Exclusive Credit Repair Q&A with Consumer Law Attorney Haseeb Hussain

Hey, credit heroes. When you're repairing credit, you need every tool you can get to really fight back against the big banks, the bureaus, and the collection agencies. That's why today I'm welcoming back Haseeb Hussain. He's the founder of Haseeb Legal, and he has so much knowledge to share about how to power up your credit repair by partnering with a consumer law attorney. So you better stick around. My name is Daniel Rosen, and welcome to Credit Repair Business Secrets. A few months ago, Haseeb joined me here on the podcast and he shared a ton of amazing information about powerful legal action that you can take based on the fcra, the fdcpa, and a whole lot more. And a lot of people watched that episode and they had even more questions for Haseeb. So I knew he had to come back on the podcast. In case you missed him last time, Haseeb Hussein is an incredibly successful consumer law attorney who regularly works with credit repair companies. He's the founder of Haseeb Legal, and he's also a viral TikTok star with a ton of tips to share. So welcome back to the show, Haseeb Hussain. Hey, Haseeb.

Hey, Dan. Thanks for having me back. It's so good to be here.

Great to see you again. Okay, I want to. I want to catch up on everything. What have you been up to since we talked in January?

Well, the same thing. Teaming up with credit repair companies and helping their clients out, swinging the credit bureaus for inaccurately reporting things on people's credit reports. And it's been great since. Since I was last back on here. A lot of, A lot of credit repair companies reached out and said, hey, we want to work with you to help our clients. And it's been, it's been, you know, rainbows and butterflies ever since.

That's so cool. And how are you continuing to help credit repair businesses?

Well, the same thing that I spoke about on the last video post, bankruptcy reporting. If there's a bankruptcy on somebody's credit report, I have, I have credit repair companies sending me every single one of those reports. We review them and let the credit repair companies know whether we can help their clients or not. Maybe about 30 to 40% of the time there is something on the report that we can do something about, and everyone ends up happy at the end of the day. Some stuff get off the. Off the reports, and then the credit repair company has an easier time doing whatever they need to do in that file.

And for anyone who didn't hear the first episode, can you share A little bit about your background and what led you to specialize in FCRA and fdc.

So I started off on the other side. I used to represent debt collectors as a defense attorney. Whenever a debt collector got sued for violations of the fdcpa, we would step in and a lot of times settle these cases. So I knew how lucrative it could be for the plaintiff's attorneys there. And I saw a business opportunity flipped. Plaintiff side, worked for a firm for a little while until I said, hey, I can do this myself. And it's been about a few. It's been a few years since I went out on my own and it's been great ever since. But I love being in the space. I love helping credit repair companies. I love, I understand the business, so I know what it needs to. I know what it takes to get things repaired for the clients from the litigation perspective and to basically provide an adjunctive service alongside credit repair. When people hear attorney, they think, hey, we gotta pay a ton of money to even just talk to an attorney. That's not true. So the fact that this misconception even exists and people assume, hey, like I would have had to pay an attorney thousands of dollars to review something. And that is something that a credit repair company can offer to their clients. Hey, we work with attorneys, we can point you to one easily. And they won't even charge you up front. That's a value added that clients, your clients, credit repair company clients will look to in making a decision who to go with.

Awesome. Awesome. Okay, there's so many things I want to cover today, but let's start with stall letters. There's still a huge problem for people. And for anyone who doesn't know, stall letters are responses from the credit bureaus that stall or delay the credit repair process. So what can credit repair businesses do to avoid stall letters?

Well, my suggestion is always to a credit repair company dispute individually and dispute individual trade lines. Don't make your disputes very, very generic. Don't make them all look the same. When a credit bureau has sense that a lot of letters are getting sent from a credit repair company and they have done their best in all these years to make the credit repair industry just very difficult to even exist. So they got crowa pass the telemarketer sales rules. Just all these laws coming into place that makes credit repair company jobs very difficult. So the bureau's haven't necessarily been on our side. So they're looking for every reason to come back and say, wait a second, are you guys using a credit repair company because we don't sense that that dispute came from you. So the more a credit repair company individualizes disputes and they don't all look the same, the better chance you have of getting that specific item that you're requesting to get reinvestigated. Reinvestigated. But on top of that, as hatching Social Security cards, driver's license, giving them all the information that a stall letter usually just asks for at the end of it all can point to the fact that. Wait a second. Was my dispute actually even reviewed? Because if you had reviewed it, you would have noticed that all the things I'm attaching to that initial dispute is everything you're asking for in that stall letter. So if you do that at the outset, make your disputes very individual, not mass ending disputes, not disputing every single thing on an actual credit report and disputing the things that are actually inaccurate, that sets up for a better FCRA case and the less likelihood of getting a stall letter back. I don't necessarily see a stall letter as a bad thing. If my client has disputed a trade line that, let's say, is reporting the wrong balance, I sent a dispute. I sent. I sent a dispute with the address, client's information attached to driver's license, which. Which I don't even really need to do, attached to Social Security card, proving identity, attach everything I need, and on top of that, attached an actual balance statement showing that what the actual balance should be on a. On a credit report. And they came back and hit me with a stall letter. Well, now I have proof that they got the dispute, and that's great. I want them to say, hey, we received your dispute. We just don't think it was sent by you. Why don't you think it was sent by me? I attach everything that you're already asking for in the stall letter. I necessarily wouldn't even advise my client to respond to the stall letter with things they're asking for. They already had their chance to reinvestigate. And I treat that stall letter in litigation as a response, as a dispute response. I disputed, and they responded. It's too bad the response is asking me for stuff I already provided them. So I use that to say, you guys got the dispute, you didn't reinvestigate. The account's still there. My client's applying for credit, they're getting denied. Now I have an FCRA case. So a lot of the times when salt letters come back, I don't necessarily do nothing with them. And we don't tell credit repair companies to continue disputing if the dispute itself was sufficient initially and we don't have to add anything else to it. And their SOL comes back and says provide all this other stuff. I'll bring it as an FCRA case.

Awesome. I want to touch on one thing you said because I think it's really important. A lot of people go in and they want to dispute every single thing that's negative on the report all at once. They're in a hurry.

I would, I would not suggest that as a, as a good tactic. If you were trying to get something that is actually inaccurate. I'm talking something that's factually wrong. An account that doesn't exist, it was paid off. That's so reporting a balance. There's stuff that are post bankruptcy reporting. There's balances left that should have been eliminated. So if you dispute everything, the stuff that is actually inaccurate has a less likelihood of being reviewed. It has a less likelihood of being reinvestigated because they might just come back as a SOL letter and might not even look at it. I think that triggers a stall letter more than anything is when everything gets wound up in a dispute and they think it starts coming from a credit repair company. There's nothing illegal about a credit repair company disputing on behalf of a consumer. That's totally fine. The bureau's want to make it seem like sometimes they want to make it seem like it's not okay. It needs to come from the actual consumer. And we sometimes get into the whole power of attorney whatnot. And some. I know credit repair companies get in the business of making themselves a power of attorney to be able to dispute that's not even necessary. It's okay for a credit repair company to help a consumer dispute. There's nothing illegal about that. I know Crow, the CEO of Credit Repair Organizations act has, has rules that need to be followed. But it's not to say that you can't help a client dispute. So when they come back and say they don't think the dispute came from the client and everything is attached saying that the client actually helped provide this information, then there's a better chance of it getting reinvestigated. And a failed reinvestigation leads to a case. And then that's where you get an attorney involved. Not necessarily the fact that something gets disputed and a stall letter gets sent. It's not end all, be all. There's still stuff that can be done. You don't need to send another dispute letter. Sometimes that in itself can act like a verification that they received the dispute.

Awesome. Now we talked a lot about the FCRA last time. What else do you want people to know about the fcra?

There's so many avenues that you can tackle and under the FCRA it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to dispute everything a lot of the time. Well, in my practice, my bread and butter, what I specifically do is I work with credit repair companies who have bankruptcies on their consumer reports. We team up with these credit repair companies, they send us their files that have bankruptcies on them that may have balances that still remain on stuff that should have been discharged in bankruptcy, charge offs that should have been done away with. The bureaus should have themselves known that these things shouldn't be reporting on there anymore. Or if the bankruptcy is dismissed, are their accounts still reporting as included in bankruptcy on the credit report? That's wrong. Because if there's a bankruptcy dismissal, things aren't in bankruptcy anymore. That's just, it doesn't make logical sense. And so people been making payments on their accounts thinking that they're getting the positive credit history for it and they're just not getting it. Some stuff doesn't need to be disputed. Work with a credit credit consumer reporting attorney that can help your clients get compensated or get these things fixed on the credit report. And sometimes a dispute isn't necessary. It's also very beneficial to work with an attorney for your clients when deciding on dispute tactics. How do you want to go about disputing? What language should we use? What should we attach? For example, in a identity fraud case, what do I want to see? As an attorney, you have a client that says hey, all these accounts, they're not mine, I don't know who opened them. Well, get your client to get a police report, get them to get an FTC report, get them to get a CFPB report. The more reports you get of those type and that are attached to a dispute disputing specifically every single account that is inaccurate. I would go ahead and say this Discover account doesn't belong to the client. This American Express account doesn't belong to the client. When you start naming all the accounts, then they narrow in their reinvestigation and then they can go about getting stuff removed off these credit report. If it's, if it's warranted, they'll go ahead and reinvestigate. And if it's not, then we step in. Sometimes you want to connect the client to us, sometimes you give them our information, say hey, I know attorney that can help you and we get the job done for them and they'll be very happy with your service because they don't even have to pay us.

Let's talk about the fdcpa.

So what we also look for sometimes when we team up with credit repair companies is how many collections are reporting on their consumer reports. Because the more collections there are, the more likelihood there is that there is a bunch of these people are getting a bunch of phone calls, they're getting harassing letters sometimes. What I see a lot is also a collection reporting on an account, on a credit report, but at the same time the original creditor is reporting the same debt. Well, now it looks like someone owes the same debt twice. You go apply for a card with Chase and they think that you owe $700 instead of 350 because they're seeing two $350 balances owed. One is the collector, one is the original creditor. You dispute that and they don't remove it. Well then now you have an FCRA case, but also under a case under the Fair Debt Collection Practices act because there also is limits on how debt collectors can report on a consumer credit report. So the FCRA and the FDCPA sometimes work hand. But the things to look out for is when you see a bunch of collections on a consumer's report, you can then advise a consumer, hey, by the way, while I have you on the phone, while I'm talking to you, reviewing your credit report, trying to get those things off, can you tell me, are you getting letters from debt collectors? Are you getting text messages? Because that's now a big case. Are there things that you disputed on with the debt collector that is not being marked as a dispute? Do we have an E8 claim? There's a lot of triggers that can come into place and there's a whole line of questioning that I would go through with the consumer at intake to determine whether there's an FDCP claim as well. And that's the, the added bonus of that is sometimes we get the debt waived for the consumer. Sometimes we get, sometimes we get an fda. Well, pretty much most of the time we get a solid FDCPA settlement or a judgment. Because these things are valid claims when we do bring them. We pick and choose the claims we bring. But sometimes we, sometimes it just leads us to being on the lookout for things that could come up or just advising them of these are the things you should look out for when and if it does happen to you. Because it happens a lot. And now people are educated so they know what to look out for. And then when it does happen, they reach back out to us and we work with them to get it resolved.

So specifically they should look out for.

Well, first of all, harassment. That's, that's happens a lot and it's crazy that it still does. Harassment. They're calling between a certain time after, like let's say they're calling 9pm at night, 10pm at night, they shouldn't be doing that. Or if they're sending you text messages sometimes if you text stop to opt out and they keep sending you those messages, that could still put, and that could be a potential case. Or if you tell them you, you have counsel and to reach out to your attorney to discuss the debt and they reach out to you instead. Another case. Yeah, there's a lot. And then there's if, if you dispute or if you ask for validation, they don't provide that validation. If the letters don't have the proper things that a letter should have, like their address, their phone number, how to get in touch with them. Or if they call you and let's say your mom, or let's say a friend answers your phone and then they tell your friend about your debt, or let's say they start calling your work, they let your work know that you owe a debt. That's third party disclosure. So there's definitely a lot of avenues that it would actually take a class for me to explain. These are all the things that violates the fdcpa. Look out for them. But it's better if I see a bunch of collections. I can just go through the list and say, did a collector ever do this? Did a collector ever do that? And sometimes I get a client to say, as a matter of fact, yeah, that did happen to me. I say, okay, we might have a case.

Awesome. How can credit repair companies prepare their clients for potential legal action against credit bureaus or collection agencies?

Well, the first, the best step is if you help a client dispute to keep record. Because when I, when I, when I want to take over a case, the type of cases I do, one is the post bankruptcy stuff where a credit repair company can send us all of their reports and we'll review them to ensure accuracy. And that's one, that's one area of what we do. The second is, let's see, an actual inaccuracy. Now when I say an actual inaccuracy, I'm saying balances that aren't owed, lates that weren't actually late and we can prove that. Or accounts of someone Else's reporting on their reports and vice versa. Two similar names, two Social Security numbers. So actual inaccuracies and the one, the inaccuracies of the type that make it difficult for somebody to get credit. Just think about it. Am I going to get denied credit because Experian is reporting that I lived at this Illinois address that I never lived at? I'm not going to get denied credit for that. That's not material to me. Getting credit. What Experian is reporting isn't that serious. You can dispute it, get it fixed, but it's not. I'm not injured in a way that I would be injured if Experian was saying that I owe a $10,000 balance to Chase that actually owe nothing to because it was discharged in bankruptcy or let's say it was paid off and they're still saying that I owe this $10,000. Well, now can I attach. Can I attach that to a dispute letter that specifically says that account's not mine? And if I attach my Social Security card, my address, my. All the client's information, a driver's license, and we sent it to Experience Dispute center, and they come back either with the stall letter or a verified as accurate dispute response. Now I have everything I need. I have the credit report the way it looked like before the dispute with all of its attachments, either the response or the stall letter, and then a copy of the actual credit report after the dispute. Now, if I have that all together and I have maybe other letters of saying, hey, you were denied credit for this reason. Attach all of that, send that off to an attorney, ask if you have a case. So that's how a credit repair company can work closely with an attorney to make sure that they have everything they need to review a file.

Awesome. Awesome. Okay, here's a question that was on our YouTube. It's from a viewer named Han Biz and he says, Mr. Hussein, can you also assist with TCPA violations? It's not from a debt collector. It's from a financial company calling me prior to 8am and leaving voicemails, some around 5am I'm on the Do Not.

Call list, the Do Not Call list. Everyone should sign up for that. That's a given. It's very easy to go. Do not call.gov. i recommend this, everybody. I think what they might be doing is also confusing the TCPA with all the fdcpa. The rules of the TCPA versus the. So it doesn't matter in the TCPA whether they're calling before a certain time or after a certain time. But with the tcpa, it triggers a lot. There's a lot of regulation about how a telemarketer can reach out to a consumer and that might be whether it's spam text messages. Let's say you subscribe to Papa John's to send you text messages to alert you about deals, and at some point you get tired of those messages and you text stop to opt out and they continue, let's say after 30 days they continue to send you text messages and you text that stop that one time. You might have a case under the TCPA that could entitle you to up to $1500 per spam text message you received after you texted stop to opt out. That's one type of TCPA case. Another could be if you never signed up to get these, these calls. And you get calls from an identifiable source. And in tcpa, we look, we're not focused on scammers. You might think that, hey, can I sue those people in that call center in India or Pakistan where I'm from, who are calling me non stop trying to get my access to my computer? That's not, I can't sue them under tcpa because I can't. I don't even know they're scammers. They're not an entity, they're not a company. They're not trying to sell you something. You can find other ways to hold them accountable. But the TCPA is not that. What the TCPA sets out for is companies that try to sell you something, identifiable companies, sometimes they'll try to sell, hide themselves under different numbers so that you don't exactly know who's reaching out to you until you click on a few links to find out. But yeah, we're focused on companies that are doing this. So if you never signed up for to get calls and you out of nowhere get calls from, let's say, Blue Cross Blue Sheet trying to sell you insurance. I never signed up for this. I'm on the do not call list and they called me 50 times. Keep track of that. Because you could get compensated for something like that under the tcpa. And if it's happening to you, it could be happening to a million other people. So we bring a lot, a lot of TCPA cases as class actions. We just settled a couple of them and our firm brings these pretty continuously. So just be on the lookout for anytime you get a spam text message from a company, not a scam, not trying to get your information, a spam text message of a company trying to sell you something. And if you had text to stop to opt out, they should have stopped texting. Or if you never signed up for those messages to begin with and you get enrolled in something and then they keep sending you messages that could be a case. You don't even have to tech stop to opt out because they texted you out of the blue. So we're looking for companies that we can actually find and know and verify that they're actual companies, because if we want money from someone or an entity, we want to know where we can get it and if there's pockets that are deep enough that we can even touch. Got it.

Okay. Well, he has a second half to his question, but I think it might be about what you're talking about. He says, also, what about calls from Sallie Mae? They've left over 30 recorded voicemails, but spoofed their calls. My caller ID says potential spam, so of course I didn't answer. They claimed to mail letters, but weren't able to prove this to the calls alone. Could be quite a large settlement.

So it's difficult because Sallie Mae is probably not calling to try to sell them something. What they're calling for probably is telling them about their student loans or their. Their debt, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they're subject to the fdcpa, because student loans aren't a consumer debt. So, no. FDCPA and TCPA might be out of the question because they're not actually a company that's trying to sell them something. They might be just looking for ways to get paid.

Got it. Got it. Hey, in all of your career, what are some of the most egregious violations you've encountered?

Well, outside of consumer protection, we just filed a lawsuit against Foxtrot, which is a company that is in and around Chicago. They're like a coffee shop that have been expanding like crazy. And you would, from the outside would think they're super successful. They had 30 locations across the country, D.C. texas, Chicago, 30 plus locations, thousands of employees. And they all of a sudden closed out of nowhere. And they give their employees no notice. And everybody was laid off. Nobody had jobs lined up. And one day they went to work and found out they don't have a job anymore. So we just filed a class action against them under the Warrant act, which is employment litigation, which isn't normally what I do, but when I see a case like that, and I see it's clear cut, we'll take it. And now we're in the process of litigating it. And that is, it's the most egregious thing I've ever probably filed an appearance on in a case because something like that so many lives are affected in, in such a negative way. And it just goes to show like you corporations aren't really looking out for people and they're in any opportunity I get even outside of consumer litigation to help the little guy, I'm going to do that. And that case has gotten so much media attention, especially because Foxtrot now filed for bankruptcy this week. Sold off a lot of their assets last week. There's a lot of fishy stuff going on because they had a lot of venture capital money. But that's the most egregious thing I've seen in anything I've ever filed. That's an ongoing litigation, that's ongoing case. So I'm excited to see how that turns out. But in regards to the Fair Credit Reporting act, the biggest ones I see are when they refuse to remove stuff that that belong to other people on a consumer's credit report. It makes no sense when you provide them all the information that they need to reinvestigate and they fail to do so. They have the police report, ftc, cfpb. Those are very good cases in terms of what could bring about a monetary settlement.

We got some questions on the last episode about the rules around reporting a bankruptcy and post bankruptcy report. Can you share more information about that?

Yeah, so. So there's this misconception in credit repair that they are reporting a bankruptcy. How dare they. They that that's wrong. That's illegal. They don't have, they don't have authority to report my bankruptcy. They have authority to report public records. There's nothing illegal about them reporting a bankruptcy whether a credit repair company thinks that or otherwise. It's just I can't bring a lawsuit saying that a bankruptcy is reporting it should be removed because it's inaccurate. No, they filed for bankruptcy. Even if it was dismissed. The bankruptcy can be reporting what. Where I step in is when there's accounts that get failed to get picked up along the bankruptcy scrub that should have been zeroed out, that continue to report those balances or those charge offs or those lates that are reporting any status other than a $0 balance and included in bankruptcy or if the bankruptcy is dismissed, anything and if they're reporting a bankruptcy status on an account. So those are the two areas where I would step in. I wouldn't step in just because a bankruptcy is reporting on a consumer report. But those are the type of reports that we want to see. So there's nothing illegal about bankruptcies being reported. What they need to know is that we don't get bankruptcies removed off reports. Imagine that I file a lawsuit, bankruptcy needs to come off. I go to a judge. What does the judge say? Why should the bankruptcy come off? Well, did they file for bankruptcy? Yes. I would look stupid. There's no basis to get the bankruptcy off unless there's some sort of fraud somewhere where someone filed the bankruptcy on your behalf and it's reporting on your report. I could probably get that off. But just the simple act of a bankruptcy reporting on a report isn't necessarily inaccurate. There could be inaccurate things about it. Let's say someone else's bankruptcy is reporting on your report. I could get that off because that's not yours. That's actually inaccurate. But I can't do it if you actually file for that bankruptcy.

Got it. Is there anything else we didn't get to cover first time that you'd like to share with people?

Just don't be afraid to press your rights. You have these protections afforded to you under the law and while it's still good law because it could all go away tomorrow. Press your rights under the fcra, pressure rights under the fdcpa. Work with the consumer attorney that in your it doesn't even have to be in your area because if you work with one, you'll find that that consumer attorney has connections to other attorneys in your area and he can or he or she can facilitate finding the right attorney for your specific issue. You just have that one attorney on staff or on hand that can facilitate all that. Our office is available. Reach out to us. We're more than happy to help and review. Get your clients reports reviewed and fixed.

What's the final piece of advice that you'd give to credit repair companies to help them to better serve their clients?

Don't dispute absolutely everything. Don't use the same type of dispute on every single file. Attach the proper proof to those disputes and if you get a stall letter, sometimes don't even respond to it and let an attorney review it if you think your dispute has merit. And as an attorney I'll always recommend that disputes should have merit. Just don't dispute for the heck of it. Because once a bureau gets all these disputes laid out in front of them, they're not going to review everything. They're not going to get actual things off. And if something doesn't fall off and there's no support behind the reason why it should fall off. Then there's no FCRA liability.

That's awesome advice. How can our audience reach out to you if they want to start working with you?

So it's sh samhenryaseeeb legal h a s e e b legal.com that's my email address. My phone number is 954-225-4934. Give us a text. Let's set up a time to talk about how you can use an attorney alongside your credit repair practice and to hopefully elevate it and provide that added value that I think every credit repair company needs.

That is awesome. And also we're going to put the link over there in the show notes as well. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Haseeb. This was awesome. This was a lot of fun and I wish you.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, we should do this regularly.

Yeah. Anytime I see an update in the law or a new case law comes out, I'm more than happy to hop on and educate your viewers about what might be any recent developments we have.

That sounds awesome. In the meantime, I wish you continued success. And for everyone out there watching and listening, if you want to hear more from Haseeb and learn how debt collectors might owe you money, check out his first interview with me. It is amazing. And if you'd like to improve your credit score and learn how to earn extra income repairing credit for others, check out our brand new Start Repairing Credit Challenge. Doors are closing soon and it is completely free. So sign up right now@startrepairingcredit.com and keep changing lives.