Complaint Review: Credit Smart - Phoenix Arizona

I don't know why everyone who hires a credit repair company expects their credit to be completely clean in 30-45 days. While it's not uncommon to have a decent percentage, 20%, 25%, sometimes even 50% of the items come off in the first 30-45 days, it's very unlikely that EVERYTHING comes off in that time. And, if the accounts on the report have been disputed prior to hiring a company, that number drops dramatically, because the bureaus already have records of verification. Any company which boasts that it can do the entire job in 30 days is lying, or doing something illegal, like segregated filing. From what I can see from this report and the response, it doesn't sound like this company has done anything wrong. And from my experiences, every time a client complains that nothing has been done, I've pulled a copy of their reports and found a good amount of improvement. They just don't realize that it's been improved because it's not 100% complete yet. And, I'll also say that paying $400... you got off cheap. I wouldn't even look at most of my cases for that little.

This is a responce from the man in Chandler AZ. Based upon my attorney's responce to your allocation(s), defamation of character and other constitutional rights have been violated! Among my utter shock to your accusations to my sexual preference(s) or my physical body weight, the fact remains that you received services commited to and performed by myself, Credit Smart. If you compare where we started with your credit report and the problems on it as to where our relationship ended, you will agree with our records of drastic improvement on your credit including a 55k inacuurate judgement deleted! Ps Try not working on your own credit (3 times0!

I am by *ALL* means not taking up for this company. I am just here to offer you some FREE advise on what you need to do based on what our company does. Although I do have to pose one a few questions right from the start. How many deletions did you get to date? How long have you been with the company? How many disputes have been sent out. The reason for this is because there are many reasons you can dispute an item on a report. If it has only been disputed once and verified, you need to give the agency time to go through more disputes, more than likely it will drop off in a few months due to them finding the right dispute reason. This is not a run around it is just because some companies have different paper work on you and we do not know what question to pose first and we have to feel out the creditor to find a right reason they cannot verify with documentation. Also, please do not call it a rip off if they just didn't delete the account you wanted and the rest were not yours I hear this reason at least 2 times a day. My only response, and the best response is, if you had never went through credit repair the items that were deleted would not have been if it were not for you coming to us and asking us to do the disputes on your behalf. A deletion is a deletion is a deletion. Also, it is not often at all that something is reported on your credit report that REALLY is not yours, the only cases I have seen in my year working with a credit repair company is 2 people who were REAL victims of identity theft and people who were Jr's, I , II and Sr's ect... Now that that little bit of business is out of the way, I would first state go to your local new station, they loves busting bad credit repair agencies and actually, they doesn't even require proof. There was one complaint about our company that went to them and they just bulldozed us right over even though the person complaining about nothing happening to her account made her down payment and then bounced the rest of the checks for the rest of the payments. They still aired it and even mentioned she did not pay but, they still bashed us on local TV. I wish the owner of the company would have sued the news station but that would be like taking down a lion with a toothpick. When going in to get your credit repaired. (Because I would NEVER EVER do ANYTHING over the PHONE unless it is PHONE AND E-MAIL OR FAX AND PHONE and they are keeping in constant contact with you in the signing up process because some companies work on all 50 states like the one I work for does.) -If they do not ask for at LEAST a Good clear copy of your drivers license with your CURRENT MAILING ADDRESS on it and a good clear copy of your social security card, RUN. The bureaus will REFUSE to investigate disputes without at least these two things so if the company does not have them THEY ARE NOT DISPUTING FOR YOU. I know my company asks for the Id with the right address, a utility bill with the right address, and social security documentation. What this does is cut down on stall letters from the bureaus asking for MORE documentation. Its saves you time and that means we can sent out more disputes faster. -Also, in my opinion a credit repair company should have a : lifetime: membership. What this is, is a certain amount of money should be paid in ( in our case around $1,000 depending on the payment method because we give discounts for paying all at once or auto pay) and this amount of money should cover you for as long as the business is open. Why? Because a FULL dispute ( from getting the reports, filing the dispute, to you getting the results back) usually takes 60 days. Why should you pay a company anywhere from 100 to 300 dollars a month to work on your case when in fact they work on it a few hours to send the disputes and most likely spend 2 hours on the case wile waiting on you to give them the results. It makes no sense. -Please also make sure that they have been in business for at least a year before signing up with them. Reason being is some of these fly by nights will have a lifetime membership, take your 1,000 dollars and then close down two months later. Our company has been in business EIGHT years. It is really hard for a non legitimate company to stay in business if people report them to the F.T.C, BBB and State attorneys office. (also places you should check a companies credentials out at, not just RIP OFF REPORT because some storys here are exaggerated and not investigated at all) Here are some things to look for when signing a contract - and they better have one because it is the LAW. 1. Did they give you your consumer rights? Per the fair credit reporting act, any credit repair facility HAS to let the person paying for credit repair KNOW that they can do it themselves for FREE. 2. ( just as important as number one) A cancellation policy. It is the LAW that you have three days to get out of any legally binding contract and receive full refund with no repercussions. 3.The contract should state they are disputing to ALL THREE bureaus. It makes no sense to only dispute to one because any mortgage broker or loan officer will pull ALL THREE reports on you and if only one is disputed the derogs ( negative items ) will show up on the other two. Also the credit bureaus hardly EVER have the exact same things on the reports across all three boards. It should specifically say Tri-merge or disputing to Equifax, Trans Union and Experian. 4. SPECIFIC refund policy for all cash purchases. Do not sign the contract if they do not have a specific fair market value on each deletion. In our case the F.M.V is 100 per deletion and this is for per account per credit bureau. (EX of a question to ask: If you get :insert total negative account here; taken off of Two credit reports and not the other, does it count as one deletion or two? Do you count late pays that are removed as a deletion that would remove a money amount from my refund?) 5. A list of what the membership entitles, the cost of each thing. (ex: monthly updates - free. Redispute sold accounts - Free. Monthly payments, the number of months to pay and the total amount that will be paid for the membership) 6. (this does not have to be on the contract but get this in writing somehow) Policy on deleted collection accounts that get sold within 30 days of deletions. (I am not sure if this law was passed but usually most companies will send out a dispute if they get a collection company deleted and that company sells you debt to another collection company within 30 days) 7. This doesn't HAVE to be on the contract but I would get at least ask them if a deletion gets rid of debt. The reasoning behind his is because it DOES NOT. If you have a collection for 10,000 dollars on a repo'ed car, and it gets deleted off your report, that collector can still take you to court to get the money. If the credit repair agency states otherwise, they are LYING. The only things that are perminate deletions are Bankruptcies, Late pays and Paid collections. An unpaid collection or repo or foreclosure can be deleted but you can either get sued by the company for the amount owed or they can sell to a new collection agency and put it on you report again for 7 years. Other things you need to know and look out for - I have read on here that people should be wary of companies asking you not to contact the bureaus. This is false. The reason being is if you put the repair in the hands of professionals, you need to let the professionals handle it. If you are doing your own disputes wile we our sending ours out on your behalf there is always; 100% of the time; accounts that will be automatically verified because it was previously deleted and one or the other parties sent a dispute out for it. The same goes with not telling creditors the account is getting worked on. The credit repair biz works because of the time limit's the fair credit reporting act put on the bureaus and the creditors alike to get the documentation together to prove the dispute wrong. - As for your part in the credit repair partnership (or lack thereof on the companies part), you need to time things. When they say they send out a dispute ( I hope they give you exact dates on these kinds of things) , YOU should get at LEAST one letter from one of the bureaus with your consumer rights on it. This basically counts as a confirmation letter that the bureaus have recived your disputes. 30-45 days from the date on that letter you should get the RESULTS and an UPDATED report from the bureaus. Did you get those back to them? I do not know how they run their office but usually for you to get a dispute filed the second third fourth and so on time , most companies require you give them all the results and updated reports that come with them so they can show you the deletions and make sure they aren't disputing something that has been deleted. If they don't require this, they are a rip off and they are taking your money. Why is this? Well lets say I disputed a late pay on your credit card. If you get your results back and its deleted but you never give them to me and I re-dispute the same late pay again. Guess what, it is automatically verified and added to your credit report again. So its VERY VERY important you get those back to them. If they send out a secondary dispute WITHOUT your results and less than 60 days after they sent out the first dispute, they are not giving you sufficient time to even get the things in to them. The credit bureaus when they receive a dispute will give the creditor that is being disputed 30 days to get the results of your dispute back to them, the bureau is only supposed to have 15 days to get that back to you but, (at least in our company) we give them 60 to give them sufficient time for mail delay. This is extended out longer on holidays. Also, a new dispute should never be sent to a bureau if you did not get results back from that bureau from the last dispute. - However, if you have been doing all this and you have not received any results ( or not enough to void out a refund) I would go in the office ( when I know it is the busiest) and I would start demanding answers. This should usually work, if you do not get a refund within 30 days (that is if your refund ACTUALLY matches the refund policy that you signed with them) I would contact the BBB and the state attorneys office and turn them in for fraud. - But, ( and there is always a but) You need to go over your contract that you signed with them. What does the refund policy state. Ours is VERY descriptive but some are not so much and I don't know what theirs is. If you do not have your contract, they better. Once again, I do not know 100% if it is illegal but if you get in a legally binding contract with a company I think they still need to have you sign it and have it on file, and I think you are allowed to see your file anytime you please. If they do not give it to you, report that as well as an added bonus. - I do have a question for you. Were they providing you with some kind of update ? Some companies provide you with some kind of status update on your account. If they tell you to go buy a watcher type deal from a 3rd party I would get my money back ASAP. Our company actually makes personalized web addresses for each person getting credit repair. This link is available to the customer 24/7/365. It shows who we are disputing, who we are disputing to ( Equifax, Experian or Trans Union) and the results of all the investigations combined thus far. This is implemented in our system in real time. As soon as the dispute girls update your link, it will be F.T.Ped (loaded) up to the internet at the same time. If you do not have internet accsess it will get mailed to you. Look for something like that if you decide to get your credit repaired again. If they do not provide you with an update, and you still want to go with them, make COPIES of all your credit reports ( because you will ALWAYS get your OWN results because the bureaus will NOT mail anything credit report related except to the last know VERIFIED address of your social security number and name) - Also, no one can guarantee a certain amount of rise in a score of any given consumer EVER. I'm not 100% sure if its legal or not to even say such a thing. The reasoning for this is, if your credit report has nothing but negative items on it, and all of those are deleted you will have NO SCORE, and if you have ever heard the old adage, no credit it worse than bad credit, then you know this is NOT a good thing at all. So for them to put a generalized statement like that out there should be some form of fraud. This also works in another sense, NO ONE knows how the scoring model works and it is constantly changing. I cannot tell you that if I remove your bankruptcy, late pay or collection account that your score will go up X amount of points. The reason being is the scoring model is based on way too many differential factors such as debt to income ratio, whether you are a co signer , authorized user or main user or the kind of payments you make ect. The scores get mixed up all the time. For example, when you are the middle of a dispute the scores show lower. We have no reason for this except that you are in the middle of a dispute and we have deduced that the accounts we are trying to get deleted do not count for or against you, but for some reason when they are deleted the score does go up. This happens in 9 out of 10 cases. Or I can point out a more recent thing that has just hit the media about the bureaus. If you are an authorized user on a credit card, that will no longer count toward your score. This is supposed to take effect Jan 1 08 but we have seen some peoples drop already. They implemented this because people were renting their credit cards out to other people. Lets say I had a score of 500 and I needed a 650 to get a mortgage at 100% because I don't want to use my 5,000 dollars I have in saving as a down payment, because I want to use it to buy down my interest and I know this guy who has 10 perfect credit cards. Well he tells me if I pay him 500 dollars he will add me as an authorized user, ( not letting me use the card for real though) so that when my scores get updated in a month or two my score will jump to the 650 I needed to get my mortgage. Then when the broker part of the mortgage deal is complete the person can take me off as an authorized user and my score can go back where it was. The reason they are getting rid of this is the high amount of times it has happened compounded with the recent hike in foreclosure rates. BE VERY WARY OF quick Credit repair. There is NO SUCH THING. To file a dispute and get the results back takes a MINIMUM of 60 days. This does not even start to count the amount of time it will take the bureaus to even get your scoring model put back together. (usually 1-3 months) Now, since they was obviously no help at all to you, let me tell you some things that YOU can do for YOURSELF to get your score up. First things first, got credit cards? NEVER PAY THEM LATE. Also, call them and ask them to hike your limit and lower your interest rate. Once they hike your limit do not and I repeat DO NOT spend more than HALF the limit. So lets say you have a card for 500 dollars with an interest rate of 10% DON'T spent 249.99 and have the interest pop on next month and take it over the 500 mark. This is called OVERSPENDING and it really starts to mess with your debt to income ratio. The safe thing to do is NEVER go over 1/3 of your limit, this gives you a buffer from the interest and also annual fees if you have them. If you are an authorized user on a credit card, have that user call and ask that a NEW card get opened in YOUR name. Take precautionary measures stated above. If your credit is so bad you cannot get a regular ( visa, master, American express) credit card. Go to a department store. They will usually give anyone a card as long as they have had some sort of good account open on their credit. Granted, the reason they do this is to make A LOT of money off of you, so expect to pay upwards of 18 - 25% interest on these cards, still stay with the rules above. If you cannot even get a department store credit card, you need to talk to a rep. at your bank. Make them tell you about a secured credit card. What this is, is a card that has a limit of usually 250 dollars and upwards. The reason it is secured is because they will lock that amount of money up for you and you cannot touch it. However, you will still have to use the card like a regular revolving credit card, the money that is locked cannot be touched to pay the bill. Depending on the bank and the card they keep it secured for 6 months to a year and then they give you a real revolving card. Do not just cancel services with a company and not pay them because you did not like the way they treated you. ( first try to get a district managers number of the company and speak to them, I have found they are much more helpful than the floor managers in the call centers) Most utility companies like Comcast are notorious for putting the same collection account on a credit report more than once. Same goes for Gyms if you have a family plan, sometimes they will break up the amount owed and put it on your credit multiple times with different account numbers. If you do get a collection letter from an original creditor ( what this means is someone like JEA, not someone that JEA sold your debt to like MAF collections) PAY IT even if it takes a payment plan. Actual collection companies like MAF or Asset Acceptance have no integrity. What I mean by this is they will set up a payment plan with you, you will stick to it, and in the middle they will sell this debt and you will have made no headway. Also, when things get sold to a collection company they will add their own collection fees and interest on top of what you already owed. Collection agencies can sell a debt to a new agency at anytime. What this means for you is, sure MAF has been on your report for 6 years and 11 months and you know that they are not legally allowed to report it for more than 7 years. All MAF will do is sell it to a NEW collection agency who will add their OWN fees on top of it. I have seen a little 60 dollar medical bill go to a full blown 2,000 dollar debt with a collection agency because it has been bought and sold so much. Also, if you think you CAN do it, dispute your own items. It is NOT easy in any way at all but anyone can do it for FREE. Also there is an abundance of do it yourself tutorials online on how to do it. What many credit repair agency bashers LIE about it that it is ILLEGAL to dispute an item that belongs to you. This is INCORRECT. When you dispute an item you are not questioning the validity it belongs to you, you are questioning the legality of it being on your report. In simpler teams, this mean if you send something to the bureaus stating you were never late on an account, and the creditor cannot come up with ACTUAL DOCUMENTATION proving you wrong, it HAS to come of the report because it was not being reported LEGALLY because they had no paperwork PROVING the account was late. This can be found in the fair credit reporting act itself. The burden of proof is NOT yours it is the CREDITORS. I know this is a very long post, but I wanted to make sure that I covered the bases and helped you out as much as I could. If you need more help feel free to respond to this with a way to get in contact with you and I will be more than willing to try to give you more information. Note: It is almost 12:30 at night so please pardon any misspellings or grammatical errors in this post.