Now that my student loans are finally rehabbed and my mortgage has already been approved, my credit repair journey is in it's twilight. The only negs are unrated BK accts and the BKs themselves. I think it is time for me to start my own small publicity campaign to counter the info out there coming from creditors, CAs, CRAs, etc. My first shot at the credit industry will be in the form of an editorial in one of my local papers and then, if the Managing Editor of the paper holds true to his word, a possible regular small column on credit matters. ONE PROBLEM - where do I start? This being my first shot at an editorial, I'd like to score big with it. What do you folks think I should tackle first? I want to become public enemy #1 of the industry in real short order. What topic should I start with?
Hi, Congrats on your credit journey. Your first article could be about the misinformation that is floating around about collection agencies. When people receive a bill, and don't know any better, some of them, (me in my old days), immediately panic and pay them. You could start out slowly, by explaining about validation, etc. I think your idea is great. Good luck........
Kbanger, Maybe you might want to try just summarizing why people need someone like you to keep them informed about their "credit matters". Best wishes.
Oh, that's a wonderful idea. I had forgotten all about those. The commercials are EVERYWHERE, and sadly, people are so uninformed about what they do. All a person in debt sees are their 'smiling' faces that promise to 'help you sleep at night' and keep you safe from creditors.
start with a primer on credit reporting, what it is, especially on WHY it is important, give many many real life examples. give official statistics on the % of reports with inaccuracies, how anyone can post a negative report. first editorial should be a wake-up call
How one can obtain their own CR. How you learned the hard way. I think putting YOUR experiences down on paper FIRST might catch the eye of more people. This way you don't look like you're all knowing, with no experience, but you'll look like one of them (the readers). I would, at the end of each editorial, put the numbers to the 3 CRA's for people to get their CR's. Teach people the BT game, you'd be surprised how many people don't understand BT's or even know they exist. Kiyi hit it on the head, BAAAAAAD CCCS BAD!! How many days do you get? once a week? daily? What paper?
It would probably be weekly. The Managing Editor and I have traded emails and he wants to see how I write before comitting any space to me outside of an editorial at first. It's a small (about 150,000 readers) paper called Northeast Times.
Good idea. I've 2 suggestions. Prehaps your first article an overview of credit scoring and why it touches so many lives in ways other than mortgage or cc rates. Like, insurance, employment,etc. Maybe a brief overview of FICO componets like you see at myfico.com. Secondly, I've a friend who writes a weekly stock market column. THe editor did what your editor proposes. Write a column and let's see. My friend actually turned in 4 columns. He told the editor the one he wanted to run first but then, showed him the other 3 he wanted to followup with and aked the editor to look at all 4 together to evaluate his writng skills.
I think you would have to dedicate the first portion to "why this very topic applies to everyone." i.e. credit/credit scoring/credit reporting agencies are important and why you need to know what I am about to say. I had never even seen a copy of my credit report until a year ago--had never laid eyes on it. When I was told by a mortgage broker that my scores were in the low 400's, that meant absolutely nothing to me. He could have just as easily said "Your score is 49,545." It would have carried about as much weight with me at that point. You have to make the subject important to the reader before you get into any of the intricacies of the issue. Just my opinion.
I would agree with Lisa. Explain to them why it is important to everyone and also that in the future it will only increase in importance. Also explain that something can be done about it. Explain that a credit report is not carved in stone by the powers that be. (well maybe it is) and that it can be changed with determination. I am always taken back by what people believe about their credit reports. I know some very successful, smart, accomplished people who think there is nothing that can be done about it. When they hear what I have done (which isnt alot) they are astonished. Most are slaves to their reports.
The main problem with consumer gripes about the credit reporting industry is that the consumer is unwilling to splay their credit report out on the web or any other publication so the readers don't think they're just making it up, or dont' know what they're talking about. And the CRAs bank on that. Look around. See any actual reports? It's a big catch-22: Winning the argument at the expense of privacy. What's going to make you any different?
After his/her caught their attention, maybe the editor would allow you to write an article for the paper that discusses bankruptcy, how it could affect one's life if one is suddenly kicked down the bankruptcy path, and how the new laws would affect them. And who stands to benefit if the new Bk laws get passed (credit counceling services?). Just an idea. Good luck with your article. I'm sure it will be a success! Sirrowan
If this is to be an ongoing editorial, then it would make sense to start at the beginning and then continue from there. Start with the cra's and the misinformation they give about "repairing" your credit and why it is important to check your reports for the errors that are on almost everybody's reports. Then you can go into separate area's like scores, disputing, validating etc. Good luck. And post the first one here so we can see.
I'm more than happy to put mine up, but I can't leave account numbers in the clear, nor can I leave personal information. Identity theft is easy enough as it is... The hardest part so far is getting OCR software to work well enough. Otherwise the PDF from an image ends up being at least 3 meg per page.
Don't use OCR. A picture is worth a thousand words. This letter-size .jpg is only 162K: http://creditaccuracy.com/0002TUletter20020722scanpg1.htm I think it was scanned at 300 or 600 dpi, then processed down (the file size was decreased) by some reduction utility in the imaging software. There's even a utility in the free word processor (StarOffice by Sun) that came with the computer that reduces file sizes-- put there specifically for web publishing. Try your word processor. And, see http://scantips.com/ .
