December 29,2008
-
Make 2009 Your Year of Stout Credit, Pt.2 –
– "The Color of Plastic."For those who could get into avoiding much unnecessary pain by lack of credit card liquidity, let's take a look at what we can do. It's worth mentioning at first that the ‘scamming industry' has already taken aggressive steps nationwide with hoaxes to help people with fixing reports. The FTC has already hosted a 50% rise in consumer complaints over this just this year. CompuCredit and their subsidiary, Jefferson Capital Systems, LLC are some of the worst violators. Between them, they have already been slapped by the FTC for $114 Million worth of fees that have to be refunded on credit cards and were fined a $2.4 million penalty. Even worse, however, are the scams circulating around Nevada and now proliferating across the land. These scammers ‘phish' for vital credit card information for purposes of fraud by ‘fronting' as legitimate ‘credit doctors'.
Beware of ‘credit scrubbers' also who promise to erase legitimate negative items. The bureaus are much too savvy to be scammed by these people no matter what they claim. Any company that wants payment up front is probably a scam (in fact, it's illegal for such companies to demand money before a service is performed.) Automatic credit card deduction pay-as-you-go's are dangerous, as well. Consumers have been bilked out of thousands of dollars by empty promises over time. Anytime you're promised the impossible (ingenious idea), hold on to your wallet and credit cards. Demand straight-forward techniques that are sure to require that company to invest serious time. There are no quick-fixes. Only pay for the tangible (i.e.. time spent and paperwork responses from legitimate sources). Don't be strung along without seeing tangible results. Remember, accurate negative items can stay with you for 7 years (10 years for Chapter 7). If you suspect foul-play, be sure and call the FTC at (877) FTC-HELP.
However, genuine fixes are possible and the beauty is, they can be performed by you. The rewards go far beyond just applying for new credit cards. They affect your residential, job and other types of loan applications on a regular basis