Re: What Junum letter was post Hey Dave, I know what you mean without having to see the letter. (For those who aren't regular posters or readers, I work with Lexington.) Lexington gets that all the time. The letters are absolutely stealth technology. That's why it cracks me up when someone claims that the credit bureaus could "flag" their case because they've figured out that they're working with credit repair. How would the credit bureaus ever distinguish a letter like THAT from all the other letters they receive every day?! If the letters overtly distinguish themselves from anything else, the Junum or Lexington agency that wrote them has failed to do their job. While looking so inocuous, the letter says certain important things, and avoids saying other important things, and will, in a majority of cases, trigger an investigation. If it was as simple as quoting some law somewhere, everyone would be getting results. As it is, the "prime directive" of the dispute letter is to trigger a reinvestigation of the items. What the letter says, in content, doesn't matter so long as it accomplishes the goal of getting the reader of the letter (called a "checker" in credit bureau parlance) to initiate a reinvestigation into the items to be disputed. Checkers are trained in how to spot, and toss, credit repair letters that contain certain aspects, such as legal sounding quotes of the law, sophisticated language or formulaic structure. So, yuck it up if you think it's funny, guys, that Lex letters sound like some yokel wrote them. Do you really imagine that a law firm accidentally published such a letter? After almost ten years of credit repair experience, wouldn't you guess that a law firm would have zeroed in on exactly what works and what doesn't work in writing dispute letters? Over 200,000 deletions later, Lexington is still using these very carefully constructed letters (that neither tip the hand of the firm to the bureaus nor make unwarranted statements of fact regarding the "truth" of the items being disputed.) If you really knew the insides of the credit repair dilemma, you'd discover that most credit repair attempts fail because the person writing the dispute letter said to much or offered the WRONG information - just enough that the Checker could discard their dispute on a policy basis. If you'd like to check out a sample of the guidelines that Lex uses to construct dispute letters, check out http://www.creditrepairrights.com. It's an old book that Lex published to tell people how to dispute their own credit. Look under the "Ten Commandments of Dispute Letters" and you'll begin to see the light. The real failure is that you got the letter returned to you for some reason. Call your Client Advocate so that they can get another one reissued ASAP. (Send me a copy of the letter, would you? There's got to be some reason that they bounced it.)
Re: What Junum letter was post Dave, thanks for the email. I have nothing witty to write, other than to say it's been a sad day for us thinking Lex and the like are miracle workers. Best regards, Sam
Re: What Junum letter was post Yes all along i've preached those to do it themselves. Lex and junum just royall rip people off. $20/month for send one letter? Hire your kid to type it up. At least the money is going in a positive direction. Hell enclose the $20 bill with the dispute letter, that will probably get you more results than any law firm hehe. I'm sure lex and the others are going to try to weasel their way out of this situation.. Lets see how good of a lie they can come up with now. I bet 60 minutes or 48 hours would like to "expose" credit repair firms, maybe your letter and story are worth some CASH to them. Inquiring minds would like to know..
The letters You know, I'm gonna stick to my little soapbox on this one...I will remain with the philosophy I had previously, I really don't care if the letters are written in crayon, they are working (I speak only for Junum) where I couldn't. Now,if that were to change,well, I'd sing a different tune.. but until then....whatever works, works and I don't feel like I'm wasting anything. I have experience on my own (successful) and with Junum (incredibly successful) and so results speak for themselves. Now, I just reread this and its wierd how much I now talk like my mother ("sing a different tune??") EGAD!
Re: The letters I read Dave's letter my thoughts were in line with what Jason said...I think the wording of what exactly was said and what exactly was not said is important, as well as who it looked like it came from. For instance, it never really denies that the debt belongs to him, he is "convinced" that they do not belong to him...a very thin line to have drawn but lawyers are good at thin line drawing. Results are what counts and if a letter like that can prove results than that's what really matters. We will see...Good Luck Dave I am rooting for ya. -Dave
Re: The letters Thanks! I need someone rooting for me now because keeping up with my email the next day or two is going to be harder than repairing my credit!
Re: The letters Jason, as you can see throughout this thread, I am trying to keep a positive outlook on this process and I am willing to give Lexintgon the benefit of the doubt. Since your company seems to take suggestions from forums like this one seriously I'd like to offer you some advice that would make this process better from the customer's standpoint. First, I think you should explain the process in greater detail at the beginning, including a discription of what your disputes are going to look like. The main reason I got so hot about this letter was that when I signed up with Lexington I specifically asked if I could get copies of one or two of the dispute letters just to put my mind at ease about things. I was flatly turned down. Then I opened my mailbox yesterday. I think you can imagine the thoughts that were going through my head as to why Lexington didn't want to let me in on their letters. If I had been given even an ounce of information in advance it would have been much less of a shock. Second, email responses are NOT happening within 24 hours. The last email I sent to Lexington on 3-29 was answered on 4-6. I still have faith in your firm and I am going to stick it out and hope for positive results. We all discuss this subject openly in forums like these in relative anonymity, but in reality this is a highly personal and emotionally charged subject. A little communication goes a long way to help the customer keep calm and wait for the entire process to play out.
Re: The letters Jason, that site is interesting reading. Two things in particular jumped out at me: <<When you mail your dispute, you should include the original copy of the credit report with your dispute letter. You must send your credit repair dispute letters via certified mail, return receipt requested. This means that you must go to a post office to mail every dispute. Certified mail, return receipt requested will cost more than a dollar extra, but it will demonstrate that you are serious about your credit repair. Without certified mail, return receipt requested, you would have no record of the credit bureau receiving your letter nor of the date they received it. When you receive the return receipt back in the mail, make sure to staple it to your copy of the original dispute in your credit repair file.>> Neither of these things happened in my case with the letter that was just returned. It was sent standard first class mail and there was no copy of the report included.
Re: The letters I will concur, I just volleyed off a round of disputes to TU and Experian, 35 cents mail , mailed from my house. Both bureaus responded with a confirmation of receipt letter indicating the date/time which they received my disputes. A month later, voila, bam disputed items 95% gone. Only one came back verified. The fact is that you do not need to send the letters certified. If you don't believe me, try it. You'll see what i'm saying. They process all of their mail. They process all of their mail with equal weight, as well. Again, you don't have to believe my word, do it yourself. and find out. It's only about 40-50 cents if you factor in the paper and the envelope and the stamp.
Re: The letters Dave and Sam, Before I address your suggestions, (thanks! The Lexington guys are all reading this thread) let me mention that I read Dave's dipute letter and it is a perfect letter. I have written over 10,000 dispute letters myself in my little career and I have been part of the team that analyzes the results of the disputes. This dispute is a good example of what a dispute needs to be. Consumers who dispute their own credit tend to run afoul of the system by overcomplicating their dispute and by trying to sound lawyerly. In doing so, they either get their dispute invalidated or, worse yet, they succeed in looking or sounding lawyerly thereby getting their dispute rejected by the bureaus under suspicion of working with a credit repair firm. With regards to the certified letters, in the distant past, Lex tested sending their mail certified and it actually reduced our reinvestigation ratio (statistically.) It's important to understand that Lexington is not disputing to three credit reporting agencies. In fact, Lexington disputes to hundreds of credit reporting agencies. Each bureau has hundreds of what Lex calls "local bureaus." While Experian, Trans Union and Equifax each have centralized processing centers to handle more than half of their disputes nationwide (Equifax actually handles them from a center in Jamaica,) the rest of their disputes are received and processed through these local bureaus. I mention this because the local bureaus tend to dissect each dispute letter, looking for signs of professionalism (indicating the use of credit repair instruction or credit repair assistance.) Certified letters raise that spectre (that's our best guess at why they work less often.) This analysis took place after the writing you mention, so, the writing should be updated. However, it might actually be better for an individual consumer (who is not disputing for clients across the nation) to actually use certified mail. In any case, it's probably time to conduct that analysis again (with regards to the reinvestigation ratio of certified letters over regular mail.) I'll suggest that the firm analyst go to work on it and post the results, here, in about six months. A question back to you guys: if Lex found that it was 10%+ more effective, would you be inclined to pay a dollar more per month to have it done certified? Your other suggestion was that Lex explain the unexpected nature of the dispute letter when the client retains them. Since I read your post last night, I've been thinking the same thing. Lexington is obviously willing to share their methodology (I, personally think that their how-to information on this website and on creditrepairrights.com is the best available, at any price.) I suppose the reason they haven't explained the nature of the dispute letter is because of the responses we've seen here in this thread. Knowing how to construct a working dispute letter makes sense once you explore the issue deeply, but, when a person takes it at a casual, uneducated glance, it raises a ton of issues. Still, there's got to be a way to prepare a client for the possible returned dispute letter without raising more complications (and that'll be my recommendation to the Lex guys.) After all, the majority of Lex clients just want the work done with a minimum of fuss and worry for them - they don't really care how it's done. On this board, I typically see clients, like Dave, who want to know the mechanism too. Thanks for the feedback. I know these guys will put it to good use (especially your comment about the four day response to your emai. grrr.) I'm in Salt Lake City and we're getting dumped on with snow. We thought Spring was here. Wrong. I better go pull my bonzais inside before they freeze. Email me with any other questions or suggestions. Thanks again!
Re: The letters It's just that when I run for President ten years from now, I don't want some yahoo at Experian pulling my dispute letters from their files and pointing out to the world that my written communication skills are surpassed by those of Koko the monkey. I think if you are going to solicit business on the internet you have to expect that the clients you attract are going to be a little more analytical than the average person. You could probably distill your last couple of posts into a pretty good "handbook" for new clients. I regret that some people following this thread (who are not participating in the discussion) and were sent a copy of the letter might be inclined not to choose Lexington. This was not my intent. If someone who is considering the decision is reading this now, maybe you don't want to jump in but I suggest you wait a few months and follow my experience as I begin to get responses from the credit agencies. I plan on posting details about the good things that happen as well as the bad.
Re: The letters You guys can say whatever you want. That lacked the basic components of a good dispute letter. Many of you have said that you dont have the TIME to dispute. That is fine. You can hire someone to do this for you. But for those of us, who hire Lexington (I dont say this for Junum b/c I happened to like the junum letter that I read) and think they are miracle workers, I hope you have woke up. You can write the same kind of letter. At least yours will go certified mail and to the correct address at the credit bureau (duh?) I know some of you will continue to hate me for this statement.....but, I suggest getting a credit repair book, hey there are FREE ones with form letters on the internet, and dispute yourself. That is absolutely free (except postage). Now that you know the 'SECRET' to this all now, go for it. I truly liked the JUNUM letter. It was not on the same caliber as the Lexington letter. With the junum letter all the basic parts of good dispute letter were addressed and you didnot sound like a complete fool. That's SOME representation......lol roni
Roni can you tell me what the Junum letter had to say? I obviously missed it. I am a member of Junum and have had good luck so far, but would really like to see how they do it.
LKH Well, for starters it was in complete sentences. It also sounded like it was in someone words but didnot sound like a morons words. I will quote one sentence, and I hope Kelly doesnot mind..." I have never had these problems that I am aware of. Please help me get these corrected without having legal expenses". I love that. Now in addition, the letter clearly states which items are in dispute and WhY, which are vital to a good dispute letter. Everyone please dont 'bite' the letter. I wanna use it too. LOL. What do you think LKH? roni
Re: LKH Thanks Roni. I was just curious if they went into detail or if it was real short. It sounds pretty good to me. All I know is that whatever they are doing it is working for me.
Re: LKH I guess Roni might know better than me what constitutes a good dispute. By the way, Roni, how many dispute letters have you written and how many have you tracked as to their results? For me, it's only been about 10,000. In any case, I agree with Roni when he says that people can do this for themselves if they'd like to learn how (and expend the effort.
Re: LKH Not surprised you have such a cocky attitude to me. If you agree(in your last statement) why the attitude. How many have I tracked? I only tract my own. It is not my job. BUT guy i have read about your company and your success rate from posters on boards like this and you are not exactly glorified. So kill the attitude ok. roni
Re: LKH What is most important here as far as Lex is concerned, is does it work? I disputed on my own using self-help credit repair sites and books for 2 years. I got only so far. Lex deleted all those that I could not. This matters. Statistically, dummy letters work without certified r/r attached, according to Jason. Kudos to them for bothering to research it and figure it out. For me Lex worked, and I have done it both on my own and through Lex. How much is good credit worth to me? $30/month for a year is worth it hands down.
