The Credit People Reviews

• I felt I needed professional help with only one derogatory comment on my credit report. It was a big one though. Hyundai Motor Finance (HMF) reported me as being late with a final payment and that my account was written off. The scenario is a little more complicated than that with payment due dates conflicting between a hard copy invoice and an on-line statement. They also reported my account as written off which it was not. Those comments dropped my score by about 50 points. My initial dispute using Experian’s on-line dispute process yielded an immediate, no. Their response was a one line statement from HMF that “they have investigated the information I have described as inaccurate and the disputed information is accurate as reported.”

• As I was unemployed three years ago, I did have some late charges reported back then but I told the representative that I didn’t care about those. They insisted I should care as they could be affecting the way lenders view my credit even though before this problem with HMF, my score was over 750 and rising every month. I was told that lenders do look at old late charges regardless of the score. I said if they wanted to work on those, they could but they were legitimate late charges and even if they could get them removed, I know that as late charges get older, they have limited impact on my current score.

Noteworthy is that before this problem I was able to get one of those low interest auto loans offered by Toyota to their most credit worthy customers. So years old late charges didn’t bother them. I told that to the phone representative who sarcastically said congratulations.

• Throughout the two months I have been with The Credit People, I get very little feedback from them. As a matter of fact, their audit trail” shows:

 Was it the Hyundai late charge and what are they saying to prove my case?

• It didn’t appear that The Credit People were taking my case seriously. At least, that’s the way it appears to me. Without feedback, other than the fact that my case was submitted (again) on 9/3. I began working on I on my own and stopped sending The Credit People any more documents. Here’s what I did:

o I resubmitted my disputes to the three credit bureaus with far more documentation this time and citing The Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. §1681i) which entitles me to a more comprehensive explanation of their decision as they did not indicate what they considered to be inaccurate the first time which yielded the one line statement “they have investigated the information I have described as inaccurate and the disputed information is accurate as reported.”

o This dispute was submitted on August 24th and as of September 7th, I still have not received a response, Experian does send e-mails that they are working on it. Transunion and Equifax have not. Optimistically, my first lame and undocumented dispute, which was only to Experian, yielded a negative response in just a few days, and now it’s been more than two weeks (I know they have 30 days) I am assuming with my stronger and better documented dispute that they are taking it more seriously and they are working on it.

o I contacted an attorney that specializes in credit matters. He offers a free consultation. He was very impressed with my case and said I could probably sue for monetary damages but it will cost me at least $5,000 to take the case. I told him I just want to get the negative posting removed and I will continue working on it on my own.

My concern is that The Credit People is treating my case as it would a “garden variety” late charge using whatever “cook book” justifications they use for customer’s being late with a credit card bill. Although, with virtually no transparency, I don’t know how The Credit People is fighting my case as my case is different. I was hoping that professionals could repair what I and the attorney I consulted with, consider to be illegal. I have not yet cancelled my agreement with Credit People in the off-shot chance they are doing something. My next payment comes out on September 11th and I am vacillating whether I should go for one more payment.

They do respond to emails fairly quickly but no other work gets done for the money. They only respond to say they will send in more disputes aggressively. Seems as though if this company has been doing credit repair for a long time they would be more skilled/professional at removing items in a shorter period of time or just removing items at all. I am way beyond the 90 days I was originally told to see results. I am completely dissatisfied with the service and do not recommend them to anyone at all. Please do not waste your money on this company you would be better sending in your own letters for more results. My credit score is still the same as when I started.