I’m Being Sued by the CFPB!

Hey, credit heroes. If you are in the credit repair industry, you may have heard last week that a lawsuit was filed against our company and me by the cfpb. Now, I'm not going to lie, this is one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me. But unfortunately, when a company grows big enough, you start to become a target of all kinds of crazy legal situations. Giant companies like Facebook, Google and Apple, they have lawsuits happening continually, even against similar federal enforcement agencies. It just comes with a territory when you have a large enough business. And now it's my turn. So I guess we've hit the big time. So you may be wondering, how does this affect you? What? Well, I want to take a few minutes to tell you all about it. And more importantly, I want to tell you exactly what you can do to steer clear of trouble in your business. This is the most important podcast I have ever made, so you better stick around.

So the big question is this. How can we take our passion for helping people with their credit and turn it into a successful business without taking loans? Without spending a fortune by bootstrapping it from nothing so we can help the most people and still become highly profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Daniel Rosen, and welcome to Credit Repair Business Secrets.

Okay, before we get into this, I'm required to say this for today's podcast. This podcast is for educational purposes only and and is not intended to be legal advice. The information shared here is accessible to the public and based on my review and understanding, I'm not a lawyer and I suggest that if you have legal questions, please consult with a lawyer. It's necessary to obey all state licensing requirements and any applicable federal and state laws that that your lawyers deem applicable. Okay, let's get into this. There is so much misinformation out there on the Internet, especially when it comes to the laws around credit repair. So I have created a booklet that I want to share with you. It's called the Credit Hero's Guide to the Law, and it has links to all the major laws that you need to know about credit repair. It has important information about the TSR, and it has information to help you in your efforts to remain legal and compliant. And you can download it completely free@creditrepaircloud.com law okay, let's get into this. For those of you who don't know my story, I started building Credit repair cloud almost 20 years ago when a bank error destroyed my credit. And I thought of it as a way to Help other people who were having the same trouble as me. So there I was. I had this big idea and a big dream, but I was totally broke. So I tried to get investors and they all said no. So I sat in a little room for three years I lived on top Ramen and I slowly bootstrapped credit repair cloud for from nothing. And then little by little, over the years, I've grown it into a very large software company with thousands of businesses running on it and a team of 90 people helping to make it an awesome experience. It's my most proud accomplishment that I have ever had in my life. And I'm especially proud of all the people who've been able to start their own business on it. People. People who've been able to quit their 9 to 5 and have financial freedom. And the 42 people on the wall here behind me who have each made over a million dollars in their credit repair cloud. And most importantly, the millions of lives that we all change. So now let's talk about the cfpb. CFPB stands for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It was created in 2011 as a response to the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 and the Great Recession that followed. Now, I don't know about you, but those were really, really rough years for me. While I was building credit repair cloud, bank of America was playing games with my mortgage. I was making all all of my payments on time, but they weren't applying them. So that put me into collections, which is horrible. Have you ever been in collections? It really sucks. I would be up all night with programmers trying to build credit repair cloud and then I'd be woken up every morning very early with collection calls from bank of America. And again, I was never late, I never missed a payment. But they were playing all kinds of nasty games to try to take my house. Now back then most of the banks were doing crooked things like this. It was like the wild west. And this went on for a year, but eventually I hired an attorney and guess what, bank of America suddenly found all my on time payments and they stopped playing games with my mortgage. Now right around that time, the CFPB was created to stop the big bad banks and the evil credit bureaus from taking advantage of consumers. This seemed like a really noble cause, but unfortunately it was not well planned out because there are very few controls on the CFPB for from reading rules and laws with respect and enforcing them fairly. So the idea initially was that the CFPB would be the watchdog agency that would protect consumers from the banks and bureaus. And it went that way for a while, but they don't seem to be doing that anymore. And now they are harassing people who actually do help consumers. Here's why this is important. For all the decades that credit repair has existed, it has been governed by its own special set of laws, which is called croa, the Credit Repair Organizations act, which was created by Congress to be the law of the land for exactly how credit repair businesses can operate and charge. And everything we do and teach here at Credit Repair Cloud has always been based on a respect for crowa. But when the CFPB decided to start harassing people in credit repair who were helping consumers, they had to find a reason. So what they did was they found a very obscure part of an old regulation that, that no one had ever heard of, called the tsr, the Telemarketing Sales rule, which states that if the sale occurs over the phone, the client can't be charged until at least six months after the work is done. Now, there is no business in America that can wait to be paid until six months and after they deliver their service. It's just absurd. No company of any kind could function that way. So here's what you need to know. There are ongoing efforts in the courts right now to reverse this because it's completely unfair, Especially since CROA has spelled out for decades exactly how credit repair businesses should operate and get paid. Now, the cfpb, they obviously did this to make it harder for credit repair businesses, which of course makes the banks and the credit bureaus very, very happy, because credit repair exposes their errors and cost them a lot of money. But the strangest part is, why sue me? Why sue Credit Repair Cloud? We don't even do credit repair. We just make software. Well, the reason is because we are the biggest vendor in credit repair. They saw us as a big central hub for the whole credit repair industry, and that made us a target. And so all of a sudden, they began demanding all kinds of things from us, which was terrifying. So when I first heard from the cfpb, I assumed it was a mistake. I assumed that they didn't understand what our company does. So our attorney explained to them what we do, and he asserted that they had no jurisdiction over us because the CFPB's rule is to protect consumers. And we don't do business with consumers. We are only business to business. And additionally, the law that they are wanting to enforce, it's about telemarketing. And we don't telemarket. We don't have phone sales at all. We don't even have salespeople. Not one. So none of this made sense. But they said that we were providing substantial assistance for people to break the telemarketing law. So in a letter, we explained that our software isn't a phone dialer. It doesn't take payments from consumers, and we don't have a way of monitoring how our customers run their business. We don't know if they use a phone or if they meet with their customers in person or were not a part of that process, but they didn't care. So we tried to find out how we could resolve things with them, but they didn't have any interest in that. They wouldn't tell us any changes that they wanted from us. It was the strangest interaction I have ever had. And then nearly two years went by, and we thought it was all over. And then just last week, out of the blue, I was notified that they actually filed a lawsuit against our company and against me. I was really, really scared. I wanted to hide. I wanted to cry. And to make matters worse, people were writing all kinds of things online about me. Terrible things, untrue things. I've never been so embarrassed and ashamed. But I got up all the nerve I had, and I wrote a public statement to our customers and our community to be completely transparent about what had happened, because I believe transparency is my duty. Now, when I wrote this, I thought that people would be mean and they would say snarky, mean things. But instead, the outpouring of love and support. It was amazing. Hundreds of our credit heroes wrote me such nice and positive things. They told us about the businesses they had built. Many said that we had changed their lives, and now they were changing lives. And they all said that they had my back. It was all so overwhelmingly positive. And I got to tell you, that gave me strength. And I finally knew I was going to be okay. But I also knew that I needed to say more. So that's why I'm making this video. What the CFPB is doing is horrible. It hurts businesses. And instead of stopping and thinking and talking with us and. And working with us, they just decided to file a lawsuit. And that, unfortunately, is how the CFPB operates. They are bullies. So here's the real truth. The CFPB is not protecting consumers from banks and bureaus anymore. No. For the past four and a half years, unlike your companies, the CFPB has not helped one single credit repair customer. And somehow I'm being accused of breaking the law. Me, the Guy who does everything by the book. I am so careful, I don't even jaywalk. Now, if you actually read the lawsuit, which you should, I'm going to put a link in the podcast description so you can see it. In it, you'll see that the main complaints that the CFPB has against me are that I write books, I make videos, I create courses, I have a Facebook community, and I answer your questions. And that I celebrate success with these plaques here whenever someone makes a million dollars in their business. And I believe that is something to celebrate. So think about that. Writing, making videos, answering questions, and celebrating. These are my crimes. These are all protected by my First Amendment rights and our rights to operate private businesses in compliance with the laws that apply to us. The CFPB has no issue with our software. It's just about the things I say and the things that I write. And that's the scary part. This is America, where we have freedom of speech. While I can't get into more details publicly, we do have excellent legal representation, I believe the best in the industry. And because this is so ridiculous, we will be filing a motion to dismiss. Here's what this means to you. If you are running a credit repair business, I want to set your mind at ease. Now, before I get further into this, understand that credit repair cloud and I are not attorneys and we are not allowed to give legal advice. So this is strictly educational. So please don't take anything that I'm saying here as legal advice. Now, of course, we all know that the laws will vary by what you do. So the point of this is to research, get legal advice if needed, and know what laws and rules apply to your business. But as to this tsr, it's strictly for sales that take place by telephone. So what does this mean to you? Does it mean that you cannot run a credit repair business? No, it doesn't mean that. Credit repair has been around for decades. It's not going anywhere because there are laws that protect it and govern it. There is the Credit Repair Organizations act, and there are state laws to follow. But now, you also need to be aware of the tsr, which is about telemarketing. And the definition of that is completing a sales presentation over the phone and taking payment information over the phone. Now, if that's how you want to run your business, you're going to have to wait six months after you complete your work to get paid, and that's not very fair. Does that mean that you can't use a phone for your business? No, it doesn't mean that there are other options. You can give a free consultation over the phone. You can do a credit audit over the phone and talk about someone's credit situation. You can even have an affiliate refer a client to you over the phone, but you cannot complete a sales presentation and take payment information over the phone. Or okay, you can also meet with a client in person. You can take payments in person, you can take payments by mail, you can even take payments on your website. But you cannot complete a sales presentation and take payment information over the phone because that's telemarketing and would be subject to the tsr. Or if you want to use a phone, here's a pretty good scenario. Do a credit audit over the phone like a free consultation with no taking of any financial information. Just give a little description of your program. Let the customer know over the phone that if they want to learn more and sign up, they can visit your site and then the call ends and then the customer completes their own review and they sign up later on your site with no interaction about payments with anyone over the phone. And I believe that you can have a chat app on your site to answer questions because that's not a telephone. Or you can take this as a perfect opportunity to beef up your website so that you can handle all of your signups there on your site. If you've got testimonials and great reviews, you can let your website do the closing for you or just meet with your clients in person. And then there's no tsr. Now we haven't gotten official opinion on Zoom calls, but it seems that due to Covid there would be reasonable arguments that that it would pass face to face analysis to have face to face meetings with your potential client and close the deal over Zoom. Additionally, if you want to perform a more complete sale by phone, there is an exemption to the TSR if you market in any way other than by direct mail, meaning if you don't use the U.S. mail for your advertising. So you can run online campaigns like Google Ads, Facebook ads, radio, TV commercials and those can draw inbound calls and then you can answer those inbound calls and make your sale. And in this case you would only have to follow croa. Now if you go this route and you're advertising to draw inbound calls only, just keep in mind that there may be state telemarketing rules to consider and you also must be careful to ensure that your ads are not deceptive. I have read about these things and I talk to attorneys and you should contact your lawyer or Read up on it yourself because knowledge is powerful power and just like always follow the laws of the states and croa and don't break the telemarketing laws. Do that and you won't run into any trouble with the law. Because there is so much misinformation out there on the Internet. I have created a booklet that I want to share with you. It's called the Credit Heroes Guide to the Law and it has links to all the major laws that you need to know about credit repair. It has important information about the TSR and it has information to help you in your efforts to remain legal and compliant. And you can download it completely free@creditrepaircloud.com law and I'm also going to put a link in the podcast description or the YouTube description if you're watching on YouTube. So please send me good thoughts for my upcoming case and I hope this information helps to make things clearer for you. And if you have any friends who need to hear this, please share this podcast with them. My goal when I wake up every day is to help as many people as I can. And hopefully that shows I'm very proud of what we do here. And and I'm very proud of all of you, our credit heroes. And I know in my heart that I found my true calling. We have created a movement of credit heroes who change lives and nothing is going to stop us. And even though there are occasional bumps in the road, being able to survive, challenges, that's what the life of the entrepreneur is all about. No one ever accomplishes anything great in life without overcoming big obstacles. It's all part of the journey. So I hope this message helps and makes sense. And please check out the link below if you want to download my free Credit Heroes Guide to the Law. And if you'd like me to hold you by the hand as you launch your very own credit repair business, I would invite you to join our upcoming Credit Hero Challenge. It's an amazing two week program that gets you certified in disputing, it has live mentorship. You'll fix your own credit, you'll get your first clients and what it really does is it gives you the confidence to launch your business on a solid foundation. Plus, it's a whole lot of fun and it costs less than you'd spend to take your family to McDonald's for dinner. The next challenge is going to start in just a couple days, so you want to join before the doors close. Otherwise you're going to have a long wait until the next one. So sign up right now@creditherochallenge.com and if you like what you're hearing on this podcast, be sure to click below to subscribe because I don't want you to miss any of the secrets that I share every week on this show. And if you're feeling kind, rate me, review me, give me a thumbs up, and drop me a comment because I read each and every one of them. And for good measure, I'm going to say this one more time. This podcast is for educational purposes only. It's not intended to be legal advice. The information shared is accessible to the public. And based on my review and understanding, I am not an attorney, so I suggest that if you have legal questions, please consult with a lawyer. It's necessary that you obey all state licensing requirements and any applicable federal and state laws that your lawyers deem applicable. And I will see you in the next episode. And until then, be a Credit Hero and keep changing lives. Hey everybody, it's Daniel again, and really quick.

I'd like to invite you to join what I believe is the best thing we have ever created inside the Credit Repair cloud community. And it is a challenge that we call the Credit Hero Challenge. If you're just planning out your business or you're just getting it started and you dream of having a successful business of your own, so so you can quit your 9 to 5 and fire your boss and have financial freedom or so you can add another revenue stream to your existing business, if that's your dream, you need to get into this challenge. We created this challenge to help you to create and launch your very own credit repair business to build a proper foundation for a really successful business. This challenge is going to help you to understand the strategy, the tactics and all the things you need to be successful at Credit Repair. It really is the greatest thing we have ever built and it will change your life. So I recommend you do it right now. Stop everything. Pause this audio, go online and go to creditherochallenge.com that's creditherochallenge.com and join the next challenge. And there's a challenge that's starting in just a few days. So. So go get started right now@creditherochallenge.com.