No matter what credit course they buy, or even if they don’t buy one at all, many people find themselves consistently coming up short in one single area… and it happens to be one area that can have considerable negative impact on their credit.

One thing, that’s it. And it can be blamed for a good 75% (or more) of the FAILURE related to consumer credit repair efforts.

It’s the one common mistake that people make no matter what method they choose, no matter what course they buy, no matter how smart or stupid they are.

(Alright, so what is it already?)

Be patient dang it.  I’m getting there.

I don’t know why people so consistently make this same mistake.

• Perhaps it’s because nobody told them that the credit bureaus and creditors don’t give a “rat’s a$$” about their credit.

• Perhaps it’s because they think most people are “good people”, and that while “creditors” and “credit bureaus”  are not really definable as people, somehow this “good people” rule still applies to them.

• Or, maybe they’re afraid.  Maybe they perceive the credit bureau as a dangerous monster (a fair description, I’d say) and they’re just scared to cross the monster’s path.

• Or maybe they think they don’t deserve better credit. Maybe they think that if they reach for the cookie and their hand gets slapped, it’s a sign that wanting cookies is a bad thing and that nobody should ever reach for them.

SO, what’s this one “uber-mistake” that so many people are making?

It’s simple… so simple, you might think it’s kind of dumb.  Maybe that’s why it is so often overlooked.

Here it is:

People quit too soon.

Yep. That’s it.

They lack persistence.  They quit before the game is over.  When they meet resistance, they think that’s the end.  They try xyz method, and when xyz method fails, they get angry and say things like “this stuff doesn’t work!”

Please understand something: The credit bureau systems are DESIGNED to make you want to throw the credit repair book through the window and QUIT.  I mean it… they are

** D   E   S   I   G   N   E   D **

that way.

I’d offer up proof (which there is plenty of) but that isn’t the point of this post.

The point is, the ONLY “silver bullet” in credit repair is a consumer who refuses to give up.  Other than that, there are really no magic tricks.

Sure, you need knowledge, you need to learn the methods, you need to have a good “bag of tricks” and sometimes even someone to help tell you how to use the bag of tricks… but in the end, the one thing that will separate the successes from the failures is PERSISTENCE.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is…

Reach for the cookie. Don’t give up. Hang in there. If one thing doesn’t work, try something else.  If that doesn’t work, try yet another thing.  If you aren’t creative enough to come up with ideas on your own, sign up for the forum and we’ll help you brainstorm.  That’s really what it’s all about.

Til next time,

~brian

It seems to me that there may be solid, usable methods to getting into the “VIP Departments” of the credit bureaus, and that there may be some real advantages to doing so if you can pull it off.

If you don’t already know, each credit bureau has a “vip department” where the issues and disputes relating to “important” people get taken care of.

The most obvious way to become a VIP is to be someone who can do some damage to the credit bureau: an attorney, a politician, a high profile business person or celebrity. There may be other ways to have your disputes handled by the VIP department, though.

One forum member, for example, reported that their disputes were being handled by the “priority” department because they had an attorney contact the bureau on their behalf. Will this work for all of us? Probably not all the time, no, but we may have other options.

Are you a VIP? If so how did you get there?  Seriously, if you’re reading this and you care to share the details with the world, please feel free.

As for our part, we will keep working and researching to see what may come of this potentially powerful angle to credit repair.  Stay tuned, and I’ll try to keep you updated as we learn more about how to become a VIP.

~brian

If you haven’t already heard the news, here’s the sum of it: the bureaus are now using “OCR” (Optical Character Recognition) technology to “read” disputes via computer and, if possible, automatically categorize them and even possibly flag them as frivolous.

For the credit bureaus, OCR is an attempt to automate more of their process.  By reducing the need for human labor and categorizing and cataloging disputes via computer software as they are received, the credit bureaus can accomplish several things:

1. Reduce the likelihood of human error
2. Reduce staffing costs
3. Automatically “fingerprint” disputes and store in a database
4. Detect if similar disputes have been received before
5. If the dispute can be automatically categorized (with a numerical e-Oscar code), the dispute can be forwarded to the creditor via e-Oscar with no human intervention whatsoever.  At the very least, the computer can do all the work and a human can just review the results and click a button to approve it.

Where the problem really gets kicked into high gear is starting at item #3.

Here’s the problem:

• 100% of credit repair companies use form letters of some kind.
• 99% of credit repair books tell you to do the same
• If the bureaus can tell you are using a letter that they’ve seen before (such as a template from a credit repair product), they may flag your dispute as frivolous “right out of the box”.

So let’s say you buy some “Dummy Credit Repair” book and do what it says.  You use their templates (the ones that match your problems) to send to the bureaus.  Maybe you have been a victim of identity theft and have several accounts that are genuinely “NOT YOURS”.  So you pick the appropriate template, and send them away.

Then the bureaus receive your letters and their computers say “Hey, we’ve already gotten hundreds of letters that look just like this… this is obviously frivolous.”  And before you can say “OCR”, your dispute is rejected (or in many cases seemingly ignored).

Here’s the thing you really need to know about OCR: The only way it will hurt you is if you aren’t prepared for it.

If you are aware of it, and will take steps to protect yourself, the letters O C and R will remain mostly harmless for you.

What steps can you take? We’re still working on what we believe will be the best answer for this, but for now, the following will have to suffice:

- Don’t use a credit repair company.
- Hand write your disputes, or use strange fonts with unusual colors. This makes it difficult for the “OCR” scanner to read your dispute, requiring (hopefully) an actual human being to take a look at it.
- Make sure your disputes are HUMAN READABLE… use standard letter formats that make sense.  The delicate balance is to thwart the computer without totally screwing up your chances when your dispute reaches a live person.

We are working on methods to help consumers better deal with the potentially negative effects of those three innocent letters. I’ll be sure to keep you posted as we further develop those methods.

~brian

I read a newspaper article recently that had this headline: “Your Bad Luck Is a Windfall For Airlines”.  The article talked about how change fees and cancellation fees produce about $2 BILLION in revenue per year for the airline industry. So missed flights, changed plans, traffic jams, and more… all this “bad luck” leads to billions for the airline industry.

I got to thinking about this and realized that the airline industry isn’t the only industry making a killing off of consumers’ bad luck.  Creditors, credit bureaus, and collection agencies make more money when things go downhill for you. (Notice that I included “credit bureaus” in that list… remember, it is more profitable for them if you have bad credit–more on that in a later post!)

These companies can’t really be faulted 100% for this, because it is really widespread and more or less just the way the system works.  Your doctor, your mechanic, your attorney, and your plumber also profit from your bad luck… but it’s not like you’re going to do your own brain surgery any time soon, so you’re probably glad that your doctor is around to help.

What we can really take from this is that there is a positive side to everything; and the key for us is finding that and applying it so that it can benefit us.  You may think your bad credit is nothing-but-bad for you. Think again.  We all KNOW it has a negative side, but look for the positive side.

Many consumers have totally screwed up their credit, and ended up on our web pages in an attempt to dig themselves out.  Many of those same consumers then decide that they wanted to help others dig out too, and end up starting their own profitable credit restoration businesses as a result.  Some do it part time, some even full time, but in either case they have now crossed over and have learned to profit from their own bad luck.

Even if you don’t want to start a credit repair business, you could still profit from your bad credit.  By fixing your credit today, and positioning yourself for the future, you could be setting yourself up to take advantage of one of the biggest financial opportunities of the next 50 years.  What’s the opportunity?  If you don’t already know, we’ll leave that for another post.

~brian

Today I thought I’d share a little snippet of knowledge that I believe is extemely useful and powerful.  I’ve been doing research for an upcoming advanced credit course, and this is something that has popped up a couple of times, and that I find really intriguing.  If you’re a member of the forum, there is a good chance you’ve seen this discussed in some form or another.

Here is the basic idea: instead of attacking your negative items head-on, find indirect ways of affecting your credit profile that will yield the same results.

The best example of this is disputing name and address variations.  Many consumers and professionals have found that by simply disputing old/outdated addresses and other similar personal information FIRST, some negative accounts just “fall off” their report automatically.  The reason this works deals with how credit reports are generated and how credit is reported by creditors… but regardless of the nitty gritty details, it does work.

Most professionals agree that the very first thing you should do when cleaning up your credit is get rid of all your incorrect and outdated addresses and personal information (name misspellings,etc).  This type of information is the easiest to dispute, meets the least resistence from the bureaus, and often results in more “difficult” items falling off without them ever even being disputed directly.

There are several more “indirect action” methods, as I’m calling them now, that when combined create a whole arsenal of under-the-radar tools for consumers and credit repair professionals that are both effective and low-impact.

~brian