn their money by sending letters; not fixing your credit. They typically charge an up front fee to review your credit reports and then charge you another monthly fee to sending dispute letters on your behalf.  Whether they fix your credit or not, you are still going to pay them.  This is also how it works at Lexington Law, one of the very few “law firms” that fix credit.  As long as you pay them monthly, they will send dispute letters on your behalf.

3. Paid Credit repair companies usually send letters that contain frivolous disputes such as “not mine” or “this account was paid” when neither is true. These letters used to work, once upon a time, but not anymore.  The credit bureaus have the right software and people to detect when they receive a frivolous letter.  By law, they don’t have to respond to frivolous letters.  Further still, there is a law called the Credit Repair Organization Act (“CROA”) that makes it illegal to lie to the credit bureaus to improve one’s credit standing.  When a credit repair company sends in baseless disputes, its violating CROA.  Make no mistake about it, the credit bureaus and the CFPB take a dim view on these kinds of violations and both are becoming more aggressive about enforcement.

4. The CFPB is cracking down on paid credit repair companies that charge up front fees or use the telephone in connection with selling its services to consumers. Just asking Lexington Law as the CFPB has sued it in federal court for these violations. Lexington was probably sued because it’s the largest paid credit repair company in the country.  If the CFPB wins, it could spell the end to Lexington as well as every other paid credit repair company.

5. The CFPB recently took aim at not only paid credit repair companies, but those who sell credit repair services. Credit Repair Cloud is a software vendor that sells software to help people get into the credit repair business.  The CFPB has sued it and its owner.  Recently, the CFPB has subpoenaed a list of Credit Cloud software users. They are probably next in line to get sued for violating the restrictions against using a telephone in connection with selling credit repair services.  No company is immune.

Think about companies such as Financial Education Services which is now known as United Wealth Education.  It is a large multilevel marketing company that sells credit repair services as part of its services package.  It has a large contingent of people who sell its services.  If the CFPB can go after Lexington Law, Credit Repair Cloud and its users, no one who sells credit repair services including agents from FES/ UWE is immune from such liability.  The CFPB is on a war path.  You don’t want to be in its cross hairs.

A Credit Repair Law Firm that does NOT charge monthly is the solution.

A credit repair law firm that does not charge out of pocket for its services is the way to go.  It only gets paid if it achieves results for you.  Moreover, credit repair lawyers tend to write good letters that responded to by the credit bureaus.  The only way to get your credit report fixed in a legally sound manner is to use a legally sound solution.

Call us at Credit Repair Lawyers America at (248) 353-2882 for a free, no obligation consultation.  We are happy to look at your credit reports for free and give you advice on how we can clean up your credit.  You can also email us for a free at Gary@crlam.com.  Talk to us.  Let us be your lawyers at no out of pocket charge to you.

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Many people, unfortunately, get in over their heads in debt.  When that happens, the creditor often agrees to settle the debt for less.  Lately, we have been seeing several lawsuits against creditors who continue to report debts that they have settled with consumers as still open and late.  This hurts a credit score greatly.

When you settle a debt with a creditor, if it credit reports that debt, it is obligated to report that debt as either settled or settled for less than the full balance.  There should be no current balance or currently monthly payment reporting.  Sadly, this has not been the case with several creditors.

In Blazevich v Webbank et al, Ms. Blazevich filed a lawsuit against Webbank and others for failing to report debt that she settled with it as settled.  Instead, Webbank allegedly continued to report the debt as “charged off.”  This is illegal and quite damaging to Ms. Blazevich’s credit score, if true.

Similarly, in Maddalena v Navient Credit Finance Corp and Trans Union, Ms. Maddalena alleges that she settled a debt with Navient.  Unfortunately, Navient took her money and continued to report her account as charged off along with a past due balance.  Again, this account should have been reported as either settled or settled for less than the full balance.

If you settle an account with a creditor, here are the steps you need to take to protect your credit.

1. Always get written confirmation of the settlement. It can be an email from the creditor or collector or one from you to them.  Just be sure that you have some paper trail that documents the agreement.
2. The agreement should address the credit reporting of the account. You should push for the tradeline or collection item to be removed from your credit report altogether.  If the creditor refuses, then insist that it agree to update the tradeline to “Account settled.”
3. When you send payment, always create another paper trail showing that the payment is pursuant to your prior agreement.  Thus, when you send a check, be sure to put in the memo section “Per our agreement of ________ date.”  If you pay by credit card, be sure to send an email or letter that also references the debt.
4. Pull your credit report 30 days after the settlement to be sure that the tradeline is reporting accurately. The cases referenced above are just two such cases in which creditors took the consumer’s money and continued to damage their credit reports and scores.  You are in charge of making sure that your credit report is accurate.
5. If your credit report is still inaccurate, call us at(248) 353-2882. Let us review your credit reports and see if we can get it fixed at no out of pocket charge to you.  Under the law, the defendants are responsible for paying a consumer’s fees and costs in any successful action.  We tend to be very successful.

Conclusion

If your credit has been damaged by a debt collector or creditor, call us at Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C. at (248) 353-2882 for a free, no obligation consultation.  You can also email us at gary@crlam.com for more information.  Again, in any successful action, the defendants are liable for paying our fees and costs.

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