Recently I've had some considerable success in my credit repair saga that I never dreamed would be possible without filing a lawsuit. I give credit for my achievements to my letter writing skills and because of that I am motivated to create a basic guide to share with the newbies out there on how to generate more effective correspondence. The letter is the primary weapon used in the credit repair wars and should be considered of utmost importance. It can mean the diffrence between getting blown off or getting what you want. In this crap shoot game, any edge helps. The first thing that should be considered when writing the letter is the general appearance of the letter. Go out and purchase from an office supply store some good heavy watermarked stationary in off white or cream color. Go ahead and get the matching envelopes. Make sure that everything is neatly printed with no smudge marks. IMO everything on the letter should be printed using a computer except the signature, including the address on the front of the envelope. Any handwriting could possibly degrade the impact of the letter. The reason behind this is psychological. Research has shown that first impressions and body language are more important than what is actually said. When the reader first sees the letter, subconciously that person will assign a diffrent importance value to the heavy paper and darker color than to all the white plain jane other mail. It makes the letter look more professional and gives it a flair of "I mean business, don't ignore me" and gives additional credence to its contents. Proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation is a must as well. During the time after high school and college things can be forgotten, and all those who don't write letters everyday can get rusty. All letters should be in the proper business letter format. Be mindful when using the word "you." This implies that you are speaking directly to the person reading the letter and any such accusations of wrongdoing could be misdirected by the reader as directed at them personally and not the company. It is not in the best interest of the writer to anger the reader in any way, consciously or subconciously as he/she will become defensive and less likely to help. Whenever a derivitive of the word "you" comes to mind, think about substituting it with the company's name. The exception to this is when a person is actually responsible for something. Try to keep all references to your emotions out of your letters. Stick with the facts only. It may help to visualize yourself ripping out the jugular vein of the person your sending the letter to with the same calmess you have when brushing your teeth first thing in the morning. The manner as to how the letter is sent is also of importance. CMRRR is the standard method for sending credit bureau disputes and most other correspondence between OC's and CA's. Use the address as specified by the credit bureaus for such initial correspondence to be sent. This could be of assistance in court actions. The OC or CA can't say it was sent to the wrong address. Future return correspondence should be sent to the address as used on the initial reply. ITS letters are a special breed. CMRRR should be used for the first 30 day letter. Any compliance timeframe shorter than 30 days should be sent FEDEX overnight or 2nd day air. This added expense and trouble can only help reinforce the psychological "hot potato" effect. IMO if you already have cut and dried violations and you have evidence of such and you really intend to sue the party that committed the violations, go ahead and send them your evidence, a draft copy of your complaint, case law, and any court paperwork to show you have already been to the courthouse and are ready to file such as civil cover sheets or smail claims warrents. It may give them a heads up on your lawsuit, but they are going to find out what its all about sooner or later anyway, and by doing this you may get tipped as to how they will try to defend their case. Any appropriate changes to the complaint can then be made. That is of course, if they decide to fight. Always give the company to whom you are applying pressure an "out". Make them think it would be in the company's best interest to run away than to stand up and fight. Consider offering confidentiality agreements to help save the company face. It can't hurt. Sample letters are ok, and do work, but they have been around for a while, and you can bet that a lot of CSR's have seen at least one variant, and if yours is a duplicate it will definatly reduce its credability. IMO its always best to write your own letters if you are capable of doing so. A side benifit to that is being able to tailor your correspondene to get your point across exactly. Before sending anything out, wait a while then go back an re-read what you wrote. Mistakes will be easier to spot and you may find the general tone of the letter will be not to your liking or that some things need to be restructured. This letter I'm writing now has been gone over about 20 times. In conclusion, my letter writing was not the best when I started doing credit repair but it's definatly getting better along with my results. I hope this helps some folks out there.
Seems like excellent advice indeed. Do you plan to also put up some sample letters that might be used by those who are new to the game or even the old timers> I think that would be most helpful indeed.
Excellent! But..... Personally, I would not give all my info to the CRA before the Trial. Maybe i'd give just enough to show them that I have documented violations, but keep the rest close to the chest....
Nestea hit it right on the head. The balance of the advice given was excellent, but I would think long and hard about tipping the other side to your evidence and/or strategy before any court appearance. If for no other reason, holding back your specific evidence allows you to exert pressure where it works - on the would-be defendant's insurance carrier. It is usually the insurance carrier and not the insured that decides to settle or defend a lawsuit(In fact, most policies give that right solely to the carrier). As insurance companies hate uncertainty and risk, a specific threat backed by unspecific evidence may be enough for them to decide their client will settle rather than entertain a lengthy hassle and potential exposure. -HDAlex
I'll probably try to write some sample letters of my own in due time. Most of the letters out there such as the knockout and nutcase varient letters are all pretty good and it would be hard to improve on them. The problem is that they are widely distributed on the internet and growing a bit long in the tooth. More experienced CSR's and their managers have no doubt seen them and know what they are... a letter from someone trying to repair thier credit. They still work, but are getting more likely to end up in the round filing cabinet the older they get.
So you say that one should figure out who their insurance carriers are and go after them? Sounds like a great idea and appropriate as well. But how do we find out who their insurance carrier is and especially if they have no requirements to file with any state for license or bonding requirements? That could get to be a real headache indeed, finding out who their insurance carriers are unless they are in a state that requires bonding. I have another source and I will also see what they have to say on that matter.
The fastest way to get a judgment is to be sued. If corporate insurance is anything like private insurance the number of lawsuits are directly proportionate to risk. Any lawsuit whether it be small or large is equally bad in insurace companies eyes because the same risky behavior that created your piddly $2000 lawsuit maybe turn into a real demon $2,000,000 next month. More risk=higher premiums. Companies are used to being threatened with lawsuits everyday. They know that a very high percentage of those threatening will never follow up. By actually showing them you are serious, it forces someone at the company to make a decision. Either do nothing or give the person what they want and they will go away.By sending your draft complaint, evidence, case law and damages you send a clear message that you are damn serious about sueing them and are capable of doing so. I'm sure the poop rolls downhill once top brass finds out some middle manager got them or keeps getting them sued. Middle management should know or hopefully not be clueless about this as well. I sure wouldn't want to be the person whose name is on the letter that says "Ok, go ahead and sue us" when it gets back to the big boss after you filed. If you give the person handling your ITS an out, say deletions and release of liability in exchange for not filing it gives the company an opportunity nip the whole thing in the bud and avoid having a potential lawsuit revealed to its insurance company and could possibly look good on the managers behalf because he/she just helped the company avoid getting sued. The only problem is some managers would rather have a porcupine pulled out their arses sideways than to delete something off a credit report. Nestea does have some good advice though, If I were to be actually going for money or dealing with a lot of damages, I'd keep quiet and just go ahead and sue the company. They'd be like a deer caught in the headlights wondering what hit them. But for credit repair jobs when dealing with small amounts of damages IMO its better to just be a nuiscence that could turn into a potential problem and then hope they throw you a bone just to get you to shut up and go away.
While dixidrifter has some good comments I still often wonder why it is that we are so often looking for the easy and cheap way out when huge rewards are obvously to be had if we go that extra mile. I've got an old student loan from back in 1988 that they cannot possibly collect for several reasons yet NCO just now managed to get it to show up on my credit reports and won't be deleted until 2009. If NCO or anybody else thinks I'm going to let loose of them on the cheap they got another think coming.
Good points.. In practice I've pretty much followed the same thoughts when writing my letters. I just wrote some letters this weekend, and had run out of my "personal" stationary so I used plain white paper. Now that you got me thinking about it, I'm going to hold off until I get some decent paper again.. Interesting points and counter-points on showing your hand in regards to violations... I'm going to have to re-think that one...
I have added this to my 'to do list' for credit repair. thx for the tips....Valuable info I tink must people are terrified of facing a CA in court. Some of us live for it! If you don't have the nerve to sit in front of these people and quote case law, then settle. If your goal is like mine, to whoop the defendants butt, then go to court. If you don't keep a paper trail and good records, then there is no way you can even ask for deletion, let alone a cash settlement.....
I went over and looked at your site. While I see that most of it is still under construction but you sure do have a great looking start. So obviously you do have an awful lot of work ahead of you to do as do all sites when they first get started. What do you intend to use for a message board? Getting a good one is pretty hard to do. You usually have to have a server that has php and mysql2 on it and you have to know how to use it in order to be effective. It so happens that I have run into a message board format that looks awfully good to me and I am working on getting that set up and getting away from the ezboard one I am currently using. It will most likely take a while to get it done. If you would like to look over the message board program that I have found send me an email at bbauer1@netzero.net and I'll give you the link to the company that is offering the message board so you can give it your consideration. Hope you can actually get your goals accomplished. Lots of luck
<bump> My brother is a law school graduate who is preparing to take the Cal Bar exam this summer. I can't wait to start having him "kindly" sign off (bar #included) on my credit letter inquiries in the comming months, would that strategy increase the letter's effectiveness?
Have you actually spoken to him about that? My impression is that doing so might somehow get him in trouble with the code of ethics or something. Of course, I wouldn't know what the lawyer's code of ethics is or says even if one jumped up and bit me. (LOL)
Bill, I am learning more about consumer rights and "opportunity holes in the system" here than I ever imagined possible. My brief experience on estoppels and case law was a brief business law course in took in college. I figure an attourney would use due diligence and stamp his/her name on something that has a legal substance behind it to pursue ie violation of consumer rights by CAs and CRAs etc. It these are legal violations that courts hold up then it becomes fair play to legal professionals no doubt.
There are not anywhere near as many actual opportunity holes as some folks on some message boards would have one believe that there are. I am on some yahoo, msn and other groups and lists where very few questions are ever asked of anyone on the list. These people are on the cutting edge of things (at least in their minds) in dealing with the IRS. They are experts in the law and experts in biblical law as well. And that is where the trouble begins. In their eyes there are several different kinds of law. There is biblical law, Admiralty Law, Common Law, British Law and more. And usually God's law is the prevailing authority and if the judge don't believe it they will prove it to him somehow. Them folks invent more loopholes than a strainer could ever hope to have. If it isn't there they will invent it somehow. Like any other list they have some good heads and we won't discuss the rest. Most of the time the messages aren't even worth reading but every once in a blue moon they do come up with a good idea. Most boards and lists resemble that one in some way. Lots and lots of chit chat but every once in a while somebody comes up with a good one such as the one the fellow stumbled onto and announced in our weekly research meeting here in OKC last night. He announced that he had discovered how to force the phone companies to quit charging all those taxes they charge and had a letter from South Western Bell, (SBC and now owners of Yahoo) stating that they would refund all taxes and had their letter of credit to prove it. They wouldn't give him any money back but they would and did agree to take it off his telephone bills. He said they wanted to space the refunds out over the next 10 years at first but he said he wouldn't allow that so they agreed to do it over the next year. Now then, the next question that needs answering is who is this guy? Well it just so happens that he has sufficient qualifications that he actually ran for Oklahoma State Attorney General in this last election. His only real problem was, of course, that he could not get enough contributions to stand a crying chance against the incumbent Drew Edmondson so his campaign went exactly nowhere. He isn't short on qualifications however. And he only had one copy of his paperwork with him so it will most likely be sometime today before I get my copy of his research work by fax. He wants us to start using it on our various cell phone companies next and once that is proven to work on the cell phone companies it will be good to go. The point is, how long it took for somebody to come up with that one. Same thing with these discussion boards and other types of forums. Good loopholes aren't all that easy to come up with. Wild-eyed theories are all over the place and even the good ones have to be tested in actual practice over time before they can safely be adopted or adapted (whichever the case may be). So one does have to be careful what he bites on and how he applies it. Don't bet on that. Attorneys make just as many or more mistakes than we do. I've seen lots and lots of real bloopers made by long time lawyers. A prime example is a judgment somebody sent me a couple of days ago. I'll bet most folks in here will get a real belly laugh out of this one. This bird starts off proving a medical case to the court and uses a list of charges to the patient that was many many pages long. Probably somewhere around 10 pages long and listed everything no matter how small. And then he had the bookkeeper from the hospital sign a statement (not an affidavit) which said. "If I were asked to make sworn testimony before the court I would swear that the itemized list of charges to the patient are true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief." Then he had some other person sign another paper saying exactly the same thing in exactly the same way. That wasn't good enough for this boob lawyer. He also signad a paper saying "If I were asked to make sworn testimoney before the court I would swear that my attorney fees are $XXX.xx." And guess what? The judge granted his motion. (LOL) Not an affidavit anywhere in the entire set of documents except the affidavit of service of summons. Now that has just about got to take the grand prize. And I'll bet that lawyer has maybe hundreds more judgments against people that are twin sisters to that one.
Great post, dixidriftr! I've saved this one to the "SAVE FOREVER" subdirectory on my hard drive. Thanks! Doc
