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Although you have a right to dispute a charge on your credit card account, the credit card company would like you to believe otherwise.

If you have paid for something with a credit card and did not receive it, you have the right dispute it on your credit card company.  Just know that you have to dispute it within 60 days after it first appears on  your credit card statement.  If you dispute it, that does not mean that it comes off your credit card statement automatically, but the credit card company must investigate it.  They will ask you for documentation proving your dispute.  While its hard to prove a negative, you should still cooperate with the company as best as you can by providing emails, letters and any correspondence you have with the merchant.

Don’t be surprised that even after you have supplied all of your well founded documentation showing that you paid for the goods or services and did not receive them, that the credit card company declines your dispute.  Yep, this happens a lot.  Why?  Because sometimes the credit card company, by law, has to eat the loss.  No one likes to do that.

If you have a valid credit card dispute, do not back down from the credit card company.

Under the law, it has to conduct a reasonable reinvestigation into your dispute. This means that they have to talk with both you and the offending merchant.  Sometimes, the merchant will respond and other times, it may not and yet the credit card company may still decline your dispute.  If your dispute has been denied by the company, ask it for all documentation that it received in its investigation to show that you received the goods.  You should know that the onus is on the credit card company to prove that you ordered the goods and services and that you received them.  Sometime, at this phase, the credit card company will back down and credit your account, but don’t count on it.

Do NOT be daunted by the credit card company’s Chip Card Defense.

Many credit card today have chips built into them which makes them almost unreproducible.  This is pretty sophisticated technology.  By using the chip in your card when you purchase something at a brick and morter store, the credit card company knows that the physical card was given to you, was actually used in the transaction.  Back in the early 1990s, prior to the chip technology being used, credit cards could be cloned pretty easily.  Someone could scan your credit information without you even knowing about it and make a copy of your card and use it everywhere.  Not so anymore with chips.

Citibank uses the chips in their cards.  Several consumers have come to us complaining that their Citibank accounts were debited for thousands of dollars in goods that they did not purchase.  Citibank has rebuffed these challenges by stating that a chip card was used and declined our clients’ timely posited credit card disputes.  Citibank seems to forget that when it comes to online purchases such as from Microsoft, Doordash and thousands of other merchants, their chip technology does not mean a thing.  Goods and services, including delicious sandwiches can all be purchased with credit card information with no chip being involved.

Moral of the story

If you have a credit card dispute:

1. Be sure to timely send that dispute to your credit card company within 60 days of when the bogus charge hits your credit card account;
2. Be sure that your dispute is in writing either by U.S. Mail or better yet by email;
3. Do not take “No” for an answer from the credit card company;
4. Call us at Credit Repair Lawyers of America and we can help you at no out of pocket charge at (248) 353-2882 since the credit card company has to pay our fees and costs in any successful action. You can also email us for more information at Gary@crlam.com.

Call us today.  We can help you at no out of pocket charge

If you have bogus items on your credit card statements, call us at Credit Repair Lawyers of America  and we will help you through this process at no out of pocket charge to you.  We will write the dispute letter for you so that if the bank does not remove the charge, we will be in a good position to sue the bank and possibly the merchant and get your credit card account corrected, your credit report corrected and all of it will cost you nothing out of pocket.

Call or email me, Attorney Gary Nitzkin at Gary@crlam.com or call me at (404) 528-2058 for a free, no obligation consultation.  We are here to help you.

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How to dispute a charge with your credit card company.

The process for charging back a credit card charge with every credit card company is the same.  The question is where do you send your dispute.  Disputing a charge with Discover, American Express, Chase or Citibank is the same 4 step process. Below is a description of where to send your credit card disputes to if you bank with any of these institutions.

Step 1.  Identify the charge you want to dispute, specifically.

Be sure to the the merchant name, date of the charge and amount available to you when you create your dispute.  You can create the dispute online or write a letter if you must.  I am not keen on the post office ever since COVID hit because a lot of our mail was never delivered and never returned to us.  With an online dispute, you can be certain that it will be received by the credit card company.  Be sure to capture a screen shot of every dispute and correspondence that you have with your bank.

Step 2 Wait no longer than 2 weeks for the acknowledgment.

The credit card company must acknowledge your dispute within 30 days, but with the speed of email, there is no reason why they cannot acknowledge your dispute in 2 weeks.  If you don’t receive an acknowledgment in 2 weeks time, make  your dispute again because you only have 60 days from the date that the charge hits your account to dispute it.

Step 3 – The bank must conduct a reasonable investigation into your dispute.

This means that they must contact the merchant to get its side of the story.  The reality of these situations is that even if you swear on a stack of bibles that you are telling the truth, the bank will probably side with the merchant, but who knows?  You still have to go through this process before you can sue the bank to credit your account.

Step 4 – Get your dispute results from the bank.  Chances are strong that it will rule against you (See step 3 above).

Take heart.  You were prepared for this since you were smart enough to read this.  Seriously though, once the bank declines your dispute, you have just 2 options; walk away and eat the loss or 2.  litigate with the bank with a law firm that will cost you nothing out of pocket.  Remember, the banks are paying their attorneys on an hourly basis so really, you have an advantage.

When the credit card company denies your dispute, call us.  We will take it from there.

The banks have had a large upsurge in charge backs over the past several years due to identity theft.  This is still the fastest growing crime in America.  Still, that does not mean that you should pay for the goods and services that someone else billed to your account.  The banks are taking a hardline position wanting to recoup the funds that they paid to the merchant out of your account and they don’t really care who reimburses them.  We do.

What to do if the credit card company refuses to credit your account?

Let us fight for you, for free.  We are happy to  draft the right dispute letter for you, for free.  We take the time to understand your complaint and advise you of your rights.  Our advice is free and so is the dispute letter.  If we have to sue the merchant or the credit card company, our fees and costs get paid when we collect from these defendants.  Our lawsuits cost you nothing out of pocket.   If you have inaccurate or unauthorized charges on your credit card, call us at Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C. at (216) 358-0591or email us at Gary@micreditlawyer.com for a free, no obligation consultation.

How to Dispute a Credit Card Charge with Chase ©

Chase would like you to try to resolve issues with the merchants first.  This is not a bad idea except that many merchants will not deal with  you fairly.  They just want to get paid.  You also only have 60 days from the date that a charge appears on your credit card statement to dispute it.  If you miss that 60 day period, then you can only fight it out with the merchant which is a lot harder than fighting it out with Chase.  If you have a dispute to your Chase credit card account call (866) 564-2262 which is the phone number to Chase’s dispute line.  Have your credit card and statement that contains the bogus charge in your hand when you call.  You can also sign into your Chase account here, which is a far better idea that disputing over the phone.  Here is the link to sign into your Chase account.

How to Dispute a credit card charge with American Express ©.

You can log into your American Express account here.   You then choose your card and then you can start your dispute.  Again, be sure to have your credit card and credit card statement that contains the bogus charge in your hand or in front of you when you posit the dispute.  You will need to identify the charge or charges you are disputing and the reasons why you are disputing them.  Good reasons to dispute a charge include not receiving the goods and services you ordered, whether received untimely or not all or receiving goods and services that you did not order.  Issues with quality may not be a reason to dispute a charge with your American Express, but its still worth a try.  If you have to call American Express you can reach their Dispute Department at (800) 528-4800.  You should only use the telephone to make your dispute if you absolutely must.  Disputing your credit card charges on line is a safer bet because you can take screen shots to prove the date on which you made your dispute(s).

How to Dispute a credit card charge with Bank of America ©.

 Like most banks, you can log into your Bank of America account here.   You can also call Bank of America at (800) 432-1000 to make  your dispute.  Again, you are better off making your dispute online and saving screenshots of the dispute that document the date that you made it.  You should also have your credit card and the credit card statement in  your hand when you make the dispute to Bank of America.

A word about “chip” transactions and how to dispute them

Most credit cards today contain a chip in the credit card in an effort to reduce the amount of credit card fraud that has plagued the industry.  Using a credit card with a chip allows the credit card company to verify that the consumer who owns the card is the actual person using the card….most of the time.  You see, while credit card magnetic stripes can easily be replicated, chips cannot.

While the chip is a good idea, it’s not perfect.  For example, when you order goods online such as an Uber or on Amazon, neither of these merchants are using the chip in your card to process the charge.  They are simply taking your credit card information that is readily available on the front and back.  Moreover, there are times when a merchant’s chip reader is not working right and they simply ask you to swipe the card the card instead of using the chip.  These situations avoid the security that the chip provides.  Hence, even though your card may have a chip in it, it can still be compromised.

DO NOT LET A BANK DECLINE YOUR DISPUTE BECAUSE YOUR CARD HAS A CHIP IN IT.  If you have a dispute to a charge on your credit card statement and the bank declines to process that dispute because your card has a chip, call us.  We will fight for you and it will cost you nothing out of pocket.

Let us fight for you at no out of pocket charge to you.

Let us fight for you, for free.  We are happy to  draft the right dispute letter for you, for free.  We take the time to understand your complaint and advise you of your rights.  Our advice is free and so is the dispute letter.  If we have to sue the merchant or the credit card company, our fees and costs get paid when we collect from these defendants.  Our lawsuits cost you nothing out of pocket.   Visit us at Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C. , call us at (216) 358-0591 or email us at Gary@micreditlawyer.com for a free, no obligation consultation. Our lawsuits cost you nothing out of pocket.  Fighting the bank on your own is a bad idea.  The banks’ lawyers fight these fights every day with very experience and seasoned lawyers.  You should have one in your corner, too.  We want to be your lawyers!

Attorney Gary Nitzkin

Licensed in Michigan only

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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.

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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.

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How to Dispute a Charge with Chase Bank for the DIYer in you.

            Step 1 – Send your Dispute to Chase within 2 billing cycles of when it first appears on your credit card statement. 

You can dispute the charge online with Chase or simply write a letter to Chase.  Pre pandemic, I used to prefer sending dispute letters.  They are easy to copy and keep for court.  Unfortunately, the postal service has fallen down greatly on its ability to deliver mail.  You may be better served positing your dispute online and taking a screen shot of the dispute before clicking on “Send.”  In your dispute letter, be sure to clearly identify the item you are disputing and the reason.

You have a very short time period of 2 billing cycles, within which to posit your dispute to Chase.  If you miss that period, you may lose Chase as a defendant, but you can still duke it out with the merchant.  However, its much easier to get the bank to remove the charge from the account than the merchant, in many instances.

Step 1a – Good Disputes vs. Bad ones

Reasons to dispute charges to Chase include:

• You did not authorize the charge and gave no one permission to authorize the charge/  If you give your credit card to someone or give someone permission to purchase, say $100 of goods and they take advantage and order $200 worth of goods, you do not have a valid credit card dispute.  You gave this person apparent authority to order goods and services to your credit card account.  Compare this with when an identity thief takes your credit card information and uses it, then you have a bona fide credit card dispute since you never authorized the thief to use your account.

• The goods and services that you ordered were never delivered. We see a lot of these kinds of disputes today.   This happens when you deal with a shady merchant or when the delivery service does not do its job.  In these instances, you have a good credit card dispute.  But just be mindful that if goods and services are delivered to you that do not meet your expectations, then you may not have a credit card dispute that involves the bank.  You have a dispute that involves only the merchant.
• The goods and services you ordered were wrong and you rejected them. For example, that the UPS guy delivers the wrong brand of bicycle to your home and you tell him that you are not accepting the delivery.

Remember, the difference between filing the right kind of dispute vs the wrong kind is the difference between having the bank fix the problem vs. having to duke it out with the merchant, directly.

Step 2- Make sure you receive an acknowledgment from Chase. 

This acknowledgment is legally required of Chase and is your proof that you made your dispute, timely. Since you are likely to make your dispute online, this may be your only proof that you made your dispute on time.  Be sure to keep this acknowledgment safe in your records.  If you do not get an acknowledgment of your dispute within a few days’ time of when you posited it, be sure to make your dispute again and again, until you receive an acknowledgment.

Once Chase receives the dispute, they cannot attempt to collect it, nor charge you interest while they investigate it.  The credit card company bears the burden of proving that the debt belongs to you.  Also, be aware that Chase cannot report you as being late to the credit bureaus for not paying the disputed debt, while it is investigating.

Step 3 – Be sure to get the results of your investigation online or in writing and save it to your records.

If Chase rules in your favor, you are good but you should still save the determination email/letter in your records.  Sometimes, a merchant may attempt to charge you, again, for the same debt or the credit card company may reinsert the charge into your account.  You will need this determination letter from it to show that the debt is not your obligation.

If Chase rules against you, you should contact us so we can explain your options to you, for free.  Our first step may be to write a letter to Chase asking for proof that the debt belongs to you.  Many times, credit card companies do a lousy job investigating disputes.  We don’t let them get away with doing a half assed job.  We want to see proof of delivery of the goods and a contract showing that you agreed to the goods and services.  If they cannot produce these things to our satisfaction, we will sue them for you.

Step 4 – A lawsuit that costs you nothing out of your pocket

Under the Fair Credit Billing Act (“FCBA”), we can sue Chase for you to remove charges that do not belong to you or that should not appear on your account.  As part of our lawsuit, we ask the court to award you damages, an accurate billing statement, costs and attorneys’ fees.  We typically settle, with our clients’ permission of course, for all of these items.  The goal of the lawsuit is to get your credit card account accurate, your credit report cleaned from any damaged caused you proper refusal to pay debt that is not yours, all at not out of pocket charge to you.

Call us today for a free, no obligation consultation.

Talk to an attorney today at Law Offices of Gary D. Nitzkin, P.C. or call us at (216) 358-0591 for a free, no obligation consultation.  You will speak with one of our attorneys who will explain your rights under the law and help you decide which path works best for you.  You can also email Attorney Gary Nitzkin for more information at  Gary@crlam.com.  Contact us today.

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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