23 May Ep. 41 Credit Repair with Ben Dodd

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In this episode, Realtor  Adam Kruse and Realtor Shannon St. Pierre talk to Ben Dodd, the president of Freedom Credit Solutions. Find out if you should close that Old Navy charge card and if autopay is lowering your credit score.

Email questions to PODCAST@HermannLondon.com

WHAT’S INSIDE

0:49 Adam introduces Ben Dodd, president of Freedom Credit Solutions, a credit remediation company
1:21 What does a credit remediation company do? What are trade lines
1:53 What does it mean to be an attorney backed firm?
2:38 What is credit and where did it begin?
3:20 What are the big 3 credit agencies? What do TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax do?
3:35 What is Fair Isaac and Company/FICO?
3:58 What does it mean to be a FICO certified professional?
4:25 Does credit now indicate positive and negative things about your finances?
5:00 How far can your credit drop if you have just one 30 day late payment on your credit card?
5:16 Are people born with zero credit or perfect credit?
5:46 How is a credit score established and how long does it take to establish credit?
6:30 Can you lose a credit score if you don’t use it?
6:50 Is it a good idea to open a credit card for your child?
7:20 Is it a good idea to close a credit card you are not using? What is debt to income ratio?
8:50 Is all credit different?
9:48 Are Old Navy and other retail store cards considered to be credit cards? What is poor utilization of credit?
10:30 What is a bank backed revolving card?
11:02 A credit card can also be considered a cash-management card
12:28 How you pay and when you pay is a factor
12:40 What is trended data? Is it better to pay your credit card before the due date?
14:00 Does seasonal spending affect your credit?
14:25 People who pay their credit card on or after their due date is called a revolver
15:25 Paying online doesn’t mean the money is immediately transferred to the credit card company. It can take 7-10 days for money to transfer to the credit card company.
16:36 Does autopay take the money out immediately or does it still take 7-10 days to show as paid?
18:00 What are some problems that can occur when you lose your debit card that you use for auto-pay?
18:35 Is there a algorithm for credit scores that can be explained simply?
19:50 A mortgage report is the most scrutinized credit report there is. Medical bills, student loans, public records, repos, foreclosures are all considered in a mortgage report.
23:00 Can paying a third party collector hurt your credit score?
23:30 Ben was personally contacted by a collector he didn’t owe so he experimented with the collector
26:03 Why are there billions of dollars of double paid medical bills?
26:50 Why is it important not to give a collector your personal information and why don’t they have it already?
27:50 What is the fair debt collection practices act?
28:27 Debt collectors don’t like to accept verbal disputes
30:00 What does it mean to violate HIPAA rights
30:35 Ben filed suit against a collector
31:00 What is the difference between a medical invoice and a collections statement?
33:00 By the time you get a collections notice it is already on your credit score
34:25 How far can a credit score drop because of medical payments?
35:05 What is the credit score range?
35:40 Why don’t the three big credit scores match up?
37:40 What is a credit repair plan of action?
38:46 What is a great credit score? Why is it so hard to get a score in the 800s?
39:24 What brand of credit card gets a higher credit score? How does Capital One keep credit scores low?
41:55 Are payday loans bad for a credit score?
43:07 Are rewards cards like Marriott Rewards and Southwest Airlines Rewards bad for a credit score?
44:10 What would happen if everyone paid off their credit cards on time?
45:25 How often should someone check their credit report? What is annualcreditreport.com?
47:00 Does checking your score too much hurt you?
47:20 What happened during the Equifax breach? What an indemnity agreement?
48:12 Is credit monitoring a racket? What is IdentityIQ.com?
50:23 Should a landlord be reporting when a tenant is late on their rent?
52:05 What is the maximum late rent fee allowable by law in Missouri?
53:10 What is piggybacking and how did people used to pay to get good credit?
53:48 Is a divorce bad for credit? How do divorce attorneys accidentally ruin their client’s credit score?
57:30 314-606-8221 Ben@FreedomCreditSolutions.US
58:06 Who lives under Ben’s roof?
58:14 When is Ben at his best
58:45 What is Ben’s favorite blog or podcast?
59:12 What is Ben’s guilty pleasure?
59:40 Who is Ben’s mentor and how has he thanked them?

TRANSCRIPTION

Adam: live from the rooftop of the Hermann London real estate group in beautiful downtown Maplewood it’s the st. Louis realtor podcast with your host Adam Kruse welcome (2) everybody to the st. Louis realtor podcast I’m your host Adam Kruse and of course as always I got my co-host with me Shannon st. Pierre

Shannon: Hello

Adam: and we’re very excited today we’re gonna talk about a quite a hot topic it’s all about credit and credit scores and we’ve got our very special guest here Ben Dodd welcome Ben

Ben: thanks for having me

Adam: and Ben you’re the president of Freedom Credit Solutions

Ben: that’s correct

Adam : awesome okay tell us can you tell us a little bit about your company

Ben: we are credit remediation company where an attorney backed firm that has been a business for approximately six years but I came from the mortgage industry I have about 19 years in that so I’m well-versed on mortgage lending as well as the credit that’s required to you know clients obtain mortgage finance

Adam: so you said it’s a credit remediation company what that means is you guys are all about helping people improve their credit

Ben: that’s correct yes I mean in all aspects of it so we look at credit as a whole where we don’t just you know help them repair the negative things we’re also trying to identify some places where they can help improve their credit themselves maybe they don’t have enough trade lines or maybe they’re utilizing some credit that doesn’t score quite as well or they’re utilizing credit the wrong way

Adam: I know we’re looking forward to getting into asking you what all that stuff means but so tell me what does it mean you said you’re an attorney backed firm I guess that means some there’s some credit companies out there that are just like some guy in their basement and then there’s some professional ones like yours

Ben: correct yeah you know a lot of people can write letters and they say they can do this on their own they can I’ve rarely seen somebody that’s able to do it you know successfully you’re kind of set up to fail on that but having an attorney is I think a must there’s some things that you know you can you can challenge companies to make them do the right things a report properly on your credit but they just won’t respond and do things right way and unfortunately you do have to take legal action sometimes and we have two full-time attorneys on staff

Adam: well let’s let’s kind of start from the beginning I guess just give us a quick overview what is credit you know for our listeners

Shannon: history

Ben: yeah

Shannon:  why we started it

Ben:  right so credit was brought about to really to report negatives it was brought about by the banking industry so that they could justify charging higher interest rates for loans and that would be anything mortgages or personal loans or loans for equipment back venomous lots of farming equipment

Adam :  so if someone had a negative like notch against them on their credit score than they would charge them more higher interest

Ben: yes sir

Shannon: but that still remains true

Ben:  it remains true the government tried to get involved on a couple of things and what (2) was established was you know what we have now is the three what we call big big three credit reporting agencies and that’s obviously TransUnion, Equifax and Experian these companies are they report data that’s given to them by creditors so that’s why they call it a credit report so you have your credit cards your student loans or mortgages your autos your and then now it’s more prevalent is now collections are even reporting on there and then that data is reported to you know you know companies that have scoring models the biggest one being Fair Isaac which is called FICO it’s commonly known as FICO and they have scoring models and I’m a FICO Certified Professional which means I’m certified and do continuing education on all the different FICO algorithms so what you’ll find is there’s different scores for everything you buy so when the (2) credit reporting agencies report the data at a FICO they’re the ones that report the scoring so it’s not the credit reporting agencies that report the score its FICO and then they take and put that score on their reports and that’s what people utilize to you know obviously compute what the interest rates gonna be for certain things that you buy and again mortgages autos historically

Shannon: So historically said that it was used to report anything negative but so now is it to report negative and positive and if you don’t have positive is it a negative if you don’t have the positive

Ben: exactly that’s also a negative if you don’t have enough credit or the right types of credit you’ll see you’ll see score deficiencies so but it is there’s evidence that it’s still there for reporting negatives because but say for instance you pay twelve months on time payments on pretty much anything in credit card but you get one 30-day late you don’t see your 12 time 12 months on time payment you know shooting your score up 67 70 points but you have one 30-day late payment you will see a significant drop in in your credit score 60 points possibly and that that lends the fact that it is there to report negatives

Adam : so does everyone start you’re born right do you start with a zero or do you start with perfect credit

Ben: that’s a great question you start with zero meaning you have to have in order to score you don’t start with zero credit really in but when be a established

Shannon: I got one back for a rental application I had a dash dash

Ben: right right so and again you have to establish credit to have credit for one so with no credit you do start a pretty much a zero as far as the score the score was something that was brought about within the past ten years really that’s been utilized so the score does the scoring algorithm does take six months of recent positive reporting credit in order to get a score so if you just established let’s say a Capital One credit card and you’ve only made three payments on it and that’s the only credit you have you still will not have a score not until it reaches six months

Adam : okay

Ben: will its score and then that score will be the data will be will come from how you’ve managed that credit card for the past six months

Adam : okay so when I was

Shannon: [???] minimum of 6 months [???]

Ben: yes mam

Shannon: okay every 3 months

Ben: and I maintain it so let’s say you stopped utilizing credit but you have old credit history but it’s you know a couple years old and you haven’t had any recent credit you haven’t paid on it you will start to lose your scores again because you have to constantly use it or you lose it type situation

Adam : okay so there’s so I’ve got so many questions here so a). you need to have sort of credit so I think when I was in high school my dad opened a credit card in my name but in like you know only for me to use to buy like gas for my car and stuff like that was that a good move is that what people should do for their kids now

Ben: that’s an excellent move 10% of your scoring model is based on the length of credit history so how long it’s been established so in your case you know you (2) establish credit quite some time going it’s definitely benefited you

Adam : okay

Ben: long as it’s utilized correctly the right way

Adam : that’s the other part of my question there you said something like you have to use it or it’s a negative against you too does that mean you have to use your credit in general or if I have a credit card right I have a credit card now that I don’t use but I’m like afraid to close it because I heard that it helps my debt to income ratio

Ben:  it what it helps is that it gives you available credit so you have two different the scoring model looks at two different things it looks at available credit and it computes it on individual accounts and then it also computes it on a balance sheet type situation where they add everything together and figure out what your what your utilized credit is versus your available credit so closing an open trade line with available credit it’s always there’s no benefit to doing that but there’s lots of benefit to keeping it open because it is that amount of available credit but what you’ll find is that if you don’t use the credit card the person who will shut it off is the creditor that extends the credit and again they’re doing that to try and spur you to use it so credit utilization is (2) what the credit cards obviously want they want you to use their card and run money through it that’s why let’s say all this you know bonus and cash back rewards this (2) that’s where they came about this (2) just again another reason for them to spur you to use their cards you know and so if you don’t use the credit you’ll find that they’ll shut that that extension of credit to you off

Shannon: so is that a negative if because I have had a few of those you know you I open like you know Old Navy Card way back in the day right and I didn’t so it’s actually inactive closed by the creditor

Ben: so I’d like to address those there’s two points that you brought up that you may not know so the first thing is that yes if all credit is different so again where he had a credit established a long time ago you know closing that card might hurt your scoring model a little bit more because after it falls off you lose that length of history because you quit using it and then that trade line will go away after a period of time and he loses that benchmark of 19 whatever or that card was open so that length of history drops off without

Shannon: so 19 year of  credit history now drops off now goes to the other [???]

Ben: and (2) you lose that available credit again off your balance sheet and on that trade line so but in a case of if you have established credit let’s say of six other credit cards and all those are really low utilization and you’ve you’ve kept those and maintain those well drop that little card like that dropping off is not probably going to make a dent at all

Shannon: like at all maybe card

Ben: yeah and so that’s my other point so Old Navy and any of the retail store charges are considered charges they’re not credit cards they’re not Bank revolving cards they’re considered retail store charges those can actually negatively impact your credit you know and people consumers have no idea so carrying a balance on those cards regardless let’s say of a ten thousand dollar limit on your Kohl’s card but you carry ten dollars on it it’s immediately gonna drop your score because it considers the FICO scoring model considers that poor utilization of credit because no retail store card is brought out below 24.9% Interest so why would you get your 20% off Bed Bath and Beyond a coupon go and buy something and then carry a balance on your credit card at 25%that’s poor utilization of credit so those actually hurts you the people if you’re gonna carry a balance you want to do that on a bank back to revolving card or what they call a credit card so charge accounts and credit cards are scored differently on the FICO scoring model

Shannon: that’s super interesting I actually had no idea so i am okay with getting so its totally okay to let those cards go because [???]

Adam: close are down it sounds like

Ben: well again the available credit part is good but you’re supposed to use those we call those we have a term we tell ya [???] we you know we tell our clients we call them something different we call them cash management cards we want you to use that and look at it as managing your cash for 30 days use it how it’s supposed to be established it’s (2) made to be used and paid off in full at the end of the 30-day period of time with no interest using it that way and keeping it open if you have a $500 limit you still have $500 of available credit so in that sense it helps your credit but and

Adam : you’re still talking about the Old Navy card

Ben:  I’m talking about in Easton

Adam :  if you have an old Navy card with a $500 limit with zero balance it’s not a bad thing

Ben: its not a bad thing… it’s not even using it and pinging it off prior to that 30 day mark is not a bad thing

Adam : okay

Ben: [???] because it’s just the FICO scoring model especially let’s see if you got a Bank of America card or Hannah it doesn’t understand why would you use a card and carry a balance at 25% interest when you’ve got other available options as well

Adam :  yeah and I don’t know why I would get an old Navy card and use that when I could just use my visa

Ben: exactly

Adam: right

Shannon: which why a lot of those have gone to the wayside even for me like those for opened long long time ago but I put everything on one for one it’s just easier convenience of paying at the end of the month and yeah I mean just putting everything in one card versus me anything

Ben: and you have to understand that the scoring models are again there they’re scored off of what the deed is that’s given to them by the (2) credit reporting agency so how you pay and when you pay is also a factor okay

Shannon: let’s talk about that because I’ve heard a myth or maybe it’s a fact or fiction if you sum my credit card say is due on the 25th if I pay on the 25th is that a negative do I need to pay I’ve heard that you need to pay 10 days sooner or something of the sort

Ben:  I’d like to think I might have spread that that information around so you’re exactly true on that trended data is now the new I guess buzzword and credit and it’s being utilized

Shannon: What’s that word

Ben: trended data

Shannon: trended

Ben: trended data

Shannon: okay

Ben: so they’re looking at your they’ve actually FICO on my last you know FICO you know continued education I was told about trended data by a FICO professional that came to speak to everyone and trended data they’ve started using a new algorithm and they’ve got several which are pretty mind-blowing but they they’ve looked at how people pay when they pay and how much they pay and from that they are able to compute within eight thousand dollars what people’s annual income is it sounds shocking but they’re 92% accurate on that and an eight thousand person study so that’s pretty wild I mean that’s

Adam : interesting

Shannon: so are they don’t actually already have that information

Ben: so now they have it but they’ve never utilized it in this sense so

Shannon: okay

Ben: they’re actually taking that and applying it to the credit scoring model so if you let’s say and they’ve broken it down into three different classes there is a seasonal spender which should be self-explanatory right

Shannon: yeah

Ben: the credit cards use more on on for going on vacation in the summer and then there’s a spike around the holidays okay so if (2) somebody uses their credit card for that but they start paying it off right away and they’re paying more than minimum balance they consider that a seasonal spending thing and it really doesn’t affect your credit as as much as you know just having high interest or high balances throughout the year let’s say you maintain lower balances throughout the year except for those two spikes that’s a seasonal spender then there’s what they call a revolver now revolver is somebody that actually utilize their credit and seemingly needs that revolving credit in order to maintain their lifestyle meaning they’re probably not making enough income to where if they had no credit cards they wouldn’t be able to meet their monthly expenses there are their spending habits now so that’s considered revolver and they determine that by people that pay on or after their due date and they’re usually paying minimum balances and they have multiple credit cards that are usually higher to limit so that obviously shows hey I can’t afford to pay more than minimum payment this month on those but I’m carrying balances also they’re commonly they keep using them and putting more stuff on and still maintain a minimum balance and when you pay you’ve to keep in mind that a payment to somebody who’s only considered paid when the money is in their bank so you rarely do we do we go to Visa and pay our money in cash to visa then it would count as a payment right then and there if you’re paying online and you’re paying it on the due date you’re thinking I paid it on the due date I’m on time but if you read the fine print even if you’re paying it online it says allow seven to ten days for your payment to post that’s week being out online doesn’t mean that the bank immediately transferred the money into their accountant they have it so they have the right to not report it to the credit reporting agencies as a payment made and lower your balance until they receive the money so for that reason usually it does not reflect the new payment that you made by the time it reports to the credit reporting agencies because they report let’s say your due dates the 15th they’ll report it literally midnight on the 16th or midnight of the 15th they’re gonna report it as the 16th right first thing in the morning as whatever that balance is no it’s not reporting it late to the credit reporting agencies they’re just not reporting that you made the payment so let’s say you’ve made $150 your balance you made $150 payment your balance will not reflect the lowered 150 dollar amount on there because you paid it on the due date because they do not have to report it as paid until the money is in the bank that’s why we tell people pay 10 days in advance they’ll have the money by the time they report it to the credit reporting agencies and you get credit for your payment at that point

Adam : okay so let me ask you I have it all set up now through my credit cards website to auto pay to where they’re connected to my bank they’re sucking the money from my bank I’m not getting this bad

Ben: you will they will not let you and they will not let you pay 10 days in advance on autopay you only get to pay on the due date and that’s because it’s by design

Shannon: oh that’s right because it just auto pay

Adam : so I thought hey they’re sucking right out of my account this (2) like a great thing no I should cut

Ben: they’re taking your payment at that time but they’re not they’re not reporting that as

Adam : so I should turn off the auto pay and start manually paying 10 days in advance

Ben: or use your bank auto your banks no I don’t think there is a bank out there that doesn’t allow you to do some sort of bill pay services through them

Adam :  yeah I used to set it up to where the bank would auto pay I you know like whatever the minimum was just so I would never forget I never wanted to be late so I set it up to my bank would automatically just pay the minimums and then I would then pay it in full

Ben: right

Adam Kruse : but I I guess I should

Shannon: so that exactly what I do just in case I forget I have the auto pay but I tried to go in air few days [???]

Ben: and that’s fine and I’m not  not saying it’s a bad thing that’s a great safety net because let’s say you do forget to pay your Visa card but it’s set up to pay whatever the minimum payment do is at least that’s the safety nets where if you forget it you’re not ever going to show a 30-day late because you ever got that so that’s not necessarily a bad thing but then you’re double paying on some stuff and you know but if you set it up through your through your bank there’s a couple of reasons why it’s better some people set up auto pays and they use a debit card as what’s Auto Paine well if you lose your debit card you forget that no longer is it going to pay because that debit card is gone because you got a new debit card so the auto pays that you set up using a debit card or forgotten now you have the possibility of showing the third day late because you forgot to go back to everybody and renew that credit card and on there but if you run it through your bank you know you (2) still have control of it through your banking and you’re not changing your bank or bank account number that often so you’re usually set up better for that

Shannon:  so you keep talking about the algorithm do you actually know what the algorithm is for the computing the credit score or is that very [???]

Adam : have you told us you’d have to kill us

Ben: no well it’s so confusing there’s no way anybody could really know it I mean it’s a computer model the amount of data that they take in is astronomical I mean it’s (2) pretty sensitive and the way it computes it because everybody’s credit is literally different it’s (2) hard for me to predict down to the you know point of score what it is but they make it confusing for a reason I’m sure but there’s different scoring models for everything though there are no for instance if you pull the mortgage credit report with TransUnion that mortgage credit report will not match experienced credit scoring model because they both have different scoring models especially for them we call boutique models Transgene says I’m not using experienced credit scoring model I want my own next Equifax says I don’t know how to use theirs so they all use three different versions of a FICO scoring model which is called a mortgage scoring model now a mortgage scores are different than auto scores or student loan or credit card or housing rental or I mean there’s all there’s so many different scoring models and I am I would say up to date on on how they’re all utilized and what how different what the difference are is are and how they’re used but a mortgage report is the most scrutinized credit report there is meaning they utilize the most data to compute your score so for that reason we love any chance we get to repair a FICO mortgage report because it has so much data and the scoring models so scrutinized so we know if we’re fixing that credit score in that model or that credit report then we know that it’s gonna prove pretty much all the scoring models down the road so and so the mortgage scores are different than then auto (2) might focus on obviously autos that you’ve bought in the past you know so and it’ll look at maybe some other type of comparative installment loans but they’re looking at how do you use you know on some type of secured debt that’s paid in a short term you know 60-month type thing it’s gonna compare more to that it’s gonna ignore any medical usually ignore student loan stuff so yeah so you won’t get hit (2) by that as much when you’re going to buy a car

Shannon: oh that’s interesting… what about the mortgage

Ben:  mortgage

Shannon: does that take into account the medical bills

Ben: every everything public record collections repos foreclosures anything

Shannon: [???] medical bills do too but people ask us all the time if that they how much they affect the credit score especially student loans you have a lot of young people trying to buy houses and they have

Ben:  so that’s (2) a that’s a two-fold question mortgage is allowed let’s say with mortgage financing but the mortgage financing is they believe they still forgive I guess medical collections where it’s not if they’re on there you can still get financing as long as you meet the credit criteria

Adam : I’m not totally sure

Ben: okay from what I understand I think FHA allows it you can have still have the medical collections you don’t have to research that I’m not sure either but (2) what it does do is it still hurts the scoring model so even if it’s okay let’s say they allow medical collections and they don’t use it to determine whether you can buy a home or not it’s still affecting your credit score because the FICO score model again is a computer it doesn’t see what the clutching is it looks at a code and a collection is a code-nine so code nine is the same for a collection a charge off judgment foreclosure all those are all code nines code nine to have a same score drop for everything then it looks at whether it has a balance or not and if it has a balance that’s another score drop and then it looks to see if you have a past-due on it and if it does there’s another score drop so a $20 medical collection could theoretically drop your score just as much as a capital one charge off because it doesn’t look at dollar amounts it’s looking at those fields in those codes so you have a $20 medical collection or a $20,000 medical collection it’s gonna drop your score the same amount

Adam : crazy

Ben: and for that purpose you know we always tell people don’t just pay that $20 medical collections because even though it’s a small amount we want you to you know get the medical collection off and step

Adam : oh don’t just pay it because you guys can take get it taken off and then you’ll just paying it will only help so much

Ben: right

Shannon: so paying doesn’t take it out

Ben: actually initially paying it because it’s a third party collector actually hurts your score and the reason why it hurts your score is because it resets that collection as a brand-new collection again so yes it will take the past due and put it at zero it’ll take the balance and put it at zero but now it’ll (2) still be a code-nine but because you admitted to owing the third party collector instead of the medical provider which is who they were collecting far before it’s gonna reset that as a date as a paid medical collection on the day you paid it so it’s gonna show up as a new code 9 again and it’s going to drop your school

[???]

Adam : so if a collection company calls you and says hey you owe MSD you know that’s your company if you owe 100 bucks you should say and just hang up on them and call SD and paid them the hundred bucks right

Ben: if you really savvy you can actually set that up to benefit you but we don’t want anybody trying that at home so I’ve actually on my Facebook page on (2) ours I’ve actually done a case study of a medical collection that was just given to me (2) personally I was and I was excited about this because I knew I didn’t know it and I knew as a third party collector so I played around with it I am I our phones are all set up to record so I immediately took this (2) call and I and (2) she started calling me and she was asking me

Adam :  this (2) at a collections person calling you

Ben: this (2) collection person call me about a medical collection for $67

Shannon: for a client

Ben: for me

Shannon: for you

Ben: I personally got one and so I went on Facebook and I said I said here you go I’m smiling holding this collection letter saying all right boys and girls get ready I’m gonna use this as a case study and I’m gonna I’m going to give you play-by-play on what happens with this well they got it and the lady called me and I and I I what I done is I immediately called the company and they got a report of the collection come they’re saying I owed $67 to SSM and from 2012 I’m sorry but I don’t I don’t know regardless but so I immediately call and I say yeah I’m calling this (2) uh you know this (2) my name here’s your file number again the key here is not to give them any of your private information because the collector sir Perry collectors are generally just giving your name and the hospital and the amount owed and they might be getting it secondhand third-hand even fourth hand (2) and they’re giving your name your phone number and or they even look up your phone number and you know the amount owed and the problem with that is (2) that in order to report on your credit report Fair Credit Reporting Act states that they have to have your private information and intimate details of the service or the creditor account

Shannon: so what does that mean

Ben:  well so they first of all they have to have your full name your current address your date of birth and your social security number

Shannon: okay so they have them all of those minimum

Ben: to even be on your credit [???]

Adam :  they don’t have it so they call you and they ask it to verify who you are but they really need it

Ben: that’s right and the majority people start going well oh it’s and they’re really sharp I mean they’ve been trained to do this and that’s why they make hundreds of thousands of dollars it’s also the reason why over the past three years there’s been seven point five billion dollars in double paid medical debts it’s because they’re collecting on medical debts have already been paid that haven’t been pulled back by the medical billing companies and things like that

Shannon: or would they apply correctly

Ben: exactly

Shannon: okay

Ben: or they were paid past let’s say a 30 day point let’s say Blue Cross Blue Shield was a little late they got it too that’s of some health care on the 32nd day well the head doesn’t talk to the hand they don’t call up you know whatever mid Midwest collection agency and go hey oh by the way that one’s already been paid scratching off their list they just don’t do it

Adam : so what did you do you got this letter and what did you do

Ben: it got the lay it letter I called up and I verbally said hey I’m verbally disputing this I left a message here’s your file number it was for $67 SSM health care you know I verbally dispute this and I expect that there’s no further collection activity made or you can send me validation of the dead in mail to my address again I ain’t give my address I also you know sent them a letter to the company with a copy of this I say dispute the validity of your ability to collect this debt I dispute that I even owe this debt I you know I have medical insurance I’ve always had medical insurance I always pay my bills on time if you still feel that you (2) know you have the validity to verification do you collect this debt I expect you mail to me and I mailed that to him as well

Adam: well that without your address on it either

[???]

Ben: I sent a first-class mail and first-class males they has a receipt that they received it and that’s all that’s required so this (2) Fair Credit Reporting Act stuff I also send it through the mail mails federal you’ve got a lot of people who try to dispute online or by phone they’re waving their Fair Credit Reporting Act rights and they don’t even know it but I’ll get to that again but

Shannon : Okay

Ben: so the I mail the two myths part 2 called the lady called it was on a recorded line I was couldn’t wait I was really excited to talk to lady super nice lady she filed the first rule of Fair Debt Collection Practices Act she never was disrespectful to me she was cordial and there are good debt collectors out there (2) are really good yeah there’s some that really follow rules that are that have been sued and lost and they know they’ve really trained their people very well and they’re hard to trip up you know but this lady was that but she says yes sir you (2) left us a message regarding she never she never claimed that I disputed it so she didn’t accept it as a verbal dispute but I already backed it up in writing so the key here is that they don’t like to accept the verbal dispute because that’s all you have to do is verbally dispute something but she (2) crossed the line on that she says no we need something riding from you and I said well I really have sent it right well we didn’t receive it well that’s okay because the Senate first-class mail and I have a return receipt that you did receive it so that she oh well I needed to have something what did you say I need to have something to take back to the person I’m collecting for you Oh ma’am I don’t have to I verbally disputed it the fact that you even have my information I dispute you know I don’t know where you got information well because we’re collecting did you receive the invoice I said no ma’am I did not receive an invoice or received a collection notice from your company yes the statement of the amount owed no I received a collection letter see she’s trying to get me to admit that there was an invoice for money owed or there’s a statement of money owed that’s a deceptive practice she just crossed my Fair Debt Collection Practices Rights so I have this in Ryder ever done recorded online and so there’s some other things she had done also that was deceptive of course she said well sir before I can even continue this call I must verify who I’m talking to and sure she did do the disclaimer this (2) an attempt to collect a dead anything somebody used for their purpose but what she did she said you know just talking very frank talk this (2) Benjamin Dada yes it is and I she owes and just so I can verify the records of what I have what’s your date of birth I go well if you have the records then you know my date of birth I’m not verifying or validating debt and I’m disputing the fact that you even have my private information how did you get it there’s my price I would like you to send me the privacy notice saying that you got it lawfully and so she says what we got it from the medical provider okay great so what does the medical provider things say does it say why I went there and what happens yes we have your intake okay great you just violated my HIPAA rights at no point in time did I sign anything with any medical provider that says I allow them to share my private medical information with anybody third party outside of my doctor’s or the person my family that I designate as the person share so they violated a ton of my rights right there just because breeze

Shannon: so pointing this out along the way

Ben : I didn’t point out our long way no

Shannon: okay you just like check check (2)

Ben: set the recording shared it with my attorney right here at our office we filed suit and I’m gonna that’s what I’ll be my next update on Facebook is how it goes so

Adam: how you follow the suit against them

Ben: absolutely they violated they violate several of my rights and um you know

Shannon:    but they’re doing this every day then because every day [???] you received a statement right and you’re saying how is that violating the rights because most people like no I didn’t get anything because

Ben: do you like Midwest collection company knowing that you went to see a podiatrist or

Shannon: no no

Ben: that you see are they Jade anesthesia or you know because [???] right okay well the fact that she’s trying to say that you owe something you know no would that upset you

Shannon: oh yeah (2) i am just saying like this (2) so scripted [???]

Ben:  she’s trying to show that you she’s trying to get you to admit to owing the money by saying it’s a statement or an invoice by doing that she says well he agreed that he owed me you agreed that he received a statement of a money owe

Shannon:  [???] Oh probably hopefully would say no I did not receive a statement

Ben: well but I received a collection notice which is why I but it’s a collection notice saying I owe SSM health care $67 she says it’s a statement or an invoice they do put invoice on there but it’s not an invoice it’s a

Shannon: there’s a clear difference between the letters that you got in the mail and an invoice or a statement

Ben: correct because it’s from a third party collector if SSM health care sent me an invoice that’s an invoice

Shannon: okay

Ben:  if (2) I truly had those medical services and if I didn’t pay those that’s an invoice I could say yes I received your invoice but I don’t know it I could dispute it with them but medical providers never collect their own dance

Adam: well let me pause for a second so how can we follow you on Facebook or wherever so we can see the result of this situation

Ben:  its Freedom Credit Solutions on Facebook

Adam: so just follow Freedom Credit Solutions yeah it’s not your personal page

Ben:  no but my it was me on our my personal page sharing it on our most people can follow me too on Facebook it’s just Benjamin Dodd so it’s my full name

Adam: okay

Ben: yeah it’s (2) play by play on this just to let you know they haven’t they never took any further action they never I dispute it Weis talking to her that they (2) better not order I’ll take legal action report on my credit report I toyed around with the idea of letting him put it on my credit report because I wanted to illustrate how much my score drop because at the time was a 768 credit score and I wanted to illustrate that it would drop I thought they maybe they would break the rules and go ahead and just put it on the credit report because they often do by the time you get a collection notice it’s usually already on your credit report and (2) the problem with that is (2) that the law is the law fails you there the Fair Credit Reporting Act China leaves a window open for them to utilize your credit report as a collection tool so they’ll allow them to put it on there because it’s the consumers responsibility to know what’s on there rapport and it’s the consumers responsibility to dispute any (2) unverifiable or you know fraudulent or obsolete data that’s on there it’s their responsibility disputed so if there’s collections on there and they don’t look up their credit report first of all which you should check your credit at least quarterly if not have monitoring but if they don’t look at that and see what’s on there and they don’t dispute that stuff that means it’s allowed to stay on there so the law says that in order to dispute it (2) also gives these guys 30 days to investigate and respond so I would I would have challenged that or sent out a legal dispute for them reporting on my credit port and saying this (2) unfair viable and (2) you can’t validate this so I want to remove mealy it gives them 30 days ago oopsie caught us we don’t have do we have name address date of birth social do we have the verifying data from SSM health care scene when he was there how much he owed and we don’t have that oh we better remove so but it takes that otherwise it stays on credit and people lose their scores for

Adam:  you mentioned kind of the this you might be able to use this to your advantage to raise your score how (2) do you think that’s going to happen

Ben:  I mean so use it your my I used it to my advantage

Adam: I thought you’re

Ben:  living it would definitely raise your score

Adam: okay

Ben:  yeah cuz I mean you got a figure I’ve seen medical collections drop anywhere I’ve seen anywhere from 60 points up to 90 hundred points depending on the amount of positive reporting credit that you have to offset that so (2) if you only got like a if you only have like a car and no credit card and you get a medical question it’s gonna drop your score significantly

Adam:  well you’ve mentioned your what your credit score was at the time we keep talking about scores can we go back to the basics for a second and just kind of give me like what is a the credit score range what is there like a bad as below this number good is between these numbers and amazing is above this number

Ben: well it’s all relative so depending on what you buy so I wish I had a clear answer for you and I know it sounds [???] let’s say they’re the three different scoring models people often ask me why Experian TransUnion Equifax on a mortgage report for instance never match it’s because you got Equifax starter 300 another one starting at 350 one goes to 850 one goes to 900 so be like starting the race staggered so you’re never really starting from the same starting line and you’re not going to finish at the same place so now the scores never match up and also you’ll find that they don’t report the same to all three credit reports you’ll find some stuff on transunion and equifax but you won’t find out Experian and vice-versa so if something’s not on there you know you have that data doesn’t to score it again and you know that’s you know that’s where it’s kind of unfair again but that’s where the mortgage industry selects to take the middle score of the three so they’re looking for you

Adam:  but your average customer who wants to improve their credit look like what kind of range are they

Ben:  I mean we deal with people all the way down into I mean we you know in house we have a record somebody was a 343 I think on a Experian which it starts at 300 so I mean we deal with people there the difference is not that they can’t be helped the difference is what why are they late why are their score so low and (2) what do we have to fix so if it’s third party collections we find that people that are at 450 and 550 it’s not that they’re that much different it’s just that they have more let’s say you have somebody with ten collections versus five collections you know coincidentally after we sent off our first round of legal challenges we remove a little bit over 45% of all negative items in our first legal challenge which is generally about 40 days well what that does it takes a person from ten down to five and person from five to about two and a half let’s say so see they’re catching up in the race so their scores significantly increase and it’s (2) it’s just because they have more it’s not that anything’s worse you know it’s just that they’ve got ten go nines a five so we find that we you know anybody at any range but it’s if they have you know you know if they have the means if they have the patience to do it if they you know follow through with our plan that we give to people that’s a lot of work right are people that the people that and we don’t sign every client just because some clients can’t be helped and the people that can’t be helped at that time not that they can’t ever be able the people that wouldn’t be our clients would be people that have six credit cards and they’re all currently late on current credit cards they’re just dropped because they have a cash flow problem it’s not a credit issue it’s (2) their cash flow issue and for that purpose I’m going to say don’t take don’t money there’s nothing we can fix take that money and pay down with credit cards you know those are our clients that

Adam: you guys don’t do like consulting like I mean cuz those people need your help probably and telling them stop spending your money the way you do

Ben: Yeah right everybody that we get a credit report whether they whether they become a client or not is furnished with what we call plan of action oh that’s for credit any credit repair we could do but also like I said looking at credit as a whole as how can you help yourself and improve it and somebody who has multiple credit cards with high balances I would I would determine what their cash flow is which they know and what is their ability to repay this debt I mean if they’re in financial destitute if they may require some sort of relief like you know a payment plan a wage earner plan or you know maybe even possibly filing for you know bankruptcy of some sort so that’s what bankruptcy is therefore it’s (2) it’s a safety net if you do it and you can recover from it (2) just takes a while you know to do so

Adam:  so is there like a pat yourself on the back you’ve got great credit number is that in the sevens are you saying it depends I know

Ben:  yeah I mean it one thing we end up a lot of clients with a lot of things we have what we call our credit elite program and those are just people that just have to have the best of the best credit scores where we have a problem as getting people up in that 800 range that really takes that length of credit history that’s the one thing we can’t help you with we can’t we couldn’t be your dad and get you that credit card back back in college you can see that guy so we can’t manufacture that but you know just like anything else there are there are things that score higher on a credit report than others and there’s actually Believe It or Not brands of credit cards and types of credit cards that score better than others I have a database of every credit card that’s out there we know the guidelines are getting the credit card just like the American Express black every says how do you get that you know and (2) we know the guidelines again American Express black card so all of them score differently but obviously

Shannon:  really want the American Express black card though

Ben:  I mean sure absolutely and (2) because of

Shannon:  because white will get a higher score because I

Ben:  it scores better it’s if the requirements are higher a City preferred for instance is harder to get than Capital One I always joke around and I say my people with you know in the credit lead program or the are the 800 scores don’t have Capital One in there they just don’t okay Capital One is a mid to 500 min to 600 credit card company and that’s why that’s one of the reasons why they don’t report that payment is made on the due dates is because they want them to they want your credit to appear like you have more on their cards because it’s harder to obtain a better credit card if you’re still utilizing their card so (2) much you see it I mean

Shannon: so I didn’t know that credit cards had like stat well I mean I dunno you know there’s still the whole status thing in the black or the diamond or whatever hour depending on which one you’re talking about but they didn’t know it actually impacted your credit

Adam: this (2) the best one [???]

Ben:  so this (2) more of a recent development on their one the more recent ones it’s not really published that they go by brand of card and it’s not really published really that they’re supposed to discriminate on you having credit cards so be involving but what they separate it was they start separating things out obviously the retail store charges are gonna be separate than a bank back credit card and what is determined is Bank back our cards US Bank of America is a bank back card but there’s some cards that are underwritten by just one bank you know like synchrony Bank will underwrite a lot of visas okay they’re called visas and maths cards but they’re byte synchrony Bank and so and so forth your city your city and all that stuff what they’re looking at is what are the requirements to get these cards really is (2) there a higher requirement there and that’s because it takes a certain amount of income and it takes a certain credit score in order to get these cards and so utilizing those cards are going to be better than utilizing your credit 1 or your you know freedom card or whatever that kit is and there’s just some cards that just I mean they give to people starting out there’s secured credit cards a secured credit card is not going to score as well as a unsecured credit card right and so there’s that payday loans that’s an installment loan but again it’s a very high interest installment loan it’s considered poor utilization of credit why would the person need that if they’re not in some sort of financial destitute it drops your score you understand the score is a snapshot in time of your ability to finance and how close you are to some sort of financial distress so if you’re via payday loans and you’re consistently put them on and paying them off ok that shows that you can’t maintain your current level of existence without getting some sort of help and unfortunately your only turn to help is a 50% a hundred percent interest rate you know sorts of credit and so it’s gonna hurt your score why do I use a 20 percent interest you know Capital One where I could use a nine or ten percent you know a City preferred card so or Chase Sapphire you know those cards obviously are lower interest and sapphires a good one City prefers good

Shannon: so sapphires

Ben: sapphires is a good one city preferred card

Shannon: I have it’s all my cards are City right now

Ben: city great

Shannon: upgrade the card

Ben: no no I mean they’ll offer it and again those are just names on the cards those names on the cards

Shannon: Oh My…ok lets go back to say

[???]

Ben: I mean you have to understand the names on the cards are the names any of them any of these are great I mean it’s fine

Shannon: so what about like so talking about credit cards credit cards sapphire like all these levels what about the like Marriott Rewards

Adam: are the Southwest rewards

Ben: so you’ve really got a read you pay you get what you pay for okay you keep in mind this (2) gain like everybody you’re getting your points by you…so that this again this (2) just marketing I mean no credit cards gonna give you anything for free there’s no not during the business to make money they want you to utilize your cards that the only reason and a lot of people go for it or fall for it depending on what they are and you’ll find that there’s a lot of loopholes restrictions and (2) problems with you know getting points or utilizing it so always read the rewards agreement line by line which nobody does they just check okay and then they move on so you really got to see what the blackout’s are straight you like on your merit awards no but you’re paying for it paying for it somehow you’re definitely paying for it let’s say let’s say you let’s say you’re paying point eight higher on interest don’t you get a reward so you see it I mean it’s you’re still paying for it

Adam:  it as long as you pay it off every month though you’re not pay your

Ben:  [???] benefits but but that’s not you’re not the common person let’s just face it I mean well there’s everybody paid off of the credit cards in full every month they wouldn’t be in business they just they just don’t

Adam:  I figured like they’re giving me you know three percent rewards or 1% or whatever it is but then they’re charging the shoes store that I’m buying my shoes [???]

Ben:  oh yeah they’re making their money somewhere you’re completely oh yeah marry items replace but if you also look at your manner out rewards it might say you can’t use this on Christmas the thing we’re from Thanksgiving Christmas New Year’s you can’t use it you know maybe in June and July and certain days it’s so around for the fourth of July so there’s always gonna be blackout dates same with the Southwest and all that but use it for what it’s worth I mean but it but it’s better just to keep your money if you can get a Marriott if you can get our definitive that Visa card without the rewards and you get a lower interest rate or no annual fee go with that card because pay for pay for the room by yourself it’s two hundred sixty five bucks what we deal I mean it might take 10,000 points to get one night which means you got to run through thirty thousand fifty thousand a hundred thousand dollars just to get that one room on the Marriott save the interest rate don’t pay for your room you know what I mean you’re gonna save a lot more money that ways

Adam: ok so let me ask you mentioned earlier that we should be checking their credit like once a month or once a quarter or whatever

Shannon: once a quarter but i heard once a year so [???]

Ben: once a year [???] the law when it was changed the Fair Credit Reporting Act was an amendment to the to the law they made the credit reporting companies allow people to they didn’t give them access their information nobody wanted they don’t want us fixing their credit they don’t want you knowing what’s on your credit you know who’s their biggest who’s their biggest vendor credit card companies right I mean they want you in the dark they so for that reason though the law enacted one thing Bill Clinton did great is that amended that Fair Credit Reporting Act and he it states he gives us access to a credit report one a year annually

Adam: and where do you where should we check it

Ben:  so annualcreditreport.com they can you can get one from their annual credit report does not app scores and the reason why it doesn’t have scores is because it doesn’t you don’t it doesn’t know what score model you want it doesn’t know what scores

Adam: but I can see if somebody’s been charging me a medical thing or something

Ben:  so you need it… now a way that you can spread that out is get your annual credit report for TransUnion at the beginning of the year

Shannon: okay

Ben: wait three months get the other one from experience get one from accuflex you’re not gonna be completely covered there because there are different things that are going to report on TransUnion Experian Equifax we have collection companies that will report the collection on TransUnion because they know if you’re going to buy something generally that requires let’s say a tri merge it’s (2) gonna be on there you know they’re gonna get they’re gonna show up as a collection that’s gonna hurt you so why not get all three

Shannon:  check them like say you check all three every quarter I mean cuz does that hurt you

Ben: well here so here’s the fear that I always put into people the average consumer right now in the nation has already had their information stolen a minimum of five times

Shannon: oh yeah

Ben:  your private information we joke and say your private information it’s not private any longer it’s like it’s like a jumbo shrimp it’s (2) just not it’s (2) an oxymoron it’s private information we laugh about it you know because your information is already been stolen if you’ve had if you filed a federal tax return they were breached you (2) with the target your [???] was a huge they said only 12 million records why were they only still one every single record was stolen from them the funny thing apart about that is that they gave people they gave people a free (2) credit monitoring to life

Shannon: yeah they didn’t

Ben: they own life lock so now (2) you got them monitoring their own loss you know for free and what people don’t understand is when they sign that they signed an indemnity identification agreement in there it identify is Equifax from any wrongdoing or harm from so yeah so you know that’s really the (2) thing here is so we (2) recommend everybody write at credit monitoring in this day and age if you don’t have some sort of mind or dream

Shannon: who you recommend for that, bcoz i feel like racket or a good thing

Ben: so Credit Karma zone by Trans Union as well so they that’s actually a genius thing imagine giving them some sort of giving people some crappy form of monitoring and some (2) made-up Vantage scoring model that that score pertains that nothing you buy it doesn’t match any FICO scoring model so it appeases them on the score side and it appeases them on the monetary but it’s never up to date it’s often completely on accurate and but

Shannon: that’s Credit Karma

Ben: Credit Karma is main purpose is to market credit cards and mind data imagine you just came out with a site that says I’m gonna give you some happy service and for that you’re gonna give me your name date of birth social security number and you’re going to refresh your credit reports so that all my credit card marketing companies can see it every 19 days it’s a genius and everybody just went to went to go and drink the kool-aid you know

Adam:  so what are the good ones there’s there any good one

Ben: so you want to find one that’s not affiliated with companies I can post all that stuff for you but I mean it’s generally there’s like identity IQs a third party provider that isn’t affiliate with them it’s pretty it’s pretty I would say they’re unbiased they’re not they’re not there’s no marketing they’re gonna I don’t mark anything they don’t sell your private information to their business affiliates so then

Shannon: so probable cost more

Ben: yeah it does well it does and so we have we have a deal done with them there’s usually about twenty nine bucks a month and you get the same exact thing as you would with life (2)  that’s more like fifty nine or sixty nine bucks and we have a deal hooked up we can I can post that link even where it’s like twenty dollars a month so we save we save a little bit of money on it but you know other just research any credit monitoring company they’re all using the same platform so they’re (2) all getting their information the exact same way is LifeLock and everybody else that’s just a different column

Adam: it’s so hard to research this stuff because you Google it in the first 30 responses that come up or owned by the credit card companies they’re owned by someone who’s making money on it you know it’s (2) hard to research

Ben:  down past the ads and watch out for the 10 best credit monitoring companies yeah that’s a marketing advertising company that people pay in fur ranking

Adam:  yeah okay so let me ask you I own rental property if someone is late on their rent I guess I’m not really telling anyone that right so should I be should I be like turning them in if someone’s late on their rent so that it affects their credit I mean

Ben: yeah well you know that that’s gonna be the person so collections gonna show up as a code-nine it could help it could help you in collecting that debt hmm rental (2) to this to date they don’t have a scoring model for rental I mean they have a scoring model it’s specifically for rental so you can subscribe to that service and you can actually pull up a cycle rental school our cycle rental tracks data of any rentals of people have reported that’s the key if so if you didn’t report rental but keep in mind you can’t collect for just one person so if you have met if you have Reynolds where you didn’t collect for one person back in let’s say oh seven and they find out about it but you went and collected on another person report on credit that’s not fair and accurate credit reporting that’s not Equal Credit Opportunity or you’re violating their rights because if you do for one you have to do for all

Adam:  but you’re saying you’re talking about sending them to collections I’m talking about the person whose rent is due on the first and they pay it on the 12th you know should I just be doing nothing about that other than charging in their late fee [???] okay because then no one ever their next landlord has no idea that they are this late paying

Ben: well if the landlord was is true most landlords are going to pull a verification a mortgage from the previous person or find that they’re in good standing I mean generally you want to definitely do your due diligence about that a how did this person right before why are they on my doorstep you know and how do they pay how do they leave the apartment I mean that’s just part of that eager

Adam:  we do that we do that but they I guess I don’t know if they paid eight sometimes you know okay [???] they’re fee  I’m I don’t mind it ice cuz I actually I do mine did I take that back

Ben: yeah well bug do you but I mean really financially what kind of distress is he causing you and what cost that I mean you can always up your there’s a there’s a state limit for how much you can charge and late fees you just max out the late fees you know so I mean there’s a way

Shannon: what is the way fees here in Missouri

Ben: yeah I don’t I got to say I don’t know I know that I can return check fee I think max is out of thirty-five bucks right now so (2) there’s things like that but you know knowing that but vetting (2) rental what I was getting to use let’s say there’s some people there are some scams out there to say hey pay us and we’ll war portrait rent on your credit report it doesn’t do anything for a score because it’s there is no there’s no line item now they don’t yeah they don’t something as a vendor you know what I mean it’s not up

Shannon:  so it doesn’t help any renter have it report again

Ben: you can’t legally paid a manufactured credit so back in the day they call the piggybacking used to dad companies that add like ten to fifteen hundred thousand dollar limit credit cards you can pay them and they’ll put you as an authorized user on the credit card and all sudden boom you’ve got $100,000 available credit (2) card that was established in 85 your score went through the roof well that was called piggybacking and they (2) made that illegal and they took it out of the FICO scoring algorithm so you know you can’t manufacture [???] or they were opening up you know opening up you know new things and co-signing of what’s your social with your show up again is a good account so yeah any of that stuff is illegal

Adam: one of the things I’ve noticed a lot over the years as the people that have gotten divorces it seems to really hurt their credit that’s not a divorce isn’t bad for credit it’s just what happens through the divorce I guess or what

Ben: what’s funny so I went and just spoke to a panel of 15 attorneys divorce attorneys and the other problem you know the jamming general consensus for people as they think if you’re an attorney you know everything you know and they and they (2) trust these attorneys you know it’s amazing how clueless an attorney is unless they specialize in one specific thing our attorney specializes in consumer rights and advocacy and (2) you know the credit reporting rights okay but he’s not a family attorney okay so he doesn’t know the ins and outs of that just like the family attorneys have no idea about credit or know what it does but you gotta understand the first thing they do is you got two people mad at each other they have joint credit cards and they have joint bills and the attorneys go stop paying everything we’re gonna go after them they’re gonna pay that and so what (2) they’re doing is they’re destroying the people’s credit you know they’re you know the thing is they’re also now they start showing 30 day late and people think well who cares and the attorneys will often think who cares when the judge Awards him as having to pay it or her as having to pay it you’re not gonna be responsible for anymore sure you’re legally not responsible based on a court order from a little circuit judge no circuit little circuit court judge let’s say in st. Louis County Oh George Abrams and Salus County says I don’t have to pay it go try and tell that to Capital One and tell them to remove you as a responsible party from your credit card never gonna happen never (2) gonna Trump that they have the right to report that on their here’s the scary part is let’s say one of the spouses files for divorce they’re no longer responsible for it all of it falls on the person that didn’t file for divorce so the reason why divorce is bad it’s probably just by misinformation the attorneys the best thing to do is maintain good credit throughout the divorce proceedings let them divvy it up and then and then hopefully they do what they’re sorted to do but that’s that usually big profit

Adam:  keep paying the bill even if your spouse goes on some spending spree on

Ben: a document believe me you document it and it’s gonna show and in court it could actually it could probably lender your favor that you had to pay the bills the whole time this guy just stopped paying them you know despite and you know he was trying to action trying to destroy credit yeah so you know and (2) now the attorneys I spoke to you totally got it they were like oh my gosh yeah actually that’s a better tactic and they and they understood that especially too because let’s say there’s property and they don’t sell the property and they were gonna award it to let’s say you know the wife or the husband let’s say the wife is staying home with the kids and you know she’s gonna need to go out and get a job if that if that if that maintenance isn’t gonna cover all the bills well so she’s they go out in you a job well you know let’s say she’s got refinance it there he’s put on realistic expectations in there in 90 to 120 days or in six months she has got a refinance the husband off the off the home well if they destroyed each other’s credit you know Adam you’ll tell us they got a bunch of Rachel dragged towards their not you’re qualified to refinance a home I mean their (2) scores are gonna be horrible and that’s why we get a lot of divorces and for credit repairs because oh my god but my attorney said this or your attorney was wrong you know it was just it was just wrong and (2) so they try to refinance at six months and often they can’t well now they’re in contempt of court and the problem is (2) the only way to enforce those court proceedings and those (2) uh you know agreements is (2) to go back to court again and who wins when you go to court you know it’s the attorneys and that’s right so you know that’s (2) the problem with divorce is that you know if you can do anything amicably and maintain good credit throughout it and then hopefully you know the attorneys won’t string it out too long you’d be able to you know and the other person will perform and they overpay them off but immediately closing the cards is usually the best thing to do

Adam:  so (2) try not to get a divorce listen to our old podcast where we interviewed Joe Rossi but if you’re gonna get a divorce call Ben right and kind of get some guidance on how to process through the divorce Ben can you give us your contact information before we wrap up here

Ben:  absolutely you can reach me at my office at 314-606-8221 or you can reach me by email at Ben@FreedomCreditSolutions.US

Shannon: and then your website

Ben: we are www.freedomcreditsolutions.us

Adam: alright so before we wrap it up I just have five questions and I’d like to ask all of our guests ok so Ben who lives under your roof

Ben: myself and my daughter

Adam: okay

Ben : and my dog

Adam: Oh your dog okay and where are you your best

Ben: about midday after lunch you know I could be anywhere I’m not a morning person

Adam: okay I love that you just knew the answer to that everyone always kind of does isn’t sure how to answer that on [???]

Ben: like my energy level is best then so I usually like to go to the gym at that time like you know right after lunch but not right after lunch okay but you know why is your food digesting you get some energy you

Adam: eat loans come do some emails and then go to the gym

Ben:  that’s right yeah at the gym knock it out yeah

Adam:  okay do you have a favorite blog or podcast

Ben:  yes yours I listen to you religiously

Adam:  excellent (2) thank you okay any other articles or websites that you read all the time

Ben: there’s a lot of boring stuff I like to keep up on you know pretty much current affairs here in st. Louis area Mortgage Bankers Association read that you know business external

Adam:  okay (2) what’s your guilty pleasure… sneaking out of the office to go to the gym maybe

Ben:  yeah I you know what I find that actually helps quite a bit I don’t think it’s I think that really helps my game I’d say

Adam: okay

Ben: do you like my ice cream

Shannon: what is your favorite flavor?

Ben: you know what it’s all good let’s face it it’s a really bad ice cream

Adam: I don’t think so

[???]

Adam: lastly who is your mentor and how have you thanked to them

Ben:  Wow my mentor the one that I probably learned the most about sales and business from he’s a name guy named Angelo Galasso (2) he’s obviously Italian he’s from Chicago it’s my last boss I had ninety-eight I haven’t had a boss since the rock and he he’s actually the Godfather my daughter so I mean he’s yeah he’s dad so it’s a great guy

Adam: okay and so that your way of thinking in my guess [???]

Ben: absolutely

Adam: alright well thank you everyone for listening any questions PODCAST@HermannLondon.com and let us know if you have any topics you’d like us to cover and thank you for listening and take care