Joshua Rico Reveals: The Credit Repair Playbook That Skipped Paid Ads Entirely (Part 2)
In this interview, credit‑repair entrepreneur Joshua Rico shares the complete playbook behind his million‑dollar business, emphasizing a zero‑paid‑ads marketing model, systematic client acquisition, and rigorous operational policies. He stresses daily, multi‑platform content creation (YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat) and leveraging video testimonials, influencer collaborations, and VA‑driven social‑media management. Rico outlines a free‑client‑for‑testimonial strategy, a refund‑guarantee policy that prevents chargebacks, and the importance of clear communication and credit‑monitoring compliance. He details his tech stack—Credit Repair Cloud (CRC) integrated with GoHighLevel—and how automation drives onboarding, billing, and client portals. Partnerships with bankruptcy attorneys and the novel use of social‑media disputes are presented as high‑impact legal tactics. Rico also dives deep into credit‑building methods: pledge‑loan strategy, utilization targets (1‑6%), high‑limit tier‑1 cards, and the “Ezeo method.” He shares a late‑payment removal hack using 15 U.S.C. 1666B, and a white‑glove client‑service model that includes live script coaching. Throughout, he conveys a philosophy of freedom, family, and relentless execution, offering advice for newcomers and promoting his upcoming appearance at the Credit Repair Expo.
Chapters
There's no guarantees in credit repair. Credit repair is not an overnight process. But this is what I do guarantee. If I do not delete at least one negative item off any of the three major bureaus in 6 months, I'll gladly refund your money and I'll still help you because that's the type of people we are. And I haven't had to do that because I know what we do works.
Most credit repair business owners are leaving money on the table every single day and they don't even know it. The credit repair part is just the beginning. Business credit funding, Building a brand that converts. That's where the real growth is. Earlier, Joshua Rico walked us through his story, and today we're going to get into the strategies of exactly how he built his million-dollar credit repair business. So let's get into it right now. My name is Daniel Rosen, and welcome to Credit Repair Business Secrets. Let's Talk about marketing 'cause your content is everywhere. It really works. Tell us how you built all of that.
So like I said, I love being the center of attention. If I, and I speak fluently in this credit, this credit game. So obviously you have to immerse yourself in credit, right? You have to know and be an expert of the field, right? So that's how you speak with confidence. I'm a confident, I'll tell you the sky is red and you'll believe me. All right. That's how, that's how confident I speak. I don't know if it's the Cuban-Puerto Rican in me. I talk with my hands and everything, but it's just how I, how I do, right? Post everywhere. LinkedIn, Snapchat, TikTok. I went viral on all of them too, by the way. But you want to post everywhere at least once a day, at least once a day. Okay. And if you're not posting once a day, You're not serious. All right. Test. He who tests the most wins. So marketing, all channels, all social media, it's free. It's free advertising. It's free advertising. I'll give you another tip. If somebody who has a big following too, reach out to them to say, hey, how much to post this real quick for 24 hours? I'll pay you $2,500, whatever, how big their influence is. And then you get followers off of that. Right. But you should be doing, like I said, I reached this millionaire mark without any paid ads. Now is when I'm starting to put a little bit of ads into my brand, paid ads into my brand. Right. But tracking those and bringing the ROI, your ROAS as it calls, the cost per click, et cetera. Like I said, I used to do social media marketing too inside of the business course. So that was another mentor. So you see how everything correlates. What I'm saying is. If, if I didn't have to do Credit Repair Cloud, if I didn't have to do credit repair, my next business would be marketing. Everybody needs marketing, especially with AI agencies coming out. So marketing is everything. So marketing is the first step. Posting every day, whether it's educational, whether it's a carousel with before and after pictures or video testimonials. Video testimonials till this day. No questions asked is the best way to spread your business, guys. And I just told you how to do so. You basically have them post on their social media and tag you of their results that you brought them. And, and keep it up there as a feed and as a reel. That's the first, and/or story. And I guarantee you, you know, you can screenshot that too and screen record it too to post. And I guarantee you, you're gonna get evergreen results. But here's what I do recommend. Start your YouTube channel, guys. Start your YouTube channel, post on Shorts and long form every, if you can, every day. So you guys are gonna want to go to fiverr.com. Fiverr is one of the apps that you can outsource and delegate your work to. Upwork is where you hire VAs, or onlinejobs.ph is where you hire VAs. And you look for them if they're social media marketers, et cetera. If you're not good at marketing, oh well, hire a VA. The pennies go to the dollar over there, right? Your dollar stretches more over there, I meant. And have them leverage their expertise while you focus on what you're good at. You should always hone in on what you're good at and delegate to what you're not good at. But marketing, number one, I would say. So marketing, there's certain steps that you want to do. And certain platforms as well. But again, marketing is number one.
We got a lot of people listening to the podcast just launching their business, trying to get their first lead, their first client. What would the playbook look like? It sounds like what you've told us is that the, the first thing you do is get some results for some clients, get them to post it, and then you have all these people on their own social timelines going to your profile and you post some organic content, educational stuff there too that builds know, like, and trust. Would that be your formula for new people, or what would you do in the first 30 days?
Help somebody for free. It just has to be one person. Help somebody for free and say, look, I'll post this. Hey guys, I just started this awesome credit repair business. I've been knowing credit repair for blah, blah, blah. but I want to test something out. I want to test something out. I want to help somebody in this program for free, but you can even get creative with it. You can have them do instructions for anybody who wants to enter this raffle. Tag 3 of your friends in the comment section, share this, and tag me at the top when you do, and, and write done when you've done so. In the Facebook comments. That's going to engage people. People who say who tag is going to bring more people, more traffic, more shares. But anyways, all you got to do is pick one. You could use those raffle apps, but the person you pick, they have to agree to two things. Okay. They have to agree to write and or shoot a video testimonial before and after. And then the second one is they have to keep their credit monitoring up to date. All right. Because you want to get a little bit of something now. You want to get a little bit of something out of it. They don't know it, but it's going to benefit them anyways. All right. Their credit monitoring, which goes to you as a referral. Right. But this is the only way I listen in my GoHighLevel system. If someone's saying, oh, I have credit card. No, if someone's saying I have this, I know it's on my credit, but can you tell me how much? I mean, I'll tell you how much it is, but get off my line. That's what my, my, my team is trained to do. And people know that I'm hard like that. I'm very straight to the point. I'm very blunt. I'll fire a client. I'll fire a client. Here's your money back. Hey, I don't want to deal with you. This is the reason why you have bad credit. And I'll say stuff like that sometimes too. You know what they do? It's like, you know, you're right, Justin. Let me humble myself and come back. And then they get helped and they get results and say, you see, I have, I have stories like that too.
You've become an expert in marketing and at building an online following, what do you see that are mistakes that people getting started in the credit repair industry or been in the industry for a while, what marketing mistakes do you see them making that you think, oh dang, if they just didn't do that and they were focused more on this other area, they'd be doing a lot better?
I think that they're just not posting enough. One, that's the main thing across every social media channel. No, I want you on every social media channel at the same time. Also, there's insights where you can look on your different platforms. For example, YouTube, my biggest one, I get the most from YouTube, right? Why YouTube? Because people who spend, it says they, an average customer has to spend at least 7 times, they have to see you 7 times before they purchase or buy. Well, YouTube, you can put long form and then you can hire an editor to clip it up. That's what I do. So I'm on podcasts like this one, I'll clip it up or just me just giving out game for 15 minutes. I'll hire an editor for, you know, $25 a reel, right? I have the money to do so. But if you want one to do so, you can use AI, Opus Clip or what have you. Right. And then you just pick one clip and you just upload to YouTube Shorts every day. Make sure— oh, this is a good one too. Go to vidIQ. I'm going to be dropping that on stage too. vidIQ is an AI. That's connected to actually YouTube and it comes up with the titles that rank high in SEO search engines and or, you know, tags, descriptions, et cetera, to push your content to your right audience, your target audience. That's just one platform. So on One Insights, you can see when to post, set an alarm on your phone. It's 6:00 PM, brrring, brrring, time to post. You should set alarm every day. I don't care if it's Sunday after church. All right. Set it to where you, you, you post ahead. That's just one. Look at the insights on Facebook. Look at the insights, especially on Instagram. I like to go mainly YouTube and then Instagram and then TikTok, right? But at one point TikTok was above everybody. And then another point YouTube was above everybody and then IG was above everybody. But regardless, look at your insights. If you're— don't doom scroll. Scroll to your insights professional dashboard. And start posting every day that's business, credit, lifestyle related. Now I like to say this, don't just post all credit, business, and everything like that. Post yourself behind the scenes on the stories. People like to relate to you. I have a comedic, I like to laugh, I like to joke. That's me. So people like, like to laugh and joke, they're gonna relate to you more and be like, yo, I like you, I like you. But then I, I know how to switch it on to get back to business. They'll respect that and they'll start following you on all angles. Again, branding is number one.
You give away a lot of really great information for free on your channel. Strategies, dispute methods, all of it. It seems like it'd be counterproductive to give away all your secrets, but that brings you clients, doesn't it?
Brings me daily clients. Why? Because people do business with who they know, like, and trust. And if you give away the game, most, and you guys know this, most people won't act upon the information you're giving to them. They just want to do it for them. So at the end, it's like, here, I showed you how to do it. You see how hard it is though, right? Good thing we know how to do it. We have a system in place and we'll do it for you. Now, it's not an overnight process, right? Just because you see on the internet, and I do it too sometimes, That a client or a credit repair owner got an item deleted off in 4 days or 30 days. That's just marketing, guys. The average client from repair to graduation is 6 to 12 months, maybe more, maybe less. And I tell every client the policy. If I could share what my policy is on this too, so I avoid chargebacks too, Daniel, I'll let them know.
Oh, I wanna know that.
We do not guarantee credit repair. We do not guarantee— there's no guarantees in credit repair because it's against the FTC, right? There's no guarantees in credit repair. Credit repair is not an overnight process. What— how long could it take? If you can't wait, an average of 6 to 12 months, maybe more, maybe less. But this is what I do guarantee: if I do not delete at least one negative item off any of the three major bureaus in 6 months, I'll gladly refund your money and I'll still help you because that's the type of people we are. And I haven't had to do that. Why? Because I know what we do works. If they're a headache, I will refund them, but I don't get chargebacks. That's how you avoid chargebacks. You set the expectation. Now what happens if— and that's why I don't like to— I didn't like to charge at first the $1,500 or the $3Ks at first. Why? Because now you're essentially working for them, but you're breaking your back. And what if you don't fix it in 30 days? They're going to call you a scam. And the thing in our industry is that we get called a scam a lot. Guys, I'm one of the OG people in the credit repair operation. I just happened to be getting my Millionaires plaque late, but I've been around credit repair a lot before a lot of people in the Millionaire section too. I've been doing credit repair before COVID so I know, and I know how business works. I'm a people person too. So I got the morals of principle, how to do business and the credit repair knowledge. So I don't get chargebacks. I set that in the policy too.
Right.
And another in the policy is this: we'll cancel if you don't have no communication, if there's no communication, right? And if you don't have your credit monitoring up, that voids your contract. It's in the contract. In the policy too, you don't mind us sharing your testimonials too. You could put that in there too. You want to cover all your angles, you know. But I don't get chargebacks, and that's the policy with it. There's no guarantees in credit repair. Credit repair is not an overnight process. It could take this, this month. Now, what happens If you tell them, yes, it, it may take 6 to 12 months, maybe more, maybe less. What happens if you get it done in a month or 3? Congratulations. They're gonna tell more people about you in that first month. And that's how you grow the wildfire by overdelivering and underpromising.
Joshua, behind every million-dollar credit repair business, there's a system. What does yours look like and what What role does Credit Repair Cloud play in keeping that all running?
Oh, so definitely from the, the onboarding, the leads, once I get the leads from, you know, Instagram, etc., once they text it, go HighLevel is very imperative connected to CRC and automation, all the automations on the hubs connected, the billing, etc. So from there, CRC is our main hub. This is where we house our letters. Our, our communications, our client portal access. This is where we communicate and this is where we just house everything. So GoHighLevel mixed with CRC, game changer.
And by the way, for all CRC users, we actually have HighLevel built right in. It's called the CRC Marketing Hub and it's GoHighLevel supercharged for Credit Repair Cloud. So it integrates with our database and has all those tools to grow your business. Of all the credit repair strategies you've learned, what's one that's been a real game changer?
The first one is, is going partner up with lawyers. You've had one and interviewed him on before. That's my secret. You guys are going to take my lawyer, the bankruptcy lawyer, right? I'll have people text BK to my number, right? And if they have a bankruptcy, and I tell people this, we are partnered up with one of the most successful lawyers across the nation. And if he finds that you have an inaccuracy attached to your bankruptcy, he'll request to get in contact with you. And we, with your permission, we'll send them over. You'll get in contact with them and within 90 days you'll get a deletion and a remedy. We haven't even charged you. What does that do? That builds no like and trust to us. We haven't even charged you yet. Then they send them back to us and then they're gonna pay for the rest of the credit report to be handled. And that's for free. So they get a deletion for free and a little bit of compensation for free from a real lawyer.
And then what happens with the bankruptcy if there is an error?
There's the business side that I'm savvy on, and there's the actual disputing side I'm a master at too, right? Whether it's litigation, you know, I'll source the litigation. We've done it before, but it's not my strong suit. I'd rather partner with attorneys. That's the safest bet. And actually, you can go if you want to partner up with an attorney. There's two things you can do. You can go to Google and type consumeradvocates.org and then find your lawyer in your city and state. And partner up with a lawyer there. And/or you can go to Credit Con, go to these Credit Con events, and you'll see the lawyers there.
If you can only go to one event, make sure you go to Credit Repair Expo.
That's the best way if you're starting out, cuz you'll reach out to them, you partner up with a lawyer, and you're actually getting real case law litigation laws to, to really know credit repair. Another one that nobody talks about, and if they are, Daniel, they got it from me. Okay. Social media disputing. Have you ever heard of that?
No. What's that?
Listen, I went viral for this topic. I think I'm on Bank of America's radar or one of them. But Bank of America shut my credit card down for no apparent reason. You know how they say they could do that, right? Well, what happens when you shut down a $20,000 credit card limit, right? It tanks your, you know, your score down because the utilization is cut, right? So what happened was I actually added them on Twitter. I said, you guys are violating my consumer rights, TILA Act, et cetera. And you know, in the next 30 minutes, someone from their legal team sent me an inbox saying, hey, Joshua, how can I help you resolve this? I tell clients, utilize social media. Why? Especially if you have a huge following in the brand. Because everything is on social media. That went viral on that same thing. One of the bankers put a comment, I won't say their banking name, but they put a comment saying, this guy is spot on. We actually have a special department that caters to social media disputes first. So am I saying it's going to work all the time? Pardon with a lawyer, social media disputes. And I like to go old school, right? Dispute and or opt out and freeze the secondary reporting agencies. LexisNexis, SageStream, Credit CoreLogic, Innovis. Those are the secondary reporting agencies where the information is housed. But did you know that you could actually dispute them and/or litigate if you need to? But you can actually dispute those online and/or send the letters and/or call. Do all three. Once those are off or disputed, I like to do personal information, right? Because the thing is, you're battling something called the E-OSCAR system. And for those who don't know about the e-Oscar system, they've been on AI way before we've been on AI, right? But basically when you send in a little letter, it goes, right? It, it, there's a backdoor code number ID attached to your name, address, employer, phone numbers, co-spouse, et cetera. Each and every one of those names and information has a backdoor code attached to them. And those codes are attached to the positive and negative accounts. So when you correct your personal information after the, the secondary bureaus are frozen, opt out, and disputed, you have more leverage in getting the deletion when you dispute the rest of the negative accounts.
A lot of people in our Facebook community, they complain that they're reaching out to the bureaus asking to change personal information that's old and outdated, and they're not doing it. How do you go about this?
Call. Best way to do is call. Now, I will tell you this. If you guys go to Experian desktop, go on a desktop, log into your Experian account. I can say this in the back of my head. Scroll down to where it says Help Center. From Help Center, you're going to click that File Dispute button. Once you click the File Dispute button, it's going to say a purple button that says Start a New Dispute. When you see a Start a New Dispute, there's one of two things going to happen. A pop-up. You're going to say, hey, you, you, you waive the rights of, of getting your, your results electronically. A lot of people who sue are against this, and I understand because they want to build a paper trail. Me, I want to get the result as fast as possible, so I click yes so I can receive it, right? From there, you're going to see potentially negative items, accounts, personal information, and inquiries. Go to the personal information tab. Now scroll all the way down and you're going to be amazed. So the names, you can't do it online. You're going to have to call in and how you call in, you're going to go to the fraud department. That's how you bypass it because that's how you can talk to a, to a human being. Now I will say this, if you can reach the US department, Google and how to find out to reach the US department, it's far greater. But anyway, some, most of the times they're going to be overseas. All right. Now from there, you're going to collect each and every name. Okay, this is unauthorized or inaccurate, or even this is not mine, or identity theft. All right, it's one of those. It falls under one of those. And there's 5 items that gets stuff deleted off your credit report, guys. One is identity theft. And if you're a victim of identity theft, I have a lawyer for that too. Two is inaccuracies. That is the biggest one. Why? Because the FTC conducted a study back in 2014 that 1 in 5 Americans have at least one error across their trimmers reports. And that's a 2014. Imagine now, right? 3 is unfair, unfair practices, FDCPA, right? 4 is unverifiable and 5 is incomplete. Lovebirds, one of those reasons to get items, any item deleted off your credit report. But anyways, back to what I'm saying is the name. You have to correct it letter by letter, name by name. Okay. After the name, you want to go to the rest. If there's multiple socials, which I've seen before, erase it. That's easy verification. Have you ever sent a letter and it come back verified? Yeah, mainly because it's attached to those. You want to give them less as possible, right? So erase that. Your employers, I don't care if you worked there for 15 years, erase that. That has a code attached to it. Even your addresses. So here's how you're going to do it. You're going to click on the arrow that you don't live there. You're going to click one of two things. Never lived there, right? And if it lets you go through, submit the dispute. And if it doesn't, it'll pop up with the, the tab next to it said this account is connected to such and such, whether it's a collection or even a positive account. There's a way to get around that. You would actually call the furnisher and update your account. They will issue a new address. But anyways, just go to the next one. If it doesn't let you do that and you want that address off online, we're talking online disputing now. You're going to click residence inaccurate and then click next dispute and then go on so on and so forth until you have one negative item on there. Now you can double back by going to the fraud department, skip it to the fraud department and Experian and saying, hey, I like this item removed, I don't live there, this is inaccurate, etc. And then you clear your personal information. If you've done this online, minus the, minus the names, it'll be gone in 3 hours to 24 hours, guarantee you. And when you do so, be like, Josh was the man. We definitely need a mentorship. Basically, that's how you do it online, personal. And then if you go to myequifax.com, it's easy to do so on there, and as well as service.transunion.com for all of those. So what we have our clients do is, yeah, we get them our credit monitoring, but we have to make free accounts of the actual, you know, the credit report agency itself, because I bet a lot of people didn't know how to clean up the personal information. And from experience, I just show you guys how to do so. So when you guys get those free accounts, you can dispute off of there as well.
Give us some game on hard inquiries.
Here's the deal with hard inquiries. All right. The thing is, is that you want to get it to where— did you authorize this or not? You're going to get to the fraud department. So when you go to the fraud department, you're going to say, this is not authorized or I do not recognize this. If you're getting denied now, if it's true, if Let me back up. That's not the reason why you want to do it. The thing is this, you want to be careful because if it's not real identity theft and you know, if you did authorize it, that's unethical, right?
And if you have an account with that company, they could shut it down.
They could shut it down, especially if it's attached to it. So what I meant to say was a lot of people are disputing that way. All right. The FTC way, etc. All right. Now, the thing is, is that back into the Credit Secrets book, there's actually a way where you can actually contact the furnisher and remove it, and/or under 611, I believe you can dispute it from there, right? But here's— you want— let me do something better, all right? Inquiries are low impact. Who cares? One. And then two is this: you should be applying strategically. Don't apply for a car at the car dealership. Go with your credit union. Don't apply for a credit card unless your data points are matching. That's when we go into funding. That's when we go into credit building. Okay? That's why I like secured loans better than secured cards, better than Self, better than BoomPay. What are these guys? Yes, you can, you can report your rent, et cetera. Those are fast ways to build your credit if you wanna get into a mortgage in the next 60 days, et cetera. Just if you have nothing. But the best way to build it is with a credit union or bank over 90 days to 6 months, maybe even a year. You build that relationship with the bank, right? I've been a Navy Federal member for over 17 years. I'm a real Navy Federal credit union member. I served, right?
Is that the bridge loan strategy?
The pledge loan strategy? Yep. Yep. You know what you're talking about. So basically what the pledge loan strategy is, And, and now we get into building your credit and funding. The reason why I say put as much money as possible is because you want comparables on your credit report. I have a McLaren on my credit report. That's a $153,000 loan paid off. So the next time I go into Navy Federal, which they lend up to 120% of the loan value, now I could get a $350,000 Rolls-Royce if I want to. Did it zero down too, by the way. The comparables is what matters, especially for funding, but you can't take advantage of funding if your personal guarantee is not great. Your personal credit report has to be outstanding to take advantage of business funding. So don't go looking for this no PG or anything like that. You're gonna get scammed, guys. All right, everything is personal guarantee. That's why if you have any negative item on your credit report within the last 2 years that's negative, you need credit repair. You can't go for funding. Now you could build a relationship and let that time pass while you're, while you're going through credit repair, right? But you can't go for funding or take any advantage until you have the habits and the personal credit report right. You should have above a 750 FICO score, but it's not really about the score. It's about the data points. You should have no late payments, 100% late payments. If it's 99, that was good in high school, but that don't count in the credit world. You see, credit is a pie graph. There's a game. And if you master every section of that pie graph game, you run the world. There's 3 C's that run the world: credit, cash flow, and collateral. Now, we're obviously— we're talking about credit, right? But the thing is, is that 35% of your score is payment history, 30% of your score is credit card utilization. That right there, 65%. People don't know. Set yourself up on autopay. And when you are setting yourself up on autopay, Pay the 3-5 days before the statement reporting date, not the due date. Right. And I like to ask the audience this: what percenters do you think you need to be at? A lot of people say 30. That's mediocre credit. I always say 6%, 1 to 6%, especially for funding. And there's something called the Ezeo method. Back in the day, we used to do like, if you have 5, you should have 5 high-limit credit cards. And depending on what those high-limit credit cards are, this should be tier 1 banks— Chase, you know, Wells Fargo, etc. Not these Credit Ones or Royal Mains or Targets. No, tier 1s. That's how you get it. And they should be at least $5K, $5K at the minimum. That's why I say if you don't have a credit card at least $5K, that's why the secured loan, pledge loan is the right play. Put at least $5K over your own money. Or if you don't even want that, $500, okay, to open up the account. You put it in your savings account, right? And Navy Federal is not the only one that does this, but ask for a bank if they do this. You put it in your savings account and you borrow against it and it reports to your credit reports. Now you're going to pay 90% of it in the first month and then just have it on autopay, little payments for like 2 years. Why? At least 2 years because 50% of your score is credit history, right? 10% of your score is credit mix. You can't just have 5 credit cards. You need to have a mortgage, you need to have auto loan, personal expense loan, maybe student loan. Guys, stop disputing the student loans if they're 100% payment history and there's nothing wrong with them. They're actually helping you. I can go on and on. It's— I've mastered this game for years, for years, you know. So your, your data points have to work. Your data points have to be 100% payment history, 6% utilization, at least 5 credit cards. I recommend, if not, 2 to 3 primaries. And guys, the primaries— stop buying primaries, okay? Oh, I can go on and on. Stop buying the primaries. Build your own primaries with the own bank. Can you buy trade lines and sell trade lines? Yes, but you can also get trade lines from your grandmother without paying. Now, have we done that before? People have done it before, but it's like, it's better to practice your own trade lines and open your own trade lines the right way. All right. And then, so, you know, 50% of your score is credit history. Your credit history should be 7 years at least to 10 years. That right there should tell you credit repair and credit is not an overnight process. It takes years. So if you're not, you know, to reach the 800, 850s, you need at least 7 to 10 years of age history. Oh, how do we get that? Well, you could do a piggyback, an authorized user. Try to go through someone who you know, like, and trust first, like your grandma who has a 35-year credit card that was opened in 1975, etc. And then from there, mix of credit. You have a blend of credit, not just credit cards. You have auto loans, etc. And then increase, which is the lowest impact. All right. 0 to 2 hard increase per year or 6 months because they'll look at you. If you ever try to apply for something, they'll say, Did you apply for anything in the last 6 months? They're giving you guys the game right there.
All right.
But that's what your profile should look like. And if really the profile matches, then the score is going to follow. So it really doesn't matter about the score. It matters about the, the data points in the profile.
And a big secret that you said, but it went by quick. I want to make sure people get this. Put your bills on autopay.
Yeah, I'll give you a late payment removal hack too. And this mainly works for closed accounts with late, with lates on it. Okay. First of all, make sure it's paid in full, make sure you're on autopay, et cetera. And we leverage the law, 15 USC 1666B, the billing error. I don't know why it works with the CFPB, but it does. All right. And I'm not saying that's the end-all be-all. There's more too, ways to do that, but I like to set them up for success. And always, guys, when you're calling in to record the call, they'll say at the end, and don't say that you're recording the call until the end. Now look up your state. Sometimes illegal, but regardless, if they can record you, why can't I record yourself? I'm a little petty like that. But what I'm saying is this. What I like to say is, hey, can I speak to the manager, please? Is there something I can help you with? No, I'd like to speak to the manager of this account. And you can get the credit card department. Right. So it's closed. You paid in full. I like to say, hey, is this account paid in full? They like to say yes. Okay. I was on recurring payment. I was on autopay when this happened.
Right.
And make sure you are. Yes. Yes, you are. Okay. And I'm all caught up. There's— I don't owe anything. You're like, no, you're all caught up and it's closed, right? Yes, it is. Awesome. I love your guys' company. Be tactful. Look, but there's— this is hindering my ability to such and such, obtain a mortgage, obtain a credit card. It seems you guys are reporting inaccurately on my credit report or a billing error. Can you validate this account and/or update it to 100% payment history, please? No, sorry, can't do that. That's when you bring out the big guns and start talking, you know, laws. Well, listen, I've been doing a little research on ChatGPT and Google, and you guys are violating my consumer rights. It says if you can't validate this, 15 USC 666(b), 1666B says that this could be a billing error and you're supposed to provide me with this, this, and that. Oh, we mailed this out to you. Okay, was it certified? Okay, because you're violating my right. Matter of fact, what's your employer ID number? What's your name? Guys, when I dispute, I become a Karen. I become one of those customers you— I do— you do not want me at your establishment. I will become a Karen and, and I'm writing notes. Okay, that's how you want to be when it comes to disputing. First, be nice and tactful. Then you start bringing out the big guns with the laws. It don't even have to be the laws that matter, right, or match or correlate. It's gonna get it, it's gonna get it removed. And it doesn't have to be once. Keep calling, keep calling, right? So, and this happened many times. I've given this late payment script to a lot of people, and what happens is, and I ask them this, so man, correct me if I'm wrong, okay? You reported this late, 30 days late in this era, but How can something that's paid in full ever be late? And then they just stay quiet. It's a, it's a valid question. Yeah, but we report late at this time. It's not late if it's paid in full and closed. So here's what's going to happen if this is not updated in 130 days. I'm going to report you to the BBB, the CFPB. I got your employer number, ID. And by the way, I'm recording this call. That's when you say you're recording this call. They say, sir, you're not, you're not allowed to record the call. And then they'll probably hang up or anything like that, but you recorded it, right? But I like to play little games with them as well because they play and prey on a lot of consumers who don't, are not really educated. You just got to think out the box, you know, but that's just late payment sauce too. And usually what we do with the late payments is this. So if it's deleted off of Equifax, which mainly Equifax is one of the easiest to delete off of, but it's not deleted off of the rest of the two. This incongruency. You guys follow the FCRA, correct? Yes, we do, sir. Okay. You're— so by law, you have to follow the FCRA. If Equifax, who's a big name in the thing, why are you guys not? And I'll take a screenshot and I'll put it in the letter too, as well. Like, you got to remove this and then I'll send it to the furnisher as well. A lot of you guys, old school credit repair guys, you guys are only sending to the credit reporting agencies, but you're not sending it to the furnishers itself too. The furnishers and the creditors itself. Cut the head off the snake. Do you know when you send the, the letters to the credit reporting agencies, all they're doing is taking the letter and say, hey, is this valid what they're talking about? And then they have 30 days to respond. No, go directly to them first, and then when they mess up, you have correspondence, and then you could put it to the CFPB and etc. There's so many ways though. There's not just one way to skin a cat. It's just, I've done every, every, like I said, I'm old school credit repair. I'm new school and old school. And I just keep tweaking stuff. And you should be, your team should be calling into the credit reporting agencies every day, which our team does. Actually, I think we're one of the only credit repair agencies right now that actually gets on the phone with our client. We'll mute ourselves and we give them the script on how to remove personal information. We actually walk them by the hand, that customer service, that white glove. Only for $99. Well, first $499, but right. But after that, $99 a month, the best customer service, the best communication. That's all I hear. And that, that, that's what I pride on. And then you get results. That's why I have the most video testimonials in the, in the industry out of all the millionaires. I'll say that. Look, y'all my brothers, my peers and everything like that. But out of all the millionaires too, I have more video client testimonials than y'all. I love y'all, but it's just facts, you know. And I'm confident like that.
I'm gonna ask you a few rapid questions. Answer with the first thing that pops into your head. Okay?
Mm-hmm.
What's your business superpower?
Video client testimonials.
What's your business kryptonite?
Headaches.
What does business ownership mean to you?
Freedom.
What drives and motivates you?
The freedom of my family and travel and just happiness. Health, wealth, love, and happiness.
What's your definition of success?
Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. Errol Nightingale.
If you could go back in time and tell yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
Don't invest into these fugazi mentorships. Keep your head down and only focus on building your credit repair business.
And do you have any other advice for someone just starting out with a credit repair business?
Exactly what I just said. Keep your— immerse yourself into the courses, the masterclass course. Follow that every video and take action. So this is what I did. I watched the whole course first, and then I rewind it, and then I watch one video, implemented. Second video, implemented. Third video, implemented. So on and so forth. Okay. And kept on to the time I get off of this call and be like, there's something that I'm not doing. I got complacent, man. I'm at this. I'm like, hmm, let me go back. Oh, and then there's some, have you ever watched a movie when you were younger and now you're older? It was like, oh, I don't remember that part. It's because, or a book that you got to retrain your mind. So I would say that.
And what's next for you? What's the next big goal?
Is to rip this stage at the Credit Repair Expo, April 24th to the 26th, Dallas, Texas. And then just keep on serving people. Maybe a mentorship.
And how can people find you? How can they reach out to you for that mentorship or any of your products and services?
First of all, I wanted to say something too. There's a reason why when you search into YouTube and Google, when you search into YouTube and you type in credit repair and press enter, there's a reason why my face pops up multiple times on that first page. So I would say go like and subscribe to my YouTube channel where I drop a lot of gems like you guys have got here. Not on just the business side. I don't really share the business side. This is exclusive. I don't really talk business and numbers on here, but I mainly share the disputing tactics. So subscribe to my channel. Instagram, Joshua Rico SR, is where I'm mainly active. Joshua Rico Facebook, Joshua Rico LinkedIn, etc. I'm viral. You'll see my face for sure.
And we're going to put all those links down there in the show notes so you can find them there. Thank you so much for your time today, Joshua. This was a lot of fun.
Thank you, Joshua. Hope you guys found value.
And for everyone out there watching, if you're finding value in the things that we share on this podcast, click below to subscribe. Let's get to 100,000 subscribers. Also give us a 5-star review or share the show. Help us to change more lives. If you have a question or a comment, drop it down below because I read each and every one of them. I'd love to hear from you and I'll respond as soon as I can. And if you're ready to take your credit repair business to the next level, join us at Credit Repair Expo. It's going to be the biggest event in credit repair history, April 24th through 26th in Dallas, Texas. Seats are nearly sold out, so grab your ticket now at creditrepairexpo.com and keep changing lives.
