Part I - Assessing Your Credit and Debt Validation Creditors

Fixing Your Credit for Piece of Mind

Everything is going well, you’re eating well and exercising. You now have some clarity with focus and your budget is looking tight or at least you have a better financial outlook. You want to take it to the next level and get your low credit score up so you can start reestablishing credit. Maybe you want to buy a new car, a home, get a personal loan for a big project, or maybe just have a credit card around for home repairs and emergencies. The point is that having a decent credit score helps with the approval process when it comes to financing. Not to mention having good credit can offer you more financial freedom and help reduce your stress level. Buying a home can seriously reduce your monthly expenses because rent is more than likely twice as much as a mortgage. There's also the possibility of refinancing a previous loan and saving even more money each month. Maybe you already own a home, what if your furnace blows up, how are you going to cough up the money to fix it? You may be able to find a loan when your score is between 400 to 500 but your interest rates will be through the roof. Getting a credit card is almost unrealistic at that level as well. Whatever your plans are, increasing your credit score and overall credit portfolio is a good way to start rebuilding your life. I am not claiming in any way to be a financial expert. In fact, there are many legitimate credit repair companies out there who can help you. There are also a lot of financial advisors who can help you manage all of your money and assets. They have experience and knowledge beyond what I can provide, however, even if you plan later on to use one of these companies if you could somehow have made a dent in your score on your own, it may save you hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars only having the professionals remove the most stubborn accounts. 

Let’s be honest here, everybody can go through setbacks and time is not really on your side. Seven years of being penalized for going through a tough time is quite frankly crap. This system is flawed and even with the Fair Credit Act, it’s still a bunch of baloney that innocent people's lives are at the mercy of these creditors and collection agencies with unethical policies and procedures. Most people don’t intend to not pay back their debts, but life has its ups and downs. Sometimes during those downs, you end up in survival mode and you can only afford the necessary things. Once most people recover from these setbacks it’s too late and you’re doomed to poor interest rates, lousy credit card options, and finding an apartment or buying a home or car is now only a dream. This is where good honest people have to stand up and fight for their rights to fairness and second chances. This article will reveal the steps I took to clean up and tremendously improve my own credit after a setback.

The first step in my approach is to figure out what your credit score actually is at this point. The best way to find your actual score is myfico.com itself, they are going to provide you with your real score. If you don’t want to pony up the money to obtain your score right now, you can get something in the ballpark using free services. These options include signing up with Experian’s free account to get your FICO 8 score and/or Credit Karma which uses the advantage 3.0 formula. Although these are not the only options, they are very common. The closest of these options to your real score will be the FICO 8 but all of the models can give a good indication of the status of your credit score. The next step is securing your actual credit report. Again you can use Credit Karma to see your Equifax and Transunion reports and Experian’s free account allows you access to their version. In the beginning, the best option overall may just be downloading the reports from all three bureaus using annualcreditreport.com. Since you can only do this annually the other options can be used to monitor your reports after the initial scrubbing, but starting off with the real on paper results will be the best and clearest look at your records. 

Now, before I get too deep into the steps to take to get things removed. Let’s take a step back and discuss some of the important things you should have accomplished first and other things you should do to protect and preserve your ratings. One of the first things to keep in mind is that you may get items removed from your report. However, if you are still not caught up and you’re making late payments or planning on adding more defaulted accounts. None of this is going to help. You need to have your finances in order and get yourself on track to make all of your payments on time. The whole point of doing this is to erase previous mistakes and start with a clean slate so that you can keep your record clean moving forward. If you have had any recently defaulted items, you should have received a 30-day notice to respond to the creditor or the company that holds your defaulted account. Sometimes these also arrive from debt management or collection companies. Do not ignore these letters. I will get into exactly what to write back in response to these letters, but it is important from here on out these notices do not get ignored. This is your first line of defense to prevent them from taking further action and creating more damage to your credit report.

If, you have accounts in collection. You are probably receiving collection calls that are annoying and stressful and you want these to stop. Do not talk to these people any longer on the phone. Do not agree to any terms with them. Do not even acknowledge the debt in question belongs to you. Tell them to notify you by mail if they believe the debt is yours and you will review their information and respond back through the mail. At this point, there is no reason to ever consider paying back this debt unless it is something you can afford and are willing to settle on. Then you should request in writing a pay for delete. First, have them send you a letter for you to review the validity of the debt. After which, if you accept this debt to be valid and wish to pay it off. Send them a letter asking for their settlement offer and then you counter the offer by communicating with them through mail only. Do not negotiate over the phone, this is very important. You should counter offer anywhere between 40% to 50% of the actual debt or their settlement offer. Definitely negotiate, at this point what do you have to lose? Especially if you’re dealing with a collection agency. They probably bought your debt for pennies on the dollar. Another interesting thing is that these collection agencies do not always have all of the debt information so when you ask them to validate the debt, they won’t be able to do it. If you intend to go through with the paid deletion, make sure they pay for the delete offer and the agreement is signed and sent to you via mail before making any payments to the company or collection agency. Basically, you want proof that they agreed to the deletion, or after payment, they may not follow through with their end of the bargain. This happened to me with one company and I learned a valuable lesson, collection agencies lie. These agencies are shady and will say anything to get you to cough up some money but they do not give a shit about you. In my honest opinion. Most of them won’t go for a pay for delete anyhow and it’s just too much crap to go through at this point, what’s done is done. Your goal now is to accept the fact that you went through a rough period, it may or may not be your fault. You’re trying now to get on the straight and narrow, correcting your mistakes and moving on with your life. Trying to negotiate with these people will most likely not get those bad marks removed from your report so move on to plan B. 

Ok, great! You chose plan B, we want to first notify the company about any letters giving you 30 days to respond whether you received one or not. If you have the letter, good we want them to validate their claim that you own this debt. If you did not get the letter and just happened to come across this blemish on your report. Call them out and ask why you never received a 30-day notice and that you demand they validate this debt. Along with these letters will be a cease and desist order,  a list of items you want to be validated, and a list of items you want them to send you as proof. I have identified each page that needs to be edited accordingly with a page number. You do not need to copy and paste the page number, just the content under it. Then edit the content with the correct information and any other way you see fit. Once you have your letters completed. Reread these letters and look for any mistakes or things you may have missed, in fact, have someone else review them as well. Sometimes that second set of eyes can find mistakes or items you overlooked. Now it's time to package them up and send them off. To send these letters, I utilized two different methods with USPS certified mailing here at certifiedmaillabels.com. The first method was registering for the service, and purchasing the certified mail envelopes from the site. Once you have the envelopes you can create labels to put in your envelopes along with your validation request documents. For the debt validation, there will be approximately 5 pages including the label. Once you send these off through this system you can track them and wait for notification. Then allow them 30 days to respond before further action. The second method is on the same USPS certified mail site giving you the option to upload your documents to them and as a service, they will prepare the envelope for you and deliver it to its destination. This is at a slightly higher cost but can be more convenient. Regardless of what method you use. Keep copies of everything including the mailing label for your records. You will need these items as proof for the next part in this series. 

Below are the sample pages which can be copied and edited. Do not include the page numbers as they are just added for separation and your convenience. In the next section Part II. I will discuss sending your letters to the 3 bureaus which I usually do at the same time as the validation letters go out. Remember these are sample letters and can be edited to fit your needs so please read each one carefully to make sure it meets your specific requirements and edit accordingly. 

Page 1 

[Date]

[Your Name]

[Your Street Address]

[Your City, State, and Zip]

[Company Name]

[Company Address]

[Company City, State, and Zip]

RE: SSN# [Your SSN Number] |  [Company Name] Account Number: [The account number on the letter or credit report] | Amount: [Dollar amount]

To Whom It May Concern,

Choose either line A or B depending on your circumstance and delete the other along with this text

(a) This letter is being sent to you in response to a listing on my Credit Report. I never received from you a 30-day notice for the above-referenced account as required by law.

(b) This letter is being sent to you in response to the letter I have received regarding the above-referenced account.

Please be advised this is not a refusal to pay, but a notice sent by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 USC 1692g stating your claim is disputed and validation is requested.

This is not a request for “verification” or proof of my mailing address, but a request for validation made by the above-named Title and Section. I respectfully request your office to provide me with competent evidence that I have any legal obligation to pay you.

I will also inform you that if your offices have reported any unsubstantiated negative information to any of the 3 major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion) this action may constitute fraud under both Federal and State Laws. Due to this fact, if any negative mark is found on any of my credit reports by your company or the company that you represent, I will not hesitate in bringing legal action against you and your client for the following: Violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and Defamation of Character.

If your offices can provide the proper documentation as requested in the following Declaration, I will require no less than 30 days to review this information, during which time all collection activity must cease and desist. Also, during this validation period, if any action is taken which could be considered detrimental to any of my credit reports, I will consult with my legal counsel for the suit. This includes any listing of any information to a credit reporting repository that could be inaccurate or invalidated. 

If your office fails to respond to this validation request within 30 days from the date of your receipt, all references to this account must be deleted and completely removed from my credit file and a copy of such deletion request shall be sent to me immediately.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

Page 2

CEASE AND DESIST

I would also like to request, in writing, that no further telephone contact be made by your offices to my home or to my place of employment. If your offices continue to attempt telephone communication with me, it will be considered harassment and I will have no choice but to file suit. All future communications with me MUST be done in writing and sent to the address noted in this letter.

It would be advisable that you and your client assure that your records are in order before I am forced to take legal action.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

Page 3

CREDITOR/DEBT COLLECTOR DECLARATION

Please provide all of the following information and submit the appropriate forms and paperwork within 30 days from the date of your receipt of this validation request.

Name and Address of Alleged Creditor:

Name on File of Alleged Debtor:

Alleged Account #:

Address on File for Alleged Debtor:

Amount of Alleged Debt:

Date (that this alleged debt became payable):

Date of Original Charge or Delinquency:

Was this Debt assigned to a Debt Collector or Purchased?

Amount Paid if Debt was Purchased:

Commission for debt collector if collection efforts are successful:

Page 4

REQUESTED INFORMATION

Please attach copies of the following:

• Agreement with your client that grants ___________________ (Collection Agency Name) the authority to collect this alleged debt.

• Signed agreement Debtor has made with Debt Collector, or another verifiable proof Debtor has a contractual obligation to pay Debt Collector.

• Any agreement that bears the signature of Debtor, wherein agreed to pay Creditor.

• All statements while this account was open.

Have any insurance claims been made by any creditor regarding this account? 

☐ YES - ☐ NO

Have any judgments been obtained by any creditor regarding this account? 

☐ YES - ☐ NO

Please provide the name and address of the bonding agent for ___________________ (Name of Debt Collector), in case legal action becomes necessary:

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

Authorized Signature of Creditor: ______________________________

Date: _________________________

You must return this completed form along with copies of all requested information, assignments, or other transfer agreements, which would establish your right to collect this alleged debt within 30 days from the date of your receipt of this letter.

Your claim cannot and WILL NOT be considered if any portion of this form is not completed and returned with copies of all requested documents. This is a request for validation made under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. 

Please allow 30 days for processing after I receive this information.