Introduction to The Credit Game Academy

Thank you guys for joining our Credit Game Academy - Associates Degree Edition! You just made an incredible investment into yourself as you will be immersing your brain with helpful information. As we go through these chapters together, you will get a ton of education and golden nuggets on credit and the banking industry as a whole. ( Download the "TEACHABLE APP' For ''I Phone users only'' to study the Credit Game Academy at anytime and ON-THE -GO. https://teachable.com/blog/teachable-ios-app

 Some really important things to start with our understanding is that there are millions of errors on consumer credit reports. There is likely some error on your credit report and that is why you found us.

 Some of these accounts are being reported incorrect by date, spelling, name, age, status and so many other ways. Even valid accounts can be invalidated by an admin error because maybe the credit bureaus, creditors or the collection agencies are held to a strict federal and state law regarding the way they report your credit. So sometimes when you are challenging information that maybe you do not recall, this can be the simple trick that we need when it’s “worded properly.”

As a consumer, you have the upper hand because the burden of proof is on them to “validate/verify”  or remove inaccurate, obsolete, erroneous, unfair or unduly information on your credit report. 

The good news is for you is that the credit bureaus and creditors are not notorious for keeping good records and following the letter of the law.

Something as simple as one alphanumeric character that is missing, you may have grounds for removal of that item because it was reported inaccurately. At that point, they don't have an obligation to fix it because it's too late, the violation of the law has already occurred. So typically they will remove it due to the admin error in the reporting.

You see here in the Credit Game University it’s about leverage, and knowing exactly what you’re doing at all times. Sending out simple letters to the credit bureau‘s (old school process) indicating it’s not yours on every letter is not the way to challenge properly to get great results. You must really know the law and your legal rights.

When a collector or creditor or even the credit bureau is doing something they should not be doing, we need to capitalize on that for leverage to have removals.

You see the credit bureaus must obey many laws including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and according to them, an item on your report “MUST” be removed if it’s any of the following:

1. INACCURATE (Example: The item is not yours)

2. INCOMPLETE (Example: One of the fields are blank or a letter is missing)

3. UNVERIFIABLE (Example: you may want proof that the debt collector has the right to collect from you. Or how about a late payment, does the creditor have proof in the form of a cancelled check??? Most likely not.)

What I’m going to teach you in these chapters specifically in the Credit Repair section is how to look real close at your credit report to reveal some of the issues that may be hidden in plain sight. But again it’s about knowing what to look for versus finding yourself standing over your credit report clueless.

Here’s a little something that you might want to think about, considering that the credit bureaus are in essence a DATA broker. More data is worth more money to them, so could it be true that if something is incorrect on your credit report that it may eventually scare you to purchasing a credit monitoring service or product? Absolutely because that’s more than 10% of their revenue.

Game Changer Tip:. You are dealing with very large and organized companies that are being held accountable to timelines and requirements that more often than not they just can’t meet. That being said more than likely on your credit report you have something that is unfair, inaccurate or incomplete that the credit bureaus just need a little nudge and you would be amazed how easy it is to get the negative information off your credit report. Knowing that they are held to timelines and requirements we have to be strategic in our correspondences so that we can gain control of our own destiny.

Guys, this is extremely easy. I'm gonna lay out the steps for you to take in order to make this as easy as humanly possible for you. Remember that your credit score impacts what you are allowed to buy, the interest rate and down payment on things that you finance. It’s time to get serious and really grab the bull by the horn and start taking your credit as an adult to the next level. Now let’s get serious and get right into it.

Game Changer Tip: I don’t care if your score is in the 300s, 400s, 500s, 600s or even the 700s, we are here to help you. I don’t care if it’s a bankruptcy, charge-off, collection, student loan, medical bill, late payment, it doesn’t matter all of these can be removed if there are errors in the reporting. We are going to help you find the information that you need so that you can look deeper and understand what you’re looking at to have the upper hand on your credit and your life.

VERY IMPORTANT RULES AND NOTES:

• 1. Make sure you follow the step-by-step process and do not skip ahead, you could miss something very important. 

• 2. Organization is key, start by getting file folders and keeping reminders in your cell phone or a calendar for important dates and cut off dates as these will be important tools and are essential for your success. (I cannot stress this enough.)

•  3. Remember what we talked about above, they (Credit Bureaus) are relatively unorganized because of how large they are. So the point is we are not only going to point out the law but we are going to point out exactly how they broke the law. At that point they can either remove the derogatory credit they are reporting, or pay for damages or maybe even both.

• 4. The methods that we are are sharing are extremely effective, and could be potentially used for “BAD INTENTIONS“ By someone who is unethical or has a moral compass facing south. So please before we move in to the next section please promise that you will be ethical and you approach this education platform with the utmost level of integrity. Lastly after your credit is fixed also promise that you will not go back to doing the same old habits again. Meaning after fixing your credit this does not mean to defraud banks or financial institutions by making false claims or applying for credit cards that you know you cannot physically pay back because you now know how to remove the inaccurate, incorrect information. We are putting this information out for education purposes only, NOT for the purpose of being fraudulent so please only proceed if you agree with that above. It's also important to note that you will not be able to depend on Credit Repair your entire life. You will have to learn steps to ensure your credit does not get damaged again. Creditors and credit bureaus are getting smarter and learning from their mistakes so you need to make sure you are learning the proper steps and hacks to maintain your credit. You only have to learn it once then put these strategies into play for the rest of your life.

*P.S. We are super excited to have you on board and are looking forward to not only helping you fix your credit but also maintaining it and then eventually multiplying this knowledge to help others succeed in their credit journey as well.

The Credit University will help you on your credit journey with the following:

1. How to get credit (learn how to fix negative information on your credit report)

2. How to maintain it (once your credit is fixed how to maintain so you don’t go backwards again)

3. How to multiply it (how to share with others exactly what you did so that everyone can EAT;)

Lets do this!

THE CREDIT SYSTEM

Let’s talk about what credit repair companies do in the first place. Credit Repair companies send letters on your behalf because you don’t want to be bothered with it! Or is it more along the lines of you don’t and know exactly what you’re doing so you hire companies to do the work for you?

Credit repair in itself is extremely easy and simple, just most people don’t have the knowledge or even know how to start to start the process. According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) it gives you the right to dispute any item on your credit report. If that item can’t be verified it must be removed. This law is the basis of all credit repair.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is the US federal government legislation enacted to promote the accuracy, fairness and privacy of consumer information contained in the files of consumer reporting agencies. It was intended to protect consumers from the willful and or negligent inclusion of inaccurate information in their credit reports.

You have the right to know what is in your file, you may request and obtain all the information about you in the files of a consumer reporting agency( “your file disclosure”) you will be required to provide proper identification, which may include your Social Security number. In many cases this is a free service.

You are entitled to a free file disclosure if:

1. You are a victim of identity theft and place a fraud alert in your file.

2. Your file contains inaccurate information as a result of fraud.

3. You are unemployed but expect to apply for employment within 60 days. 

In addition, all consumers are entitled to one free disclosure every 12 months upon request from each nationwide credit bureau and from nationwide specialty consumer reporting agencies. See www.ftc.gov/credit for additional information.

Guys you have the right to ask for your credit score. Credit scores are numeric summaries of your creditworthiness based on information from the credit bureaus. You also have the right to dispute incomplete or inaccurate information, if you identify information in your credit file that is incomplete or inaccurate and report it to the consumer reporting agency, the agency must investigate (unless your dispute is deemed frivolous). See www.ftc.gov/credit for an explanation of dispute procedures.

Consumer reporting agencies must correct or delete inaccurate, incomplete or unverifiable information, this process usually is within 30 days. However a consumer reporting agency may continue to report information it has verified as accurate.

Consumer reporting agencies may not report outdated negative information. In most cases, consumer reporting agencies may not report negative information that is more than seven years old or bankruptcies that are more than 10 years old.

Credit repair companies are going to do the same thing that you can do yourself. That being said despite popular belief, creditors may actually work with you to negotiate the removal of negative items from your credit report. In some cases you might not even have to pay the creditors the full amount owed. This is the most important tip, be positive, and patient and get in contact with your creditors to try to work out a deal. If you ignored or maybe not even ever received a creditors bill or phone call or if you failed to keep up with payments, your bill can be turned over to a collection agency. What this means is that the collection agencies are hired by the creditor and their only goal is to collect the money from you or as much as they can. They will try to do this very fast as well. For their efforts they’re paid a percentage of what they collect from you.

Collection agencies can be very aggressive when it comes to collecting money, remember that you have the right to ask a collection agency to stop contacting you if you feel harassed. While you’re working out your finances you certainly don’t want people breathing down your neck.

So check this out, the credit bureaus are often more concerned with probability than accuracy. This is why credit repair companies have become so popular because the typical consumer doesn’t have the education necessary to rectify the situation themselves in most cases. The majority of consumer credit report contains something inaccurate, inconsistent or has some type of outdated information.

When a consumer sends out a dispute letter it’s first sent through e-OSCAR automated re-investigation system to filter out any duplicate or frivolous request this future then electronically diluted into one of 26 two digit codes. That code is been shared with the credit bureau to investigate. The credit bureaus want to have a large quantity of data that can be sold to other organizations so The accuracy of this data isn’t as important to them as the quantity.

OK so here’s the deal and this is a major problem with the system, the way that disputes are “investigated”  when a consumer writes a dispute letter because information on the credit report is inaccurate, the bureau will investigate by consulting the same inaccurate information they have on file, thus “verifying“ that the information is correct. This type of reasoning can be very difficult for consumers to understand because false information is verified as correct based on the same false information they are looking at.

Tips: OK here we go, so they get around this ineffective system consumers need to be empowered with the information necessary to submit a successful dispute. So here’s what I’m gonna tell you guys, the best way to do this is send back up documentation for every dispute. This will force the bureaus to investigate your dispute beyond comparing it with their existing inaccurate information.

Another thing, it is crucial to hold the bureaus responsible by continually disputing requests on a strict timeline. The FCRA gives bureaus 30 days to investigate each request. Consumer should follow up every 40 days to ensure that their disputes are not being ignored. This is why it may be necessary to submit the same dispute multiple times. Finally if all fails you can pursue a lawsuit against the bureau for violating the FCRA by failing to properly investigate inaccurate information.