Solutions To Credit Repair
No one erases bad information unless it’s inaccurate. Only wrong information can be changed. Accurate information remains on your credit report for seven years from the time its initially reported (ten years for bankruptcy). Even information about bills you fell behind on but now are paid will remain on your report for these time periods.
Credit repair services cannot ask for payment until they’ve kept their end of a promise. Federal law also states that credit repair services give you a explanation of your legal rights, a detailed contract written out, and at least 3 days to cancel (this applies to for-profit services, not nonprofit, banks or credit unions, or creditors themselves).
Be cautious about emails for credit services. Many unsolicited emails are fraudulent.
You can fix mistakes on your report yourself. If you were recently denied credit because of information in your credit report, you have the right to gain a free copy. Otherwise, there is a small fee, unless your specific state provides a free one each year. This is very common. It does not cost anything to question or dispute something appearing in your credit report. Follow the instructions provided by the individual bureaus. The major credit bureaus are as follows: Equifax, 800-685-1111, www.equifax.com; Experian, 800-682-7654, www.experian.com; and TransUnion, 800-916-8800, www.transunion.com. Contact all of them, as the information each has may vary slightly.
You can add your own explanation to your credit report. If there’s a good enough reason why you were not able to pay bills on time (laid off, sudden illness, etc.) or you refused to pay for something because of a legitimate dispute, give the credit bureau a short statement to include in your file.
Know that you cannot create another credit file. Fraud companies often offer to provide consumers with different tax identification or social security numbers in order to create a new credit file. This practice, called file segregation, is illegal, and it doesn’t work.
If you have credit problems, get counseling. Your local Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS) can provide advice about how to build a good credit record. The CCCS may also be able to make payment plans with your creditors if you’ve fallen behind. These services are offered for free or at a very low cost.
How My Credit Dropped
A few years ago, I went through some tough times in my life. I lost my job after the company I worked for went under. The bills piled up and I was unable to make my monthly payments. Eventually, all of my credit card accounts were charged-off and sent to collection agencies.
My life became a nightmare of collection calls and endless harassment from debt collectors. Eventually, I filed bankruptcy and was relieved of my debt, but the damage to my credit was already done.
For years I was denied the chance to own a home, get a new car, or even take a vacation ” all because my credit scores were too low for the banks to even consider giving me a loan. Getting turned down for loans over and over was frustrating and embarrassing.
A neighbor told me about SBFC Law Group and was ranting and raving about how wonderful they were. I was skeptical at first, but after seeing what they did for him, I knew I had to give them a try. So, I got online and looked them up.
SBFC Law Group Changed My Life
I called the 1-800 number at their website and talked to a credit repair expert who was very nice and understanding of my circumstances. He was also very smart. So, I went ahead and signed up. Boy, am I proud of myself for doing so! After about 3 weeks, I started receiving letters from the credit bureaus stating that negative accounts had been removed from my credit reports!
SBFC Law Group did such a great job with my credit score, I would recommend them to anyone who is in the same circumstance. It is so worth it. After the first little while I was able to get a car loan. A year later, and I can now get a home loan. Imagine that.
Colorado Home Mortgage Hints On Getting A Mortgage, Paperwork.
Going to get a mortgage? You are going to be filling out paper work, be prepared. Some forms you will sign. Good faith estimate, credit report disclosure, and the truth in lending. Other paper work you will need to bring to your mortgage broker. Just have it available for them.
These documents allow the mortgage broker to gather sensitive information such as employment history, credit reports, bank statements, income documents, and more.
Before any of the loan process can begin the loan officer will need to gather all this information to give to the person that will be underwriting your loan. the person underwriting the loan can not start the process with out this paper work.
The next step is getting an underwriter to approve your loan. The underwriter is just approving the information that was submitted on the application. The next step is proving the information on the application. This is done by a digging into all the information about you and the property.
Some of the items that will need to be verified depending on what are you live in is a termite report, a flood report, a appraisal. rent report, title. The underwriter will have a long list of information that will need to be verified.
Underwriter List
1) Credit report
2) Appraisal value of the property
3)Title report for other liens
There are other documents that will be used in connection with your home loan application. The first category includes documents that you will fill out. These will be provided by the lender.
The application will need to be signed and filled out by you. This will have information about you and all so any person that might be included on the loan. Their will all so be government required documents that will need to be signed in order for you to get a loan.
you last 2 w-2
Latest 2 pay stubs
Insurance agent name and number
Saving statement
having all this information and being prepared will help make you loan a breeze.
Hidden Fees You Must Know About Before Getting a Merchant Account
There are a handful of fees that usually aren’t explained to you when you first sign up for a merchant account. This isn’t always the fault of the salesperson or account specialist you work with because you don’t know what questions to ask and they don’t always volunteer these fees assuming you’ll ask when you see the pricelist on the contract. With each application that you’ll sign as a merchant, all of the fees should be listed and sometimes it’s up to you to make sure you question what they are. Here are a few of those fees that you may not know about that should be explained.
The monthly minimum is a fee based on the discount rate. To summarize this fee the way most merchant providers assess this is that you’ll either pay the monthly minimum or the discount rate, whichever is higher. So, if you have discount rate fees in excess of $25 per month (which most merchants will if they are processing), then this fee will basically be non-existent. But, if you are a seasonal merchant who only processes during the a certain time of the year, you will want to know that this fee will be assessed even on months when you aren’t processing.
Many merchant providers will waive this fee, especially if you are a seasonal merchant. Work with your provider to verify that this fee can be waived and negotiate on this point if you need to. However, when you do get this fee waived, it may come instead with higher fees otherwise, just depends on what you can negotiate. I usually waive this fee as a provider when I charge “normal” pricing. However, in the event I drop the bottom out of all of my other prices, I do charge a monthly minimum.
When you submit transactions, they are usually batched together daily and submitted all at the same time. This “batch” of transactions is assessed a batch header fee which is usually around $.25 per batch. Consider this more of a daily processing fee. Every day you process transactions, you’re assessed a “batch header” fee. Usually your internet gateway account or your credit card terminal will batch these transactions automatically daily. If this isn’t the case, you can reprogram your terminal to do this or enable it within your gateway account.
There is a fee called AVS which stands for Address Verification System. This is the fee applied to internet transactions when the billing address is used in conjunction with the card number and expiration date. This is actually a valuable fee because for the $.05 AVS, your rate (assuming an internet account) is kept lower at the qualified or mid qualified rate instead of the higher non qualified rate. When I personally price accounts, the AVS is included in the per transaction fee so that it isn’t a “hidden” fee and I always explain this break-down so that merchants know to ask when comparing prices.
Some merchant providers will charge an annual fee. This fee is usually negotiable and if you see this, you need to assess whether or not this fee is worth paying depending on how much your other fees are reduced because of this specific provider. There are several pricing structures that can keep your transaction costs very low, but these types of accounts produce very little revenue for the merchant account companies. This is good for you, but obviously the company that sets up these accounts must generate some revenue or else they couldn’t stay in business either. In cases like this, the annual fee is a good way to satisfy both parties.
Not unlike other service businesses, merchant accounts also have a term. Usually 2 years, sometimes 3. Occasionally you can find a merchant account that is a “month-to-month”, but it isn’t as frequent as the 2 year term. Also, if you know for sure you will only be opening an account for a short term project, let your account representative know this beforehand so that he or she can arrange the contract to match this need. In the event that you have a 2 or 3 year term, there is usually an early termination fee that is assigned to this as well. This early termination fee is usually about $200 to $300. The main reason for this fee is that in the event you have been charging cards and then are no longer with your merchant provider (whether you’ve gone out of business or whether you have switched providers), the merchant account through which your transactions have been run is responsible for those transactions in the event of fraud, refunds or any other restitution of funds to a consumer. This early termination fee enables the merchant account processor to offset some of these costs in the event they can’t get financial recourse from the merchant.
Merchant accounts can be very expensive if you don’t know the right questions to ask. They can also simply provide a valuable service for a fair price. This author hopes you’ll find these pricing components useful when determining the overall cost of your merchant account and empower you to negotiate a fair price.
