Re: Credit Successes for newbiesto So what converted you into a customer? Did you find his website through a search engine? And, being a customer, do you understand why some people may understand your defendning Mr. Bill?
Re: Credit Successes for newbiesto Ultimately, I came to the realization that I had reached the point of diminishing returns. The easy ones had all been gotten. I knew, and still know, that all of the info I would need to mount an independent attack could be found scattered around here at CreditNet. But, like many others here, I have so many other things competing for my attention; wife, daughter, dog, job, etc. that, after giving it a lot of thought, it made more sense to me to hire a guide, if you will. When I looked at the various services available, Lex, Unum, etc. and of course CreditWrench, it seemed to me that they were all similarly and reasonably priced services, but that for that reasonable amount of money, Lex and Unum were just going to do what I had already been doing, dispute, dispute, dispute. I could already see from my own experience that, as I said, you quickly reach a point of diminishing returns. In order to have anything to new to say in any correspondences with the CRA's the new stuff would all have to be lies. I'm not comfortable with that. Might be quicker, who knows?, but that's not how I'm raising my daughter, so that's not how I should behave, right? What was attractive to me about Bill's service is that it was not merely more and louder disputing at the CRA's, and was not about lying to everyone who crosses your path, but was about making the other parties live up to their obligations under the law. Again, I recognize that I could have done this on my own with the info available on this site, but my time is more valuable to me than that. I know how to change the heads on a blown engine, and I've done it before, but I'll tell you what, I'd much rather pay someone else to do it if there's a next time. Incidentally, I first found CreditNet through a post by Bill Bauer over at Motley Fool. Yes, I can. But I will also point out that I defended Bill on a number of occasions long before I was a customer. BTW, CreditWrench isn't some sort of a cult. It's merely a service I use, and receive value from, just like Adelphia Cable, or Earthlink. You don't suddenly become unworthy of trust, lose your objectivity, or your ability to think independently, just because you've given $35 to Bill Bauer.
Re: Credit Successes for newbiesto Quixote: Thank you for sharing your story with us here. If you don't mind, and I know it's personal, since you brought it up, can you give us an idea of how much progress you were able to make by yourself? Like you had xx errors and were able to get xx corrected. If you care to go deeper, as of today, how many errors have been removed due to Mr. Bill's methods and how much have you paid total for those services. Are you still a customer? You DON'T have to answer these questions if you choose because I realize they are personal. Thanks!
Re: Credit Successes for newbiesto No Problem. I've posted numbers before, so no secrets here. Working on both my wife's and my CR's, I started out in June of this year doing disputes. I don't have the numbers right here in front of me, so these could be off a bit. Basically there were seventy five or so negatives among our six CR's. As we had successfully graduated from CCCS, most were paid charge offs or similar. By simply asking for verification of account information, because "it doesn't seem to match my records", which is true, because most of the accounts had not updated yet. I didn't say "Not my Account", or any other blatant lies. I disputed them all at once, on a cheesy form I made up on my computer; very Amateur Hour. The first time through, I got something like 25 deletions and 10 or so changed from negative to positive. Not bad for a first try. The follow on was far less successful, maybe another seven or eight deletions and 2 or three changed to positive. I also disputed inquiries separately online and got probably 25 to 30 of those deleted. So, that leaves something like thirty negative tradelines left to deal with. Still mostly paid charge offs, but now they've been verified twice. A couple of small (under $100) unpaid collections from five or six years ago also. So, that brings us up to today. I just signed up with Bill about a week ago. I'm into it a Grand Total of $70 ($35 times two people times one month). We got the details sorted out, prepared the correct correspondences to attack all the remaining accounts simultaneously, and I just sent them out on Wednesday last. I got my first Return Receipt in todays mail. So it's a bit early to give you results, except to say that I'm very optimistic. If was going to make a SWAG, I'd say we've got a four to six month ride ahead of us. I'll post more as I learn more.
Re: Credit Successes for newbiesto Actually he told the user that she could do this on her own and didn't need to use him at all.
Re: Credit Successes for newbiesto Quixote: That's terrific! And you've only been working on it since June! WOW! I'm so impressed! Do you realize how great those results are? It takes most people 12-18 months to clear up errors in their file once they begin the work on it. Have you experienced all the negative issues of working with CCCS that have been reported by so many people? I hear of people unable to even get secured cards for two years after working with them. If you don't mind a little criticism, I do think that you gave up to early. Personally, I had student loan errors that took 4 and 5 investigations to remove. Good luck with your creditwrench.com work also. The last time I visited Mr. Bill's website, he did not list the cost for his services without responding via email. I guess everyone is paying $35 per month. To be fair, it's too early to judge the results since you haven't had any and it's only been a few weeks. If you don't mind, I'm sure everyone would appreciate seeing an update as you begin getting deletions.... so we can guess-ta-mate a $ per correction ratio. Oh, one thing, you didn't say... where did you first learn of creditwrench? Thanks again for sharing... I know that you don't have to....
Re: Credit Successes for newbiesto And this was to use creditwrench tactics with a collection agency? Lacking evidence of a chat log, author, I'll take your word for it.
Re: Credit Successes for newbiesto bkev, I'm being honest He told her what to do. She wanted to hire him to handle this and he told her it wasn't necessary for the issue, which did get cleared up quickly after the advice. I like Bkev and Bill and don't want to see the board without either of them. I just wish y'all could work together to help Creditnet. You both have wonderful ideas and add to this board...except when fighting Steph
This posting was for the person who started this whole conversation. His name is Kev and he agreed the email me. Thank You!
I'm sorry. Kustomkat has his email engaged.... click on his name in the posting header for his profile then click the link to send him and email...
Re: Credit Successes for newbiesto Like any big endeavor. the biggest obstacle is actually starting. I know it was for me. I thunk and thunk, but nothing happened until I acually did something. I gave a lengthy answer to this one in another thread, so, in the interest of time, I'm going to give you the link. Sorry, not a lot of time today. http://consumers.creditnet.com/straighttalk/board/newreply.php?s=&action=newreply&postid=98086 My post is fairly near the end of the thread. You might have a point. However, most of what's left are either; a) small unpaid collection accounts <$100 in all but one case. I offered to pay in return for deletion; no takers. So, disputing is a waste of time, they're going to verify it every time. I know there's a lot of info here on Validation letters, etc. and I've even started down that trail with a number of them. Bill & I have taken up from there. I'm basically paying to increase my confidence level that I'm proceeding correctly. b) Paid Collections. I have no negotiating leverage since I don't owe them any money, and they keep verifying. What now? Mr. Bill seems to know. The CreditWrench website is not a case study in user friendliness, that's for sure. But, if I fished around enough, I've been able to find his pricing page, at least since June. Which brings us to your last question. I did in fact find out about CreditWrench here at CreditNet. Before you say AHA!!, let me say that that is why I came to and continue to come to CreditNet, to learn, share a joke here and there, and find resources that may or may not end up being useful to me. I also found out about Creditsense, Creditworks, Junum, Lexington, and so many others I can't remember them all, just by checking in once in awhile. It doesn't bother me a bit that some of the posters clearly have an agenda, as long as they are giving back, and I'm certain that Bill qualifies there. I saw an earlier poster mention that they've seen Bill tell someone to "keep their money, this one's too easy", and I've seen that same thing more than once. I would also remind you again, I found CreditNet in the first place because of a post that Bill put up at Motley Fool. So much for keeping it brief.
Re: Credit Successes for newbiesto Thank you for sharing. I tried to follow your link, but it's broken.... perhaps later? GOOD LUCK!
Kev, It's great to hear the things you have been able to do. I have things that I need to delete as well. But...I'm new at this. Could you please email me a copy of your letters so I could do the same thing. smthgrdnr@aol.com.
Sorry. Operator Error. http://consumers.creditnet.com/straighttalk/board/showthread.php?s=&pgnum=&postid=98204#post98204 I checked it this time. It works. The relevant post is a long one about mid-page. BTW, Thanks for the kind words.
How right you are, Quixote- the hardest part of all this is starting. I moaned and groaned about it for an entire year, thinking there was nothing to do about it but wait it out. Then, as annie has said in the past, the old man put his foot on my neck, so I figured I'd just make an effort to shut him up. I got our first reports in early June, and lo and behold, this is what has happened so far- MINE TU- 9 neg accts- deleted state tax lein- deleted 1 unpaid collection- deleted repo- deleted HIS 6 neg accts- deleted state tax lein- deleted 4 unpaid collections- deleted repo- deleted MINE EQ-7 neg accts- deleted state tax lein- deleted 1 unpaid collection- deleted repo-deleted,re-inserted w/o notice- in dispute HIS 7 neg accts- deleted 8 unpaid collections- deleted repo- deleted- never re-inserted- yet MINE EX- 2 late pay histories- deleted 1 neg acct- deleted HIS 5 late pay histories- deleted repo- deleted- re-instated/with notice As you can see, EX is giving me the hardest time, but that makes it that much more of a challenge. I have current disputes ongoing with all three CBs, and am also disputing about 8 inquiries from each report. I still cannot believe that this is possible, and now the old man is in "I told you so" mode. "You wasted too much time thinking it couldn't be done. It could have BEEN done if you wouldn't have dragged your feet for so long." This time, he's right, but even a blind hog finds an ear of corn once in a while! PS Thank you Shawn!
Anna, Outstanding! It's the same thing I tell my daughter when she's staring at her homework; "Nothing happens until the pencil touches the paper" (Usually in a very loud voice). BTW, How did you manage to get unpaid collections removed? I've had a tough time with those. Also, out of curiosity, how much of the overal task do these results represent; 30%, 60%,?
I just said NOT MINE, I don't know why it worked, maybe because Miss Cleo willed it to. Don't really care! I'd say it represents a good 75% of my problems, but that's not counting the inquiries that I just started on- and youns have scared me into thinking they could be the hardest part to get removed. Maybe I'll throw a dead chicken over my shoulder on the days when I expect the decisions to be made.
