Have you heard of the “Magic 609 Dispute Letter” guaranteed to erase any negative remarks on your credit score?
Did you know if you wear red socks when you send in your letter, you have a better chance of getting an item removed?
Oh! And don’t forget to write your letters in all different fonts, so the credit bureaus don’t throw them out!
And one last thing… NONE OF THAT IS TRUE!
It’s all a bunch of MIS-information and credit repair old wives' tales!
In this blog and in my recent podcast episode, I’m exposing the truth about what works and what doesn’t so you’ll never be duped by another troll on Facebook, or an “overnight credit repair guru” ever again!
How many of these crazy old wives’ tales have you heard?
- You’ll get way better results by tricking the credit bureaus. Sure. Go ahead and write dispute letters in different fonts and different colors, or use different colored paper, or use a word spinner to confuse the bureaus. This way their automated system won't flag it. WRONG! Nothing could be further from the truth. Every dispute letter is handled the same way no matter how it looks or what it says. They are looking to identify the error and the reason why it’s wrong. Period.
- The “Magic 609 Letter”. People sell this totally useless letter that claims, by asking for proof the bureaus can't provide, it’s an automatic deletion. This is a scam. The actual section of the FCRA that relates to your rights, it’s section 611. However, even then, the myth they are selling is totally bogus! Don’t fall for this nonsense.
- Have you seen what happens when you do a quick search for fast credit repair? If you do, you'll find thousands of results from companies claiming they can increase your score to 800+ overnight and remove “anything and everything” from your credit. Is this true? NOT A CHANCE! It takes nearly three decades of good credit history and habits, to get above an 800 score! Don’t trust anybody that says otherwise!
It’s important to remember, just because someone wrote it on the internet doesn’t make it true. Credit repair isn’t about tricking the system. It’s not an overnight miracle cure and there is no magic dispute letter.
How To Effectively Dispute An Item On Your Credit Report
Disputing is all about using the law in your favor and stating facts. It’s about being persistent and never taking no for an answer. It’s about educating your clients and empowering them to live within their means and to be responsible. It’s about doing a service for your community.
It’s true that you can often remove even accurate negative items, but not with gimmicks. It takes hard work.
The fact is, our most successful Credit Heroes - those who quit their 9-5, make a six-figure income, and even our Millionaires Club Members, they don’t pay any attention to old wives’ tales! Because they know they don’t work.
Why Is This Important?
- The pros all understand that half the job is educating clients to pay down balances. Generally speaking, the more available credit you have, the better your score will be. So keep credit card utilization as low as possible (as in never spend more than 30% of the available credit line, and advise your clients to stop applying for ANYTHING unless they have no credit and need to establish some).
- In the grand scheme of things, the only credit bureaus that matter are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Any service that offers tri-merge reports, scores, and credit monitoring is a reseller of data from those same credit bureaus. The only reason credit scores may vary from one credit monitoring service to the next is that there are different scoring models, that have different algorithms and calculate scores differently.
- Also, scores shouldn’t really matter to you! They’re irrelevant. What truly matters is that you correct the errors. That’s what you’re being paid to do. You do this by educating the client to change their habits so they don’t end up in trouble again. If you do those two things, the scores will automatically increase.
What You Need To Know About Increasing Your Credit Score
What do you need to know to increase your own score and coach your clients to increase theirs?
Here are four tried and true methods you can implement immediately to see fast and real results.
- Facts, Facts, And Only The Facts
If you can identify the error and have any supporting documentation, just state the facts, and point to the evidence.
- Don’t Over Dispute
Don’t get carried away and dispute too many items at once. The experts all agree that disputing less than 5 items per bureau, per cycle will get you consistent, positive results. In fact, the biggest credit repair company in the world only disputes 2 or 3 items per month. If you don't follow this rule, there is a very high probability your disputes get flagged as frivolous which can really slow down progress.
- Be Prepared To Be Ignored
Be prepared for the credit bureaus and furnishers to ignore you, to give you cringe-worthy responses, and to do everything within their power to convince you they are not going to budge. This is expected.
- It’s A Fight To the Finish
Credit repair is a fight that you can’t back down from. You’ve got to be persistent and apply constant pressure. Your clients are counting on you! If your disputes come back as “verified,” don’t give up.
You can send a warning, you can request the method of verification, you can file a complaint or you can go directly to the furnisher and demand validation.
If that doesn't work, you can always start over at the beginning. You’ll truly be amazed, at how a little bit of persistence and pressure can move mountains.
In the end, the truth is, the color of the ink, the style of the font, a magic letter, or the color of your socks and what you had for breakfast have ZERO bearing on your success. It’s your knowledge and your determination that will really move the needle.
Just like it did for one of our Millionaires Club Members, Samuel Naquin, from Austin, Texas. He has a passion for educating people in his community, beyond just deletions and corrections.
He serves over 1,000 clients every month by helping them understand if they’ve gotten rejected on a home loan - it’s not a “NO”, it’s just a “not right now”.
He knows he can truly change lives by educating people on what they can do differently to help increase their score and to really make their dreams come true.
No gimmicks. No tricks. Just results for his clients. We love Samuel and he’s doing an incredible job out there in Texas!
So if you’re just starting your business and are finding yourself getting trapped with crazy ideas of how to “trick the system” and you want to know how to do battle with the credit bureaus and debt collectors and actually WIN - we’ve got a program that will not only certify you in disputing, but it will also give you hyper-focused attention as we hold you by the hand while you launch and scale your credit repair business. It’s called the Credit Hero Challenge and I want to invite you to join today!
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