Has anyone ever used a credit repair company and asked for copies of the letters they sent? Was it successful?
No I used Junum and they will not send them to you, but DaveLV got a Lex letter returned due to postage or something that read basically: "Delete this item, or suffer the consequences!" That still cracks me up. They claim not to want to send you the letters because of "proprietary knowledge" but it is more likely to keep you from seeing that you could write these yourself just as easily. -Peace, Dave
They don't keep copies of the letters they send (believe it or not). Junum and Lexington take two different approaches to the matter, detailed below. The consultant who runs Creditwrench.com doesn't deal directly with CRAs at all, and his approach is detailed below as well. How Junum mails the disputes on your behalf: Junum fills out what looks like a relatively standard dispute form, rather than a letter. Next, they put the form in a regular business envelope with your return address and with the CRA as the addressee. Finally, they put THAT sealed letter in another envelope and address that to the postmaster of a post office in your town along with a note which requests that the enclosed letter should be remailed on behalf of their client (you) with their local postmark. There has been some controversy here regarding whether that's legal; I asked the postmaster at our main station, and he said it was legal and was done from time to time by attorneys especially on behalf of clients. What a Junum dispute looks like: Again, Junum uses a form which has a vertical column for "name," "address," "creditor," "reason for dispute," etc., and each horizontal line on the form represents another record being disputed. They don't write even one paragraph. So, for example, they may fill out "Sears," "11-11111-11111-1," and "never late" on one line, and that's their whole dispute for Sears. (Anybody who thinks that takes special magic is delirious, LOL. Still, for someone who absolutely has more money than they have time and organizational skills, perhaps Junum is your way to go. Beware, though: Search this board for keywords "Junum positive tradeline" and you'll read a few horror stories where they didn't pay close enough attention and accidentally disputed positive tradelines.[/b] How Lexington mails the disputes on your behalf: Lexington has a network of colleagues in practically all of the major metro areas. They send the colleague the letter (or perhaps the colleague actually prepares the letter according to Lexington's dictums detailed below), and that person remails it from his or her locale. This is an effort to prevent CRAs from receiving hundreds of letters postmarked from a single post office in Salt Lake City, Utah where Lexington is based. In this respect, Lexington does not enlist the postmasters to do remailing. What a Lexington dispute looks like: This is actually humorous or infuriating, depending upon your point of view. Lexington claims to actually have quantified their success rate years ago depending upon the type of letter sent. Lexington claims that letters which looked and sounded like ordinary people composed them netted the highest success rates. So, for example, one letter threatened, "You'd better delete these, or suffer the consequences." (That one was reported by another Creditnet member earlier this year.) I hired Lexington for several rounds earlier this year, and one of their letters was kicked back to me from Experian (their famous "address verification" stall tactic); the letter they had sent said, "There's no way I had all of these late pays!!!" Did it work? It sure did on 2 of the 6 items disputed. How Creditwrench mails the disputes on your behalf: They don't. You control the letter. You can change it. You can throw it away. You mail it on your schedule. You repair your own credit. What a Creditwrench dispute looks like: Bill Bauer requests that customers not divulge his relatively unique letters. Suffice to say, in his 71 years of living, Bill has acquired quite a bit of knowledge regarding how to irritate people out of their wits. (No jokes here, please, lol. Cough, cough.) Anyway, I am also a testimonial for Creditwrench. One of his suggested letters scared the bejeezus out of MBNA, which quickly pulled its 120-day late negative tradeline for me without my ever having to dispute it with the CRA. That's Bill's other "secret" which he readily shares on Creditnet and elsewhere. He basically goes after the original creditors. Bill offers no "dispute letters" for CRAs as part of his formal Creditwrench consultation, although I'm sure he's offered his opinions about how to do that from time to time. That's it. I hope these summaries have been helpful. If I'm wrong about any of this, please feel free to make a correction here. Doc
As the proud owner of the "suffer the consequences" letter, I still have to say that overall I've not been too disappointed with Lexington although I've probably gotten as much off my reports as they have by going through planetfeedback and writing snail mail letters to collectors and original creditors. I am going to let Lexington go through one or two more rounds of disputes which should take me up to almost the one year mark with them. Whatever is left I'll try to go after on my own. Heck, with PsychDoc's glowing recommendation of Bill, I may even let him have a crack at the last stubborn ones.
There is an interesting thread over at the Bayhouse.com discussion board where Christine makes her case that lawyers have an obligation to retain copies of all correspondence sent on behalf of their clients: http://www.bayhouse.com/credit-forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=152 Doc
I was with Junum for about 7 months, I just qit with them last week. The first 2-3 rounds were awesome, they got my Bankruptcy's deleted on Equifax and Experian but for some reason it still remains on TU. They got a few tradelines deleted. The only trouble I had in the beginning was somehow they disputed my BK 13 and it was updated to a BK 7! And also updated 2 of my tradelines to includes in CH 7 BK. While this sucked for a few months because now it looked as if I had filed BK twice, in the end it worked out because the BK was deleted but so was the 2 trade lines that were incorrect. I consider my venture with them to be moderately successful as far as Equifax goes, it is down from 8 pages to 1. The other 2 I wasnt happy with at all, which is why I left them, I wasnt seeing results at all since about June. MistyEyed
Love In most cases, judgments are totally different than any other type of situation. Trying to dispute judgments is, in my opinion, a total waste of time, a usually futile exercise in ignorance. Please note that I did not say "stupidity" because that is a totally different adjective far different in meaning than "ignorance" Yes, quite often they can be successfully disputed off one's reports, but that does nothing for the underlying problem which is, of course, the judgment itself which can easily erupt into a garnishment. Most judgments are void upon their face and therefore fairly easily vacated. As most everyone here knows, I am not an attorney and so cannot give legal advice, but it is not a difficult matter to go to the court house where the judgment was filed and get copies of the court papers and take them to a local copy shop and send me those copies of the court papers or fax them to me and let me have a look at them to see if I can spot any errors that you might be able to use to go back into court and file motion to vacate summary judgment. It doesn't really take a college education to be able to spot the errors in a judgment when they are as glaring as they usually are. It doesn't take a lawyer to use a standard form to file motion to vacate. In fact, it's so elementary that even a rocket scientist like me can do it almost effortlessly. I like to help people as much as I can, and so I do what I can for free and without any obligation at all on the part of the people I help. They don't owe me the time of day. Once the judgment is voided and gone, they may have suffered damages over the deal and may be in line for some good damage awards. I can recommend them an attorney who might be able to help them or they can just go find one on their own. I don't care because I get paid exactly the same no matter what lawyer they choose or where they find their lawyer. I get paid the same even if they let their fingers go walking through their local yellow pages. My commission in any case is exactly $0.00.
I began with 3 or more Judgements and or public records on each of the 3 CRA's reports ... it has been 8 months and I now have NO JUDGEMENTS OR PUBLIC RECORDS on ANY of my reports...I don't call that futile, ignorant, nor do I call it a waste of time. Love, Junum spammed most of them off for me, but I disputed (online) the remaining 3 or 4 as Incorrect and they fell off within 1 or 2 tries. I tried not to do any of them twice in a row (ie if I would get a "verified" back on one, I would wait a month to re-dispute it) -Peace, Dave
I can well understand your thinking in making that statement above. I sincerely hope that you will be so lucky as to be able to carry that same viewpoint to your grave, Nave. However, in the event that one of your creditors decides to execute their judgment upon you, would you please try to remember your own words above? You just might want to remodel the latter part of your statement a bit in that most unfortunate eventuality. My point is that while you may very well have been successful in getting them off your credit bureau files, you didn't do anything to eradicate the judgments themselves. The credit bureaus have the right to go back and re-investigate what happened at any time and if they turn up the public records stating that those judgments are still in full force and effect against you and they can pop them right back on your record again. They can also let your creditors know what you have done and suggest that they take punitive action against you in the form of going for garnishment and execution thereof in revenge for what you did. At a recent trade show and seminar for collection agencies, a spokesperson for the credit bureaus gave a speech before a large crowd of collections executives in which he stated that "in the near future, we will be taking positive steps to install the necessary software to discover and prevent many forms of fraud that we cannot now accomplish. Once the necessary modifications to our software is complete we will be able to spot those attempting credit repair and flag their accounts for corrective action. Of course, what is "fraud" in the eyes of the credit bureaus is not necessarily fraud in the eyes of the law at the present time. And I could understand one's not doing something to try to cure the underlying cause if there were some huge costs involved, such as attorney fees or paying someone to do it for you. But since no one is trying to sell you anything nor trying to obligate you in any way, then how is it not at least a trifle "ignorant" to do nothing and just sit there hoping that nothing bad will happen to you over the judgments that are still in full force and effect? Think about it.
Naaaaah they are all many years old...from a different life...in a different state far far away. I am not scared in the slightest of them returning or finding them...I do however understand your point here, and it is a valid one. -Peace, Dave
Nave: Thank you! Yes, you may be insulated from them. I hope so. Many folks are not that lucky, and a statement, (not a point) that I am trying to make is that our legal system is terribly flawed in many more respects than most people realize. And I must admit that when I offer to help people with judgment problems if I can and do it for free, I am most definitely making a sales pitch. I want to sell people on the concept that their rights are sacred and not to be taken lightly. I want to sell people on the idea that it is only through the power of knowledge and helping one another that we can hope to retain our system of justice, return it to what our forefathers gave us more than 200 years ago. Every person that I can teach that they can win against the tyranny and oppression that they now suffer at the hands of rascals who trample on their victims rights is one more person who might help change the status quo, even if it is by no other means than going to the polls and chunking them out on their ears.
Bill, Your wealth of knowledge is GREAT, and greatly appreciated. I wish it was less clandestine. I really believe after all the smoke clears, you are an asset to this and other boards and all who really need help. I also really believe that, as PBM wrote, with your good advice and wisdom your Creditwrench "system" could benefit from the "advertising" of your email and website from the FREE advice you give. It's worth a shot...it can't hurt...You already spend hours reading the boards and helping in your cryptic way, maybe if you helped overtly rather than covertly, your "good-will" will create a slew of creditwrencher's. Despite what some may think, I am not, and have never been, against you. Just your oddities and odd behavior. LOL You need a PR man desperately!!! LOL -Peace, Dave
Nave. I will have you know that here in Oklahoma we have lots of great PR and PD persons. We also have lots of great PI people Poor Republicans Poor Democrats Poor Independents
I guess my problem just might be my Libertarian type viewpoints. And I don't even make a good Libertarian because there are Libertarian viewpoint I strongly disagree with as well. Maybe that's because I happen to think that there is a little good in the worst of us and a little bad in the best of us.
LOL Bill and Doc. I stand corrected...I thought it was clear at the time and PC too...guess I was wrong on both. (ut oh...I said PC. What abbreviation/mnemonic/phonetic trouble am I in now?) LOL -Peace, Dave
