By Amy Armstrong
COVID-DAMAGED CREDIT IS REPAIRABLE Credit Fixer Robert Ross weighs in
T
he cash flow squeeze in 2020 brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic forced many Americans to make a choice between putting food on the table or making ontime payments for everything from cable bills to mortgages. Last year, one in four Americans missed making a payment by the due date thus triggering a potential ding to their credit report. What’s more, a recent survey by market research company OnePoll reported by StudyFinds.org revealed that missing a payment wasn’t a singular event. In fact, many people surveyed admitted to missing an average of five payments. That’s just a smattering of the bad news regarding missed payments. Let’s just skip over the rest of it and move on to the good news. Credit Repair Strategy If your credit report took a hit or two or more during the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s empowering news, according to a credit repair expert. Now is the best time to get those items removed from your credit report says Robert Ross, owner of Credit Fixer, Inc., located on Long Island, New York. “This is a great time to take advantage of a basic loophole in the credit industry in which disputes often are resolved in favor of the creditor because the credit bureaus and the creditors they contact are just overwhelmed with the amount of
requests they are receiving – and they do not have the physical time to answer all of these requests within the required time frame that the law prescribes,” Ross said. The Federal Trade Commission’s Fair Credit Reporting Act specifies that creditors have 30 days to respond to disputes filed with the credit bureaus. Those disputes can range from challenging the dollar amount owed – to the legitimacy of the entire debt listed on an individual’s credit report. Often, that 30-day mandate cannot be met by the staff of companies struggling to do the research necessary to validate the accuracy of a debt, Ross explained. “If they don’t respond within the 30 days, it drops off the credit report,” he said. When new clients – who generally come to Ross by referral – grant him permission to run their credit reports, Ross scrutinizes each document searching for any errors and omissions. “The credit bureaus make a lot of mistakes,” he said. For instance, incorrect surnames, mistaken generational suffixes in which a “Jr.” or “Sr.” are mislabeled, and people with the same or similar names having someone else’s information attributed to them are all too common errors, Ross said. As the nation attempts to emerge from the grip of COVID-19, Ross said he sees a large number of disputes not being an-
swered within the federally required time frame which bodes well for the consumer. However, he warns, credit repair is not an overnight process and patience is a virtue. “Some people are in a rush. They say they need this tomorrow,” Ross said. “It doesn’t work like that. It is a process. But even if it does take six months, what do you have to lose except bad credit?” After 22 years in the credit repair profession, there isn’t much Ross hasn’t seen – and his perspective on the consumer credit industry was uniquely shaped by his early career path. He owned a car dealership and watched how the credit industry rated potential buyers. He saw the errors and trends, and how these events held people back from acquiring what they needed or wanted. Post the dealership, a friend suggested he consider a career in credit repair. He hasn’t looked back since. “The hook is that I love helping people,” Ross said. “When someone calls me and says, ‘Hey Bobby, thanks so much, I got approved…’ for the car, or the apartment, or the mortgage for a house when they started with a 550 credit score and we were able to bring their score up to 740. That is what makes this worthwhile for me.” For more information on Robert Ross and Credit Fixer, Inc., call: (516) 5045755. ADVISORS MAGAZINE / 37
