Spooky! The Scariest Credit Repair Stories We Have Heard!

Hey, credit heroes. Are you ready for some scary credit repair stories? In honor of Halloween, I went hunting for tales of nightmare customers, vampire banks, zombie employees, and demon debt collectors. And today I'm going to share the scariest stories that will keep you up at night. So you better stick around. My name is Daniel Rosen and welcome to Credit Repair Business Secrets. If this is your first time listening to my podcast, every week I cover industry news, financial tips, and entrepreneurial advice for bootstrapping your business from nothing. This show is the best how to guide for business owners and there is no other podcast like it. So be sure to click on that subscribe button now and get ready to start changing lives. Okay, so it is the season of pumpkins, costumes, tricks and treats. But for credit Repair business owners, our campfire stories usually cover nightmare customers, horrifying interest rates, and the occasional troll online. So to get everyone into the spooky spirit, I went looking for scary stories from the world of credit repair and entrepreneurship. And today I'm going to share the very best stories that that are going to keep you up at night. But before we get started, this podcast is brought to you by Credit Hero Score. Credit Hero Score is the only credit monitoring service that integrates directly with credit repair cloud. Get instant access to your credit reports and scores by signing up for a seven day trial for only $1. Sign up right now at creditheroscore.com okay, let's get into this. Now, most scary stories are cautionary tales designed to keep people safe when they're out in the real world. And the world of credit repair has a whole lot of financial dark alleys and boogeymen that keep us up at night. Now, a few Halloweens ago, I shared my scariest credit repair story. It was the scariest story of my life. I explained how a bank error nearly cost me my house, nearly drove me bankrupt, and. And then I shared how a Bank of America mortgage scam nearly cost me everything, including my sanity. Eventually, I found an exorcist, AKA a lawyer. And he killed those monsters. So this year I decided to collect stories from our Facebook community and from around the industry to have a little more fun while we explore these cautionary tales. Now, it's important to remember that some of these stories were anonymous and for some, I changed the details to make sure that we didn't call out any companies or individuals by name other than bank of America. Of course, I don't like them one bit, but I actually think that all banks are scary. Okay, let's begin to start us off with a quick scare. How about a tale of the most monstrous interest rate of all? About 10 years ago, Tony R. Of Texas had a motorcycle accident that resulted in medical expenses that she couldn't afford. She went through a bankruptcy, which ruined her credit and made it very hard for her to qualify for credit cards. But she was finally able to get a bank card that specifically targeted people with bad credit, and it had an initial interest rate of 29.9%. Now, Tony accepted this, and sure, it was high but fair considering her score at the time. Life was finally getting back to normal when six months later, Tony received a notice informing her that her rate had jumped from 29.9% to 79.9%. Wow. Tony reached out to the media and it was a big news story. And the bank card CEO had to say it was a mistake. And her rate was trimmed down to 59.9%. Still crazy high. Tony tried to cancel her card, but the process took six months. And during that time, the company continued to charge her those incredibly high fees. And they eventually put her into collections when she didn't pay them. Tony finally got back on her feet after using some time tested credit building techniques. But that interest rate, it sent a chill up everyone's spine. Are you ready for the next one? Okay. The taxman on Reddit told a story about some terrifying car payments. He said, it amazes me what people don't understand about credit. I have these friends that suck with money and every time I learn something new about their finances, I'm just floored. The latest is that they fell behind on their car payments, but apparently they thought they were told that the missed payments would just get tacked on to the end of the loan. They now have 30 days straight of 30 day late payments all in a row. Plus they just bought a new car. Yes, new. And I can't even imagine what interest rate they're paying, but I know it's over 14%. Yikes. Taxman, I can't tell you how often I hear stories about credit repair companies who have the same financial bad habits as your friends. So many people thought they were told something that turned out to be false. They dug themselves into a hole, and then for some reason, they won't stop digging. Well, we can't force them to change their ways, but we can do our best to show them the numbers and convince them that better habits like not buying new cars mean better credit. And better credit means a better financial life. And by the way, if you're curious about what that means in Actual dollars. The current most popular car in America is the Toyota camry, priced at $25,900. Now, if you put $5,000 down and you're paying a rate of 14% over five years, do you know what you end up paying for this $25,900 car? Well, at the end of those five years, that car is going to cost $36,291 with interest, tax and fees included. And that's not even including all those late penalties. Now that's a scary story. This next story comes from Henry, who sent in a really creepy one about an unwelcome house guest and and the price of eviction. Henry said I was stuck living with a horrible ex girlfriend for months because I didn't know enough about evictions or credit. Long story short, my ex girlfriend from college moved across the country during the pandemic and asked if she could stay with me for a few weeks until she got settled. I said okay, but I didn't clear it with my landlord. The situation was cool for a while, but after months and months of her not paying rent, I told her that clearly she needed to start paying rent or move out. I figured this was a normal request, but she got super upset because she couldn't find a job and she guilted me into letting her stay longer. Eventually, months later, I reached my breaking point and I told her she had to leave, but she just laughed at me. She actually laughed and told me that she looked it up and I couldn't kick her out. She had lived there long enough that she was now technically my sub tenant. Her name wasn't on the official lease, so the only way to evict her was to evict myself. She told me that would destroy my credit and make it hard for me to find a new place to live. Obviously I felt awful, but I started learning more about credit and evictions and I found out that I could actually evict myself and not hurt my credit just as long as I wasn't evicted for non payment of rent. So I did it. I paid my last month of rent and I evicted myself. We were both forced to leave and I was glad to go. All I had to do was explain to my landlord why I was evicted. I explained that I had broken the terms of the lease and I explained the situation adding I would never do it again. I might not date again either, but everything has been good since. Not sure what happened to my ex, but that's a different horror story. Wow Henry, I'm so Glad you found a creative way to get that unwanted guest out of your house, even if you had to leave as well. But it's a perfect example of how some people will take advantage or scam you until you learn the law and start protecting yourself. Next, I found a Business Insider article that told a shocking tale about a massive credit score drop and I wanted to share it with you because the student loan forgiveness application process is now open. Lisa, a financial expert, said how I got into learning about finance and learning how to build my credit is when my credit score dropped to the low 500s after just one missed payment on a student loan. She said, because my student loan provider listed each loan as 19 individual ones, it reported on my credit as 19 missed payments, my score plummeted and it took a few years before it disappeared from my credit report and things balanced out. I learned the hard way to consolidate your loans and pay on time. And wow. I'm so sorry you went through that, Lisa. But just like me, you used your credit horror story to learn as much as possible about the industry and now you're a financial expert. During an upcoming episode, I'm going to dive deeper into my thoughts on loan consolidation. But next we have a sinister post about a customer that got trapped in payday loan hell. Todd, who is a financial counselor with a nonprofit agency, he told a story that took place about 10 years ago. He said he was talking to an adult learners class about payday loans, which are every credit counselor's favorite topic, and a woman came up to him after class and she said that she'd taken out three payday loans for $500 each. At that time, if you couldn't make the payment every two weeks, you would have to pay a 15% fee and then get another two weeks to make the payment. The extension fees came to $225 every two weeks and she'd been paying them for five years, which came out to a total of $29,000, all for a $1,500 loan. And even worse, she still owed the original $1,500, meaning not a single penny of those two week fees even went to pay down the debt. Well Todd, I don't know about you, but I don't understand how this is even legal. It's like death by a thousand fees. It's unarmed robbery. It kind of makes you wonder what type of creepy company would offer payday loans. Well, guess what bank of America offers them. They just call them balance assist loans because the word payday loans has such a negative connotation Did I mention I don't like bank of America? Okay, now for the last and scariest story of the day, we go to Marie on Facebook and Marie shared a true nightmare customer situation. Here's what she said. Wow, it's been a day. One client has created a total uproar and I'm at a loss. Long story short, she tried to fix her credit independently. She started the process writing to the creditors versus the credit bureaus. She contacted me and asked for help because she was lost and had no idea what to do. I sent out approximately 19 letters for her in response to to creditor responses and starting her dispute process with the bureaus. In addition, I include biweekly coaching in my price, which I did more than provide for her. She calls me three to four times a week looking for updates, questions my ability, etc. We both agree it's best not to move forward because clearly we're not on the same page. 20 days goes by and she's demanding a refund, telling me that I scammed her. I offer her a partial refund with an invoice of itemized expenses. Months later, a mom's group I'm in posts about how I'm a scammer and not to trust me, etc. Posting screenshots of my Facebook business page, my partially done website, and an ad using my information that is not my ad. I'm literally getting threatening messages from strange moms I've never even met. They posted negative and false reviews and they're not letting up. It's so bad, I had to archive my Facebook group, take down my business page, and block four strangers already. What on earth am I to do? I can genuinely say I did everything I could to help this client. Wow. First, Marie, I'm so sorry you had to go through that. When you have a larger company, customer service people shield you from that type of negativity and harassment. But when you're a solo entrepreneur, you have to face these sad and angry people yourself. And these interactions can be exhausting and they can make you feel terrible. And to me, nothing you said or did would have mattered. That customer is just an angry person looking for someone to bully. Some people might argue that the customer doesn't deserve a refund, and some might even tell you to take legal action against that customer. But I recommend that if there's ever an issue like this again with a customer, just give the refund, give it right away, and just walk away as soon as possible. You want to remove that source of negative energy from your life and from your business as quickly as you can. Time is money, so you want to save your time, save your money, protect your online reputation, and protect your mental health. When you're growing a business, you're going to have to face all kinds of challenges. But if you start to create a process for each new thing that comes up, your business will get stronger and stronger. And if you document those processes, you'll eventually be able to have other people deal with monster clients that sometimes appear. And that's why we share scary stories so that you'll get better at noticing potential threats earlier. You'll be safer when you're out there running your business. I just hope these stories weren't too scary. And just a reminder, this podcast is brought to you by Credit Hero Score. Credit Hero Score is the only credit monitoring service that integrates directly with Credit Repair Cloud. Get instant access to your credit reports and scores by signing up for a seven day trial for only $1. Sign up right now at creditheroscore.com and now for my favorite part of the episode. Every week I feature one of our credit heroes inside our Credit Repair Cloud Facebook community so that you can see firsthand what real people are doing as they run and grow their business. And today's spotlight is on Sunday Credit queen Reece Sunday is one of our credit repair millionaires and she's been a community member for over four years. And a few days ago she posted a comment saying the scariest thing about becoming a business owner was getting started. Once I overcame that, everything else fell in place. Running a business isn't easy, however it can be done and I've grown my business and hired to the point where it's 100% hands off. Work hard in your business so one day you won't. Thank you for sharing Sunday. You are amazing and you are 100% right. The scariest thing is just getting started. At that point, everything is unknown, everything is a question, and you feel like you're walking alone through a dark room without a flashlight. But you made it. So congratulations on your success and thanks for the advice and motivation. And I'll end by saying if you don't already have a credit repair cloud account, check it out. It's the software that most credit repair businesses in America run on. Just sign up for a 30 day free trial at creditrepaircloud.com freetrial and if you'd like to change lives and grow your own credit repair business, check out our Credit Hero Challenge. It's a live experience that has helped tons of credit heroes to get certified in disputing and to gain confidence as they run their credit repair business on a solid foundation so they can change a whole lot of lives and and make a great living in the process. We're starting the next challenge very soon, so you want to join before the doors close or you'll have a long wait until the next one. So sign up right now@creditherochallenge.com and if you're finding value in the things that I share on this podcast, click below to subscribe and follow. Also, give me a five star review or share the show and help me to change more lives. And if you'd like to read the show notes, they're posted on my blog and if you have a question or 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. So take care Credit Hero. And remember, scary stories are designed to teach you a lesson and keep you safe. So keep telling stories, keep learning lessons, and keep changing lives. Want a fast track to creating an amazing business that helps people, changes lives, and makes you a great living in the process? Then I'd like to invite you to my free online training@creditrepaircloud.com freetraining. In this free training you will learn how to get clients willing to pay you even if you're just starting out, how to get easy credit repair results without being an expert, and how to get all the clients you'll ever need without paying for advertising. Again, this training is absolutely free. Just visit creditrepaircloud.com freetraining.