Haseeb Hussain Sues Equifax for a Living. Here's His Warning on Credit Sweeps.

Have people actually gone to prison because of this? Yeah, lots of people. There's a New York operator that got over 5 years and owed $9.3 million back. This was the largest scheme that was ever charged. A North Carolina operator, over 8 years for filing fake ID theft reports. So these are just FTC reports. That's 8 years. I'm a small fish in a large pond. Like, they're not going to catch me. That's what everybody was thinking before. Now these people have 5, 8, 10, 10 years and then $10 million to have to pay back.

Hey, credit heroes, have you seen those ads promising to wipe out all your negative credit in days? Did you ever wonder how they actually do that? Have you thought about trying it yourself, maybe with your own credit? Well, today I'm exposing exactly how they do it, and it's much darker than you think. It's called a credit sweep. It's not a hack, it's not a loophole, and it's not a secret. It's actually a felony. And people are getting fined, they're getting sued, they're getting arrested, sentenced to years in federal prison, all for a shortcut that doesn't even last. I know this sounds crazy coming from two guys who build software. So today we brought in the one person who can tell you exactly where that line is. We have brought in a real FCRA attorney who sues Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion for a living, and he's going to break down what's legal, what's a felony, and how close you might actually be to crossing that line without even knowing it. So you better stick around. My name is Daniel Rosen and welcome to Credit Repair Business Secrets. Okay, let's get into this. If this is your first time watching or listening, I'm Daniel Rosen. I'm the founder of Credit Repair Cloud, which is software that most credit repair companies in America run on. And I got into this years ago because a bank error messed up my own credit and really ruined my life. And every week I share credit repair tips on how to build a successful credit repair business from nothing. So click subscribe now and get ready to start changing lives. Now, I've been in this industry for over 20 years. I've seen scammers come and go. They never last long. And I've seen real credit heroes build some amazing businesses the right way. Now, remember what I was just talking about? Fake police reports, people sitting in prison right now today over this. Well, our guest today, he isn't just someone with an opinion on it. He has built a following of nearly half a million people. Teaching regular folks their legal rights. And there's nobody better to tell you exactly where credit repair ends and where a felony begins. So please welcome back to the show Hasib Hussain. Hey, Hasib.

Hey, Daniel. Thanks for having me back. It's great to be here.

Before we dig in, for anybody who hasn't caught your other episodes, give everybody a quick version. Who are you and what does your law firm actually do?

So my name is Hasib. I am an FCRA attorney. I sue Equifax, Experian, TransUnion almost daily, post-bankruptcy inaccuracies, balances reporting on people's credit report after a bankruptcy, other types of inaccuracies, a paid-off account with the dispute not fixed, FTC violations. We do a lot of disputes, not identity theft claims, everything under the sun when it comes to Fair Credit Reporting Act inaccuracies on credit reports we sue for.

And you work with lots and lots of credit repair companies.

Yeah, absolutely. We work with about over 100 now that just if they find something on their client's credit reports that they think that they could sue over, disputes not fixed, they kick them our way. And we take it from there.

Okay.

So I recently put out a post in our Facebook community to stop doing credit sweeps, which is the fake police reports, false identity theft affidavits, all of it. I said flat out, this is not credit repair, it's fraud and it's illegal. And you actually commented on it and you said, we got to do an episode about the legal risk of all this. So here we are. Let's do it.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So From your position as an FCRA attorney, how big has this credit sweep problem actually gotten? And are people really not realizing they're committing a crime?

Yeah, I think it makes sense to start with what a credit sweep actually is. It's a credit repair company telling a credit bureau that everything on their client's credit report that's bad— collections, charge-offs, late payments— was caused by something like identity theft, even though the client actually racked up those debts themselves. So it's their debt. Debt, they actually owe it, but it's the CRO that's telling the credit bureau, hey, this is not theirs, this is somebody else's. And to make that lie stick, they file fake identity theft reports on the FTC's website, or they get a fake or forged police report. They actually go to a police station, get a report written up saying that they were identity— like their identity was stolen, even though that account was theirs all along. And then the law forces the bureaus to quickly block anything that genuinely resulted from identity theft. So the scheme hijacks a protection meant for real victims. And this has gotten so bad that the DOJ, the FTC, they're all cracking down on it and punishing those that take part of it.

Well, see, but I love to know, like, with— because you're on TikTok and social, like, out of all the advice that's been given on TikTok and Instagram and whatnot, like, what percent do you see in, like, the category of sweeps versus legitimate credit repair advice?

So I will say this. Not only am I on social media, but I also have credit repair companies that send us a ton of their files. And I would say that maybe the majority of them are results of credit sweeps, people that have went to police stations just trying to get everything off their report and by saying it's identity theft, fake FTC reports. So it's come to the point where I actually have to scratch my head at every identity theft claim that I'm looking at, because a lot of the times it's not actually identity theft. And I've kind of found sort of a gauge on whether I consider something to be identity theft or not. I will talk to the client, I will get to the bottom of it, because at the end of the day, what I'm doing is I am paying out of my own pocket money to file these lawsuits on behalf of people. And if these turn out to be just BS identity theft claims where they're not actually— their identities were actually not stolen, then I'm out that $500, and that's bad for business. So I've, I've sort of developed an eye to tell what actually is identity theft and what actually isn't. And sort of the meter that I, I go off of now is I look at the account that they're saying was a result of identity theft and see, was there ever payments made on this account? And that's sort of my way of determining, hey, like, if somebody is going to steal your identity, would they actually pay an account on your behalf? Probably not. That probably is your account. I'm not going to take your case. And it's not always like the best for me to call out BS when I see it, but I will sort of sometimes make up an excuse. I'm like, hey, we just don't have the bandwidth right now because I don't want to tell somebody that, hey, I think you're lying to me, but we'll look for other reasons.

Well, for the people out there that have done this, like a listener right now, maybe they— whether it's they're doing it themselves or they got taught wrong and they— or they just spent $1,500 and their credit was sweep last month, their credit report looks clean. And they think they got away with it. But what actually happens next after that process? What are the consequences of what they're doing?

Oh, I was going to add to that. And what are the consequences not just for the CRO, but are there consequences for the client?

Yeah.

So let's start with why doing these credit sweeps is a crime for the company. So every fake letter they mail, every fake report they file online is fraud. It's mail fraud and it's wire fraud, lying to a federal agency. That's the main charge. So wire fraud alone could meet up to 20 years per account. So if they use somebody else's identity along the way, like let's say they're using— let's say they made up somebody and say, hey, this person stole my identity, or if it's a false accusation, that could add a mandatory 2 years. So filing or forging police reports can also break state law. There's actually a company that I read about that forged 174 police reports and they got with racketeering, which is a very scary charge, and forgery felonies, including literally what the prosecutors call them was running a forgery lab. So on top of the criminal stuff, there's also a federal law specifically for credit repair companies called CROA that you're violating before you even violate criminal law. So think about that. You're violating CROA before the fraud even starts. Charging money upfront, obviously not allowed. And telling clients that they're told to lie to a bureau— Experian, Equifax, TransUnion— that's also not allowed. The FTC SEC and DOJ shut these types of operations down repeatedly, and then they banned some of these owners from the industry for life. Sometimes they freeze their money, which is devastating. Everything you think you're going to be making, you don't make anymore because that profit gets disgorged. And then obviously you piss off your own customer, who can also sue you too under laws like CROA and other causes of action. So, but we also have to talk about why this could also be a crime for the customer who is hiring you. And this goes for not just credit repair, but even like somebody hiring me as a lawyer, Hiring a professional doesn't always protect you. If somebody is acting on your behalf, that's an agency relationship. Even though they're the ones doing it, you may still be the one that's responsible. So if you sign a sworn statement and if it's you who's actually signing saying your debts were opened by a thief, by doing that, and it's actually your debt that you owe, you just lied to the federal government when you do an FTC report. That has serious consequences. I cannot stress that enough. To the point of perjury. So you lying to the federal government is a serious offense. You may have filed a false police report, sometimes in some— just as bad of an offense. People have been charged individually and not just the company. So this, this has been punished. This has happened and it's been punished. So if you then use your freshly cleaned credit report, let's say everything falls off and you go get a mortgage or a car loan, you just committed loan fraud. So there's not just fraud just doing this, there's fraud on every level. You taking those accounts off and then going to get a mortgage or a loan, you then have committed another type of fraud, which is loan fraud. So this gets really bad. This gets really, really bad.

I know some people are going to be skeptical out there. They're the small operators. And I mean, some people are taught bad and but they're also thinking like, oh, I'm so small, they're not going to go after me. I mean, what do you say to people like them?

I'll tell you this. Have, have people actually gone to prison because of this? Yeah, lots of people. There's a New York operator that got over 5 years and owed $9.3 million back. This was the largest scheme that was ever charged. A North Carolina operator, over 8 years for filing fake ID theft reports. So these are just FTC reports. That's 8 years. There's a Georgia guy, 5 years for mass mailing all identity theft letters. He took in $8 million, spent it on cars, jewelry. All of that had to get sold, and the money was owed back. Two Miami-Dade police employees were actually in on this scheme as well. There's another scheme where two Miami-Dade police officers were filing these fraudulent police police reports on behalf of people who also got in trouble because of this for victims that they never even met. There's a Texas case, I think, uh, over 10 years for a scheme that faked identity theft to pump clients' credit. So people have been punished for this. And if you are doing it and you are growing your, like, your credit repair practice, you'll get all the wrong radars, and, uh, it could come down on you before you even know it. And the people I'm sure that this has happened to thought, hey, I'm just way too small, like, I'm, I'm a small fish in a large pond, like, they're not going to catch me. That's what everybody was thinking before. Now these people have 5, 8, 10, 10 years and then $10 million to have to pay back.

It's so insane. And I was really shocked when I heard about them filing fake human trafficking claims. That's really creepy. Why would they even go so far? Does it make it come off faster?

Yeah, so this is like— the human trafficking is the newest, ugliest variant of all of this. And, uh, so basically, like, in 2021, Congress passed the Debt Bondage Repair Act, which created the FCRA. And because Trafficking survivors often came out with destroyed credit, evictions, default, unpaid bills. This allowed for them to, to get back on their feet. And to exploit that particular aspect of the FCRA and the, and the Bondage Repair Act, it's dirty. It is very dirty. The scam in practice is just like, they'll take it off the report and it has a higher likelihood of getting it off, and it's pitched as this glitch, but they're doing it in all the wrong ways. Like, to lie about fake trafficking claims, this happening at the astronomical levels that it's happening at, this is— they're going to come down on this stronger than all the other times that they've been coming down on this just through like fake FTC identity theft reports.

Yeah, it's horrific. And you are seeing that the enforcement is ramping up.

The enforcement is ramping up because it is shown to be more effective because these things have a higher likelihood of coming off of a credit report or getting a response from the bureaus than just run-of-the-mill identity theft. So, and it's being abused at way higher rates. It's kind of crazy.

And at the same time, real identity theft is surging as well because of, you know, AI and deepfakes and all that kind of stuff. I've actually been the victim of identity theft. It didn't affect my credit. I was lucky. But they're getting really, really smart.

It's a shame because this, this kind of runs into like this whole boy who cried wolf thing. Like now everybody is spewing identity theft. Now everybody is spewing human trafficking. But when you, when you then you take a deep breath and you look at it like, how many of them are actually just making it up? And the actual identity theft victims, they then don't get their disputes responded to because there's such an influx of all these identity theft disputes like clogging the system and all. And to have all these fake disputes come in, how many of the real ones are going to get reviewed? Sure, it makes up, makes for a great FCRA case when it comes to me, because when they don't get reviewed, obviously we can sue. But it's such a shame that like the dispute process is in shambles and things aren't coming off people's reports because of all these— the influx of fakeness that comes in.

You know, we've always said real credit repair works and you don't need shortcuts or loopholes. From a lawyer's chair, what does legitimate, defensible credit repair actually look like?

Well, to identify things on people's credit report that can be— that you can make an issue out of. Like, let's say, like, you need to run down your client's credit report with the client to identify, hey, Hey, any of these accounts look off to you? Like, were you actually late on this specific month? Comparing each of the bureaus and the way they're reporting and see, okay, one of them's off and one of them's reporting this $6,000 balance when the other reporting $3,000. Like, there was obviously a payment made. Can we do some digging and can we do some investigating into why this is reporting the way it is? And to send a valid dispute, say, hey, this account was paid for in this month and you're not updating it. Send that over as a dispute and see what it comes back as. And if it's, if it's not fixed, if your client actually paid that amount and it's not fixed, you can then sue. The client can sue for that. And if it's an actual legitimate dispute that was— and the inaccuracy is causing you damage, the FCRA is your friend when it comes to credit repair. Like, do not shy away from pressing those rights and valid disputes, identifying actual inaccuracies that you run through the report with, with your client to determine what those inaccuracies are. It's way more effective than risking your client facing all these trouble, risking you facing all this trouble with fake FTC reports, credit sweeps, fake human trafficking reports, which may not stick at the end of it all because this stuff still gets investigated. If you file a dispute that has an identity theft case on it and it's a fake identity theft case, it's gonna get investigated, it's gonna get blocked. Yeah, sure, you're gonna sweep your client's credit, it's gonna get blocked until they've completed their investigation because they're still gonna do that, they still have to do that. And so those things can pop up back on the report If, if it turns out that the investigation showed that there was an actual real identity theft and everything came back verified as accurate, and then you're left with nothing, you got yourself in trouble. If you get investigated for it and the accounts will come off the client's credit reports.

Well, for all the credit repair professionals out there, you talked a little bit about like what real credit repair looks like. Is there anything you wish credit repair professionals understood about the law before they touched client files?

There's a lot that I wish credit repair professionals would understand. And you would always constantly see me in, in actually a Facebook group telling credit repair professionals what, what they should start to understand. And I'm notorious for that. But I think the biggest thing is not everything is an FCRA case. Like, you have to prove that something harmed your client's credit file for it to become a, become a case where you can actually sue for. But that doesn't mean that you still can't dispute to get those things updated. Like, let's say there's a date that's off on like an open date on an account, you could still send disputes and you may have a basis to get that off. I mean, or updated on the credit report. That's not to say that it's something that you could sue for later because you still have to prove that your client was harmed by it. But I wouldn't shy away from sending disputes on something that doesn't look right just because it may not lead to a Fair Credit Reporting Act case. And that might mean you just going line by line on a credit report to compare every single trade line all across the three bureaus to making sure everything Everything is proper. Another thing I would probably suggest is make your disputes effective. Don't throw a bunch of language in the dispute that's just like intending on confusing the credit reporting agency. You sometimes— it makes more sense to be very clear in the dispute or even attach proof in the dispute. When people send more like Metro 2 disputes, I see a lot of vague language and it sounds like a sovereign citizen wrote it. We call in legalese is like these people that are very— send very frivolous, like, lawsuits and are very litigious. It sounds like some of them wrote it because I've seen those types of complaints in federal litigation. You don't want to sound like that. You don't want to make your clients sound like that. Just send plain language disputes and see if things come off that way. And if there's something actionable, have it reviewed by a lawyer.

When you talked a little bit about the line of if it becomes an FCRA case, if the consumer had harm done Where is that line for you? And what— has there been a case that surprised you that you— that's been on that line?

So I try to think of it this way. If I have an inaccuracy on my credit report and if I go to get a Honda loan, let's say, through a creditor, I'm trying to get a car, they're going to look at my credit report. Are they going to deny me credit on the basis that my Citibank account is reporting that it was opened a week after I actually opened it? Probably not.

Not.

I know it's not the right date and they may know it's not the right day by looking at all 3 reports, but I'm not going to get denied credit on that basis. Will I get denied credit on the fact that I paid that Citibank account off and they're still reporting as if I still owe $300 on it? Maybe. Yeah, because now I have a derogatory on my account and I might get credit at less favorable rates or denied completely on that basis. Identity theft. If I have accounts that aren't mine on my report and I'm actually a a victim of identity theft and it's not coming off after I dispute it. Well, now my credit, my credit score is shot and there's no way I'm getting credit. So that's definitely harming you. So it's, it's not about addresses that are old. It's not about, okay, one, one day of my birthday is off. It's not about one letter in my name being misspelled unless the creditor that checks my report tells me it is. Hey, you're, Your name isn't this, it's that. We can't give you credit. Now it's ruining my life, right? Like, I want to hear that, like, that I'm not getting the type of rates that I would have otherwise gotten had that account been accurate. Or am I being flat out denied on the basis of that inaccuracy? And am I being told that that makes for a good FCRA case? Because I can, I can tie the harm to the reporting. And the more you're able to do that, the better FCRA case you have. And we could seek more in damages for your client too.

Daniel, I'll pass back to you.

Yeah, I got one.

Okay.

For real identity theft, what should the consumer do? I'm a consumer. I just realize accounts have been opened. I don't know what these accounts are. It just happened to me. I'm freaked out. What do I do?

Perfect. So first of all, freeze your credit reports. I would advise you to freeze your credit because you are a victim of identity theft. People are going to open credit in your name as they continue to do so. The first thing I would do, police report. Go to the police station, and in that police report, if, if the jurisdiction allows, just name all the accounts that were open in your name. And if you think you know who did it, name that person. Don't be— if they're, if they're actually stealing your identity, don't be afraid of getting them in trouble. They're stealing your identity and running up debts. You need to look out for yourself. Name that person. Have an actual, like, investigation ran on that person. The second thing you should do, FTC report, ftc.gov.. It's very self-explanatory. You go down and you, you fill out and you identify every account that was open in your name. And if you can, CFPB report. Those 3 reports, have them all saved as PDFs. And it's very simple from there. When you dispute, very simple dispute letter. Hey, I am a victim of identity theft. All these accounts were open in my name. See attached police report, FTC report, CFPB report. Attach them all. Attach your driver's license, attach your Social Security card, attach whatever you got to do. Have a return address, send it out certified mail. Certified mail is best because now we could guarantee that it's sent and we get it. And the time for them to fix it starts ticking until, until they can't. Until those 30 days run, it's going to be hard for me to get credit because I have identity theft. So my damages are accruing. I'm not— even if I don't apply for credit, my damages are accruing because I can't apply for credit while I'm facing identity theft. So you put them on notice and then you get a a response in the mail. If they deleted it, great, you did your job. Like, you as a creditor pay company did your job, you got your client's accounts removed. If they didn't, at that point you have a valid FCRA case because now you're being damaged by this. And I would at that point send to a consumer attorney like myself who could handle that at no cost to your client. We file a lawsuit, and within a couple months we get it fixed. And you know, the best part about filing a lawsuit is because it opens up the stream of communication between the client and the credit bureau, because I'm in touch with their attorneys. And what I can request is, hey, this is ruining my credit, my client's life. And before you guys even do your investigation, is it possible that I can request that you guys suppress this account while we're in litigation? And more often than not, they do that. They stop reporting those accounts. And you could accomplish that within a few days of just even filing the lawsuit. So no waiting 30 days. Like, they— that the time that they had to fix it has ran. And a lot of the times they are pretty accommodating in suppressing trade lines when you need them to in real identity theft cases. But let's say all of that was BS and you in fact lied to me and you, you got all those reports. I filed the lawsuit, I spent the money to do it. And you know what the bureaus are going to do? They're going to do their investigation and say, wait a second, your client has been sending us BS disputes for all these years. Why should we believe this FTC report? As a matter of fact, I, I'm seeing that he's paid these accounts for months. Like, why is he saying this is identity theft? Like, why? What identity thief would pay off these accounts for. And then I go back to you and say, like, Dan, are you being real with me? Because I just spent $500 to file your lawsuit and all this time. And sometimes I've had to dismiss— voluntarily dismiss cases that I was lied to about identity theft. So it's very effective when it's real, but very bad when it's not.

So if a credit repair business owner has been doing sweeps and they want to stop, what should they do right now to protect themselves and their clients?

Once you've done sweeps on behalf of your clients, like now you have all these clients that you've done them for, and just because you stop doesn't mean that you're not liable for what you've done in the past. But it is a factor in what the government— because it is the government that prosecutes this. This is a federal offense because you're lying on FTC reports. But not only that, a lot of this stuff happens via mail, and when something happens via mail and things cross state lines, then you get into federal territory. This isn't something that you're local police officer. The NYPD isn't gonna like come down and like knocking at your door. This is like the federal government. So at that point, corrective action is a factor that they'll consider. And I don't know whether they're not going to bring charges because you fixed your practices, but it is something that if like, let's say they do bring charges, you can tell the judge when there's a federal case against you that, hey, I've actually fixed the way I doing this long before I even knew I was being investigated for this. That's the route I would take.

And are the credit bureaus referring these to the federal agencies and the police?

They're working close with them. They have every reason to do so, right? Like, they— TransUnion has been notorious about, like, cracking down on credit sweeps. So if they notice that, hey, all of these disputes are coming from the same place and it's not a consumer, it's this mill that's just sending us dispute they'll send it right over. And then all of a sudden, when you think you're a small scale, but you've been sending— you have 1,000 clients and you've been sending all these disputes to TransUnion, your name is on the wrong list at this point, buddy. So if I was doing this, I wouldn't be sleeping easy at night no matter what size I am.

Yeah, it makes me nervous just talking about it. What's the one thing you wish every credit repair professional understood about the law before they touch a client's file?

I think these credit repair professionals should understand that don't make promises you can't keep. If there's an inaccuracy on a credit report, I wouldn't guarantee that you can get it off because then you're heading towards troubled waters and you want to avoid making those promises because once you find yourself down that rabbit hole, then you're going to try to do whatever you can. And that's how we get into human trafficking, FTC reports, fraudulent police reports. Set expectations and don't guarantee anything. Say, we'll try our best. We'll look at your credit report. We'll review it for— the safest word in credit repair, in my opinion, and even FCR RA litigation is I always bring it back to inaccuracies. Always bring the conversation back to inaccuracies, not derogatories, not negatives, inaccuracies. And the more you do that, the more this becomes legitimate. Because what are we entitled to? Accurate credit reporting, not positive credit reporting, not getting anything we want off the report. We're entitled to 100% accurate credit reporting. And the more we bring the conversation back to that, even in your sales pitch to people, You can't go wrong because what you're— what are you promising? I'm promising that I can help you get your credit report as accurate as possible. I promise that as an attorney, when I file these FCRA cases, I try my best to get you accurate credit reporting, not positive credit reporting, not deletions. I'll try for deletions, but I can get you accurate credit reporting. And I would stick to that language.

That's good advice. Keenan, you got anything?

Yeah, I'm going to jump back a little bit. It might be an insert for earlier, You built nearly half a million followers teaching people how to fight for their legal rights. What questions do you get asked the most from your audience? What does that tell you about the people out there or just consumers that need help?

I started making videos about how you can reverse it on debt collectors and if a debt— how to get a debt collector to pay you. And that stuck. And that's why I have the audience I do. I think it was a TikTok. It was a COVID TikTok audience and it blew up from there. But I think I think that kind of got me a lot of inquiries about people getting sued by debt collectors or creditors, which I don't do. That's debt defense, and everybody thinks I do that. And I think that what that's told me is there are more people than I think that are getting sued by creditors in this country. And what that's also told me is maybe I should, I should switch my practice into doing that. The reason why I haven't is— or debt defense— is the reason why I haven't is because then I would have to charge hourly for it, and I don't want to charge. I'm a lawyer for the little guy, and I don't want to charge my clients. All my fees always get paid on the back end in these Fair Credit Reporting Act cases. The defendant pays our fees. But in debt defense cases where consumers think, hey, can you take it on contingency? I'm like, what do you mean take it on contingency? We're not getting anything by me defending you. We're actually fighting them taking money from you. So that's not how contingency works. And I don't think people quite understand that.

With the cases that you have done, what's been the biggest settlement or verdict that you've gotten in credit-related cases?

The biggest cases are these either mixed file cases or these identity theft cases because they're the most damage, the most damage that a consumer can get. But they're still not— they're still not as valuable as background check cases, which is still FCRA. But if somebody is denied employment because they have a background check where somebody— there's like like a fraud that's on somebody's, like, credit background check credit report that's actually not theirs, and they can't get a job because of it. Now we're talking damages, and you can directly tie the harm to the actual damage and the inaccuracy on the credit report, and that's holding somebody from getting a job. Those pay out tens of thousands, sometimes even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Those are the most valuable types of cases. And it's still— it's— I think a lot of people in the credit repair space don't understand that background Direct reporting is still credit. And I think if you can niche down to it as a credit repair professional and some people may, may want to look into that, I think there's a huge market that hasn't been tapped.

For some people out there might be thinking they're safe too because they've had their client file the identity theft report themselves and their hands are clean. I mean, what do you say to the people that have done that or been taught that?

So there is something in criminal law called being an accomplice. And if you are helping somebody carry out a crime, you can be charged as if you're the one who did that crime. And for that person, I would say you are aiding and abetting a criminal act.

What about for the person who says, okay, I don't want to file a false police report, so I'll just make one on my computer. I'm pretty good at Photoshop.

That is the worst thing that somebody can do. You do not want to make a fake police report at the state level. Then you are also getting in trouble. Let's understand the diff— the difference between a federal crime and a state crime. And the last thing you want is for you to be charged in both the federal and the state level, because then you have two cases to fight. So yeah, I would not do that. I would— and that's very easy to suss out, because let me tell you, credit bureaus get sent— they've probably been sent a police report from every jurisdiction in the United States ever. Like, they have a copy of it and they know what it looks like. And if you go on ChatGPT and tell it to generate a police report and it doesn't look like what they already have, they're gonna know. And what the— what will they do? They'll send it to the authorities. And who's going to get investigated?

You.

Who might get in trouble? You and your client.

It's—

earlier, it's—

it sounded like you had kind of studied the news stories out there of these crazy cases of what's happened in the space. What's the craziest one you saw? What's the most wild, bizarre case?

Oh, I, I have one for you. And actually, I had it pulled up earlier, but this one, this is, I think, the worst case that has ever come down in, uh, fraudulent FTC reports is this guy Michael Griffin, and he's in North Carolina. He basically ran this Flagship Credit Sweep, like, boutique, and this is the biggest prosecution I think that's ever happened. And he ended up getting 8 years on the case, so that's like 100 months. He ran a credit repair business, accepted client fees, clean credit data, all of it was fictitious. Police reports, clients' names on fraudulent police reports. And these clients—

the bad—

the worst part is like sometimes clients know you're doing this, but these clients didn't even know that this was happening. So he was giving them this promise that he was getting stuff off their credit report. Little did these clients— and, you know, I think there is some sort of release from liability if you hire a credit repair company and all of this is done without your knowledge. Like, the more knowledge you have, the more you're going to be involved with it. But as a client, if I don't know that this is happening on my half, or I— if like, or, or if you— even if you have a reason to know, even if you could be punished, but if I have no clue at all, then I might be absolved. But investigators found electric, uh, templates for creating fraudulent police reports when they, when they raided him. Social Security cards, bank statements, thumb drives, all containing false police reports, and that he sent to the Bureau. So he got 100 months and 5 years of supervised release, but I think he had to give up like $10 million. It was, it was something crazy.

He was making a lot of money.

Yeah.

And you know, uh, in that case, 7 of his relatives who were working with him, like I said, accomplices, they were all convicted too and all sentenced to as much as, uh, to over a year.

Not worth it.

This is, this is very easily searched. Like, if you want a list of all, like, this is all DOJ, the Department of Justice prosecutes this. Like, they— so US Attorney's Office. This isn't a joke. Like, it's all very public. And you could look all this stuff up.

Flipping back to your firm and the clients that you've worked with, what's the wildest case that you've taken on where you've won against the bureaus? But it's just— what— just a wild story.

The wildest ones was where actually I was duped by people that have told me that they're facing identity theft. And some of this stuff was so believable. When I speak to them, everything was just so believable. And then, and then I get burned because I spend the money, I staff the case, I file it, and then you only learn about it sometimes through discovery or after the bureaus actually investigate it when you bring it as a filed lawsuit. Uh, and then you hold your head and say, how could you do this to me? And you're left holding the bag really because you're not getting paid. No one's paying you. You have to dismiss the case because you can't in good faith continue to litigate it. You spent the money to file it, so that gets thrown away, and you're not getting compensated for the time you actually put into it. So you just kick the case back to the client. So it's a very awkward, very awkward situation. That's the craziest when it comes to identity theft. But I think the craziest case I filed was background check cases where the background check, they did a drug test and it came back as a false positive. And it's because this guy, like, it said he was taking coke, cocaine, but I think he took some medicine that they didn't realize. Now he disputed it saying like, this medicine is known to cause false positive in cocaine testing, and he couldn't get a job for weeks because of this. And I think that paid out really, really, really well.

Credit-related cases. Are there any cases you filed that you're like, it's kind of 50/50, you might win it, or you weren't confident on it, but you're really surprised that it got through and you got that win for the client?

Sometimes in cases where I bring a lawsuit and it's over inaccurate reporting, and the reporting is wrong, but the accurate reporting would've still been negative. Like the alternative report, like how do we fix it? It would still not be great for the client. And those are on the fence type cases where like, okay, can we really prove that it was harming the client if it was going to be bad anyways? All these cases usually just settle. So a settlement in my book is a win. We don't go to trial on these. They like, I can't tell you, I don't think I've, I know a lot of consumer attorneys. I don't know if I don't know any that have gone to trial on these. All will settle before trial. So a settlement is a win in my book. Sometimes you bet that you might just get past summary judgment in these, which is like part of the legal process. Like if you've passed your motion to dismiss, you get into discovery, you pass summary judgment, and then they get set for trial. If you get as far in these cases that something's going to get set for trial, they usually settle. So the cases where that, I'm surprised that I even get settlements on are the ones where the reporting, the alternate reporting, had it been right, was still bad because it's hard to tie that to like to say that you were damaged by it if it was bad anyways.

Got it. Makes sense. With all the social media out there, are there any credit myths you wish would die?

I think there's so many credit myths I wish would die. I think the biggest one might be that I always got to bring it back to the bankruptcy. Sometimes the biggest myth is that a bankruptcy is really bad for your credit report. But a lot of people don't realize that the bankruptcy actually suppresses its existence on a public record, suppresses balances from showing up. And I've seen credit reports where TransUnion reporting the bankruptcy, Experian reporting the bankruptcy, Equifax failed to report the bankruptcy. They didn't even dispute it off. It just never reported it. And Equifax is the lowest score. Why is that? They're not reporting bankruptcy. But the reason for it is because all these balances are reporting that the bankruptcy would have stopped from appearing. So everyone's just caught up on the public record, but a lot of people aren't thinking about the balances. I think that's my biggest credit myth, and that's what we're here for. We review all bankruptcy credit reports.

Out of all the bureaus you work with— Equifax, Experian, TransUnion— what's, what's the easiest ones to work with? What's the hardest to get wins?

I think I fostered a pretty good relationship with all of them to the point where, like, they know me. They, when they see my name on a case, they know me and they know that I'll take them all the way. But we've become very cordial. I think it's the same with all 3 of them at this point. I don't, I wouldn't say one is much. I think Experian gave us a lot of trouble early on. They were the toughest to come around. But I think at this stage they've come around to work pretty well with us.

With all those TikTok gurus out there teaching bad tactics, what's one thing you tell all those TikTok gurus?

Sometimes I respond to them. Them and I make like response videos to them and they, they shut, they shut me down immediately. And then I tell them, wait, I'm actually, I do this as a, for a living. This is my legal practice. And then they say, what kind of lawyer are you? Because everyone's stuck on the fact that they think that everything's entitled to come off a credit report. And I repeatedly say, no, it's not. Inaccuracies are not derogatory, not just anything that you want off of a credit report. But the main selling point for these TikToks TikTok gurus is they have to make it sound sexy and appealing so that they can get clients. So it sounds much better to say, hey, you are entitled to this coming off your credit report, or these student loans are illegally reporting on your credit report, versus you're entitled to get inaccuracies off your credit report. It's much easier to, as a sales pitch, to, to lie when it's a flat-out lie versus actually being honest about it. But when you call them out, you get a lot of backlash. But it's great for both because then you get a attention for both, and then people find you and then hire you. So it's a win-win. Just responding in general is a win-win.

I got one. When you're working with a credit repair company, what are the best kinds of cases that they could keep an eye out to hand over to you?

So the best types are mixed files. When a— when, like, let's say there's a brother and sister, they have— they live at the same place and their accounts are reporting on each other's reports. Very easy to spot. Your clients will usually tell you. The others are when there's a debt buyer and an original creditor reporting the same balance, and it's easy to cross-check. You will usually see the debt buyer writes the original creditor and the balances are the same because then it makes it look like you owe it twice when you don't. So that's, that's another good one to look out for. Or if there's just a bankruptcy on a credit report, I, I would have that reviewed by a lawyer because we're going to see a lot of things that you're not even think about. That comes with its own set of inaccuracies. Balances after bankruptcy, if an account was open after bankruptcy reporting because if it's included in bankruptcy, if a bankruptcy is dismissed and it's still reporting bankruptcy trade lines, there's a number of them. So that's not even something you need to worry about. If you just send the report to a consumer attorney, hey, can you just review my client's credit report? Very easy. The other things are identity theft, but we're not going to know what's wrong on your credit consumer's file. That's like something you have to talk to the client about.

Got it. So if they can find— if they're having a, let's they're reviewing a new client's credit report, they see one of those items that looks like it's a good candidate to hand to you. Should they do any disputing on those accounts or should they talk to you first?

So we— if a credit repair company wants to run dispute language by us and say, hey, like, I'm about to dispute this, we are more than happy to help you guys and like figure out the best way to frame it so that these things come out as verified as accurate if they do, or if they get investigated educated properly so that we give enough information so that we're not making it look like, like I said, the sovereign citizen type of disputes where it's just a bunch of legal like jargon thrown into a dispute. Because what it does is it makes it look—

your client—

it makes your client look crazy. Because these— a dispute essentially is your client's statement. And as you know, in law, everything you say can be used against you. This is not just like the Miranda right that you hear police say. Everything, every statement you ever make is a statement that you make that can be used as evidence in court, as a statement that you said. So you don't want a paper trail because a dispute is filed as evidence in a federal lawsuit to come back and make your client look bad. So it does benefit you to come to an attorney to get dispute language down so that you make for a— basically setting the record straight and getting— making for a good FCRA case. But yeah, absolutely. If you see one of those issues, you can reach out, or if you just see a bankruptcy on a credit report before you dispute, because I know what you're going to do in the dispute. You're going to try to dispute the bankruptcy off. All these credit repair companies want to do that. Just have it reviewed by us before you do something that's going to harm your client.

Fill in the blank. Real credit repair is all about what?

Inaccuracies.

And what's the best advice you ever got from another attorney?

Never settle for less.

Ah, I like that. What's next for you? What's the next big goal?

We are putting together a platform platform for inaccurate credit. It's literally called inaccuratecredit.com, where it's a platform for our clients, it's a platform for us, it's a CRM essentially. And what it does is it— and what I want to get it to is where somebody can actually just upload a credit report and have it have our AI review it. And if there's a case, it's already on our platform. We're attorneys and we get in touch with the client and retain them and file lawsuits. And then at the end of the case, well, actually after we file it, they get to every aspect of the case filing, what status it's in, what the inaccuracy is. It's very cool. So it's in development right now, but it kind of has like a— you can actually take a look at it right now, but it's inaccuratecredit.com. And that's going to also be the place where we can get in touch.

That's super cool. And in the meantime, how can people find you? How can they reach out to you and work with you?

Hasib Legal, H-A-S-I-B Legal, L-E-G-A-L. If you Google that, all of our information is right there. sh@hasiblegal.com. .com or now in accuratecredit.com.

Well, this was awesome. It was a lot of fun. Thanks so much for being here.

It's always a pleasure, Daniel.

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