Complaint Review: Lexington Law - Colorado

Your narrative contains so much bad information....perhaps we should straighten this out a bit and educate you in the process:

In fact, they lied and told us that a judgement against my husband from 15 years ago was removed, NEVER HAPPENED!!  The judgment from 15 years ago may still be on your report if you paid anything associated with the judgment within the last 5-7 years.  Legal judgments are very hard to remove because the information in the report can easily be verified and so can the payment.  If the judgment has been satisfied within the last 3-5 years, the lending officer you deal for a car loan or a house with may decide not to consider that debt and adjust your score accordingly when considering you for a loan.  On the other hand, that's not a promise either.

They also informed me they would remove most of my inquiries from my score, and when I never saw anything being done, they told me I had to do this myself! They just provided the addresses of a pre made letter that you have to download and print out and mail yourself!!  That is correct; you have to do this yourself.  Lexington uses a basic format to write to the credit reporting companies asking them to remove all inquiries from your history.  They do this to save you money - if they had to do it, the service would cost you a whole lot more.

After I cancelled I was told they would not refund our money and my credit score actually went down 52 points!  One has nothing to do with the other.  Your credit score is proprietary information owned by the 3 credit reporting agencies as well as the Fair-Isaac Corporation (or FICO).  The law firm cannot reduce your credit score 52 points simply because you cancelled the service.  Credit scores can drop for varying reasons - for example, if you cancelled a credit card, that act alone can reduce your credit score by 50 points or more...depending on the history you have with that card, the available credit on the card, etc...

If they miraculously removed any negative items from your report and your score goes up slightly, and you cancel their services, they put the items/ item back on your report!  When a request is made to remove an item, the item is removed by the credit reporting agency until the item can be confirmed or denied.  So what you saw is the law firm requesting an item be removed, the credit reporting agency removed the item, and then...the item was confirmed by the people who you had owed money to, and the item put back onto your report.  The law firm had nothing to do with putting items in your credit history back on your report.  Your credit history is kept by Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion - not the law firm.

I was told by a certain person who worked in this industry that credit repair companies can actually be worse for your credit as I’ve been investigating these negative complaints!  I'm guessing the person who vented their spleen to tell you this also would have loved your business.  If they told you this - then they're no one you want to deal with.  1 in 5 people in this country have inaccuracies in their credit reports that lower a person's credit score.  But that doesn't mean Credit Repair companies can help 80% of the people (4 out of 5); certainly more than one-half of those can do it themselves.  One of the good DIY guides is published by Lexington Law.  I have seen young adults increase their scores by 100-175 points and all they paid was the cost of printing a letter and postage.  Others use credit repair services if they either don't know, don't understand the process all too well, or don't have the time to deal with it.  To say that credit repair places can make your credit score worse....is seriously wrong.  Really, the worst that can happen is your credit score isn't changed much or at all, because you happen to be in the 20% that has an accurate credit score and you're out the money in the process.  That's what happened to you.  There are no guarantees in the credit repair process.  It's sort of like entering into a lawsuit, paying a lawyer, and you lose the case.  You paid money, and nothing you wanted to happen - actually happened.  Is it a rip off?  Depends on your POV.

You have a very basic misunderstanding (I guess that would be the best characterization) of this entire process.  If you're looking to increase your credit score for the purpose of buying a house, or a car, expect the process to take more than one year.  If you have an eye on a house or a car now, stop.  This is not a process where there is instant gratification.  Stop looking at your credit score daily or weekly expecting something wonderful to happen.  It won't.  The process takes a lot of time, is antiquated because of the credit reporting agencies don't take e-mails as a form of communication regarding your credit history, and there's nothing or no one that can make the process go faster.

Let's be clear about that fact.  Your 1st amendment rights can only be asserted against the government.  A bank is not a government entity and as such the 1st amendment would not apply.  However, the whole 1st amendment argument is irrelevant anyway.  The bank didn't close your account because you had a breakdown on social media; the bank doesn't care about comments made on FB or any other social media platform.  They closed your account because they believe you cannot manage a bank account.

In the scenario you described, the check was paid by the other local bank, and then the bank debited your account for the amount of the check a few days later.  In other words, the person who wrote you a check - which you deposited - bounced.  It doesn't matter whether you have evidence the check was paid, or copies of the paid check; if there were insufficient funds in the account, it would be reported initally as paid, found later to be bad, and then reported back to your bank as a bad check and the funds removed from your account exactly as you described.  If the checks were bad and you deposited the checks, it is still your fault you deposited the bad checks because by depositing the checks, you are purporting the checks as valid.

Perhaps you should go back to the person who wrote you the check to recover your lost funds?  Make sure you get cash.

The bank also doesn't need or require your permission to close a bank account.  When you opened your account, you signed an agreement indicating the bank has the right to close the account for varying circumstances, which include racking up many overdrafts within a short period of time, which by your own admission - happened.  The bank considers you a high risk; you deposit bad checks, incurring large overdraft amounts, and the bank no longer wishes to do business with you, so it is exercising its rights under the contract you and the bank entered into.  Now, you can recover anything remaining in your account in roughly 10 days, once the bank has determined there are no other auto-debits or other debit transactions posting to the account during that period.  If there are no funds remaining, and you owe money, then the bank can also put you into Chexsystems, which means you won't be able to open another bank account with a large bank.

All of this is pretty standard fare with this bank, or any other bank.  Your attorney can explain all of this in greater detail to you.  Best of luck...