Transcription
So several months ago, I did this controversial video showing students just like you exactly how to utilize this little-known US Postal Service mail trick to remove adverse accounts and collections off of your credit reports forever. And so, it got a lot of positive remarks and, of course, it got a lot of negative comments as well.
So, if you're one of these haters that really likes to drill in on what's right and what's the above-and-standing citizen thing to do, then you probably don't want to listen to this video. In fact, you probably want to click off on it now because I'm about to share with you something that's a little bit on the controversial side. So, buckle up your seat belts because here we [Music] go.
Okay, so just to be clear, right off the bat, I want to suggest that this is probably not 100% correct in the way it's done. But I'm going to explain to you exactly how one of the viewers on YouTube was able to utilize my certified mail strategy to be able to remove literally every adverse and negative account off of his credit report, and they were permanently removed as if they never existed to begin with.
So, as you know, you may have watched a lot of my credit repair videos before. And if not, if you're new to my channel, great. You're new to all of this. In which case, I typically advise my students who are learning how to fix their own credit, how to actually do the three rounds of disputes with the credit reporting bureaus first. So that includes Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. And even go in a step further, actually mailing these disputes instead of just simply doing it online. Mailing the disputes to Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, all separately, to dispute everything that's adverse and negatively impacting your personal credit. So that's how you start first. And I recommend doing this three rounds. And so you do round number one, which means you send letters out to Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion separately. You wait 30 days for them to do their investigation, and then you do it again and again, times three, right? And so I recommend that you start off with that strategy first before utilizing this strategy.
So, my other videos talk about exactly how to use that strategy in full detail. In fact, you can get my free credit dispute letters by going into the box below, in the description box, and they are 100% free. You don't have to pay anything for them. You can download them and use them to communicate with Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion for your three rounds of disputes first, before moving forward to any other strategies.
Now, again, to be clear, this strategy is not really one that I recommend. But I don't want to leave out a specific way that one of my students, who as a YouTuber, who likes to watch these YouTube videos, just like you, has used to literally chisel off every single adverse and negative account negatively affecting his FICO and his personal credit, and how he's able to use this to permanently, forever remove these accounts that were negatively affecting him.
Now, I just wanted to outline exactly what he did. And of course, I'm going to have some haters in the comments are like, "Well, I'm not going to do that because it's not 100% legal." Yeah, well, you don't have to. Nobody's, nobody's got a gun to your head. Nobody's going to force you to do this, okay? I'm just outlining what he did. And then what the alternative should be that you should do in place of that, okay?
So, what he ended up doing was watching a video. And again, this was the most controversial video that I had done for YouTube so far. And it talked about how to use the United States Postal Service certified mail to send letters to your creditors and collection agencies. Now, unlike sending letters to the bureaus, which again, are Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, those are the bureaus that report your credit and create your FICO score. Unlike sending them letters, which would basically be a letter like you, like I said, you can get the free dispute letters at my website in the description box below. They're 100% free. And what you do is, when you send letters to the bureaus, you would then send a copy of your driver's license and a copy of two utility bills, ideally that have your personal address on them, your current address where you reside.
Now, if they do not include your personal address, then find a, you know, some other kind of bill, like an insurance bill or, you know, a cell phone bill or credit card bill or something that has your current address on it. And you can send that instead. Maybe you're living with your parents, or maybe your spouse pays all the bills, and the utilities are in his or her name. And so you need to find some bills that have your personal address. Of course, utility bills trump everything. But if you don't have that, then that's fine. So you send that along with a copy of your driver's license out. Hopefully, your driver's license has your current address. If it doesn't, take your lazy butt over to the DMV and update your address on your driver's license or ID card. And then that way, there's no dispute on where you live, and that there's no dispute on you actually being the person who's facilitating the investigation. So you do this three times. And again, I talk about this at great length in my other videos.
Now, once you do this three times, you can then communicate directly with the creditors and collection agencies. Now, you do not, I repeat, write this down because I have so many students that are in the comments like, "What do I do? Do I send my driver's like?" No, you don't. So once you are done with the credit bureau three-round dispute process, then and only then, you can communicate with the creditors or collection agencies directly. But this time, you just send them a letter. And you do not send them a copy of your utility bills. You do not send them a copy of your driver's license. You don't send them a copy of any of that personal stuff. You only send them a letter demanding that they show proof of the contract or service agreement that you have. And by law, they do have to furnish some kind of contract.
So, case in point, years ago, my very irresponsible second husband, who can't pay a bill to save his freaking life, he ended up buying a Mercedes. Never made any payments on it. And they ended up repossessing the Mercedes. And so, and what ended up happening was that Mercedes, after about a year or two, ended up sending the debt to a collection agency. And so, knowing as much as I know about credit repair, I sent a demand to the collection agency for the original contract or the original purchase agreement that showed my ex-husband's signature on it, agreeing to the terms and conditions of the car purchase. And they had only 30 days to do that because that's the law. And so, most states, it's 30 days. There's some states that's less. You do have to check with your local state. But most of it's, most states, it's 30 days. And if you don't know that's okay, because the creditors and collection agencies are supposed to, by law, know what the time frame is that they need to furnish this documentation. But again, most of the time, it's 30 days. So they have 30 days to drum up the original contract or the original agreement with your signature on it, okay?
If it's a collection agency, they're not going to have that, folks. See, this is the beauty about dealing with collection agencies first. And you'd hope to God, fingers crossed, that the debt was eventually sent to a collection agency. Because the likelihood that they're going to have any original contract or a copy of any documentation showing that you've done business with them is pretty close to 0%. And so they know, say, "Oh, okay, I got this letter. They're demanding proof that this account is theirs, right? We have 30 days to go back to the original creditor and get this documentation." Now, the original creditor, they may or may not have it. Sometimes it's in storage, sometimes it's in archives. But by the time they're able to drum up the paperwork to send to the collection agency, 30 days is long gone, okay? Which means that what ends up happening is they're unable to get you exactly what you need when it comes to the agreement or the contract that you had with this company. So by law, because they were unable to furnish you the original contract agreement, as per federal law, then it has to come off your credit.
So, what you end up doing is, you get that letter that you sent to the creditor or collection agency, you send a copy of that letter to Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, along with the green card that shows proof that the creditor or collection agency received the letter, okay? This is the green card furnished by the US Postal Service. You fill out the creditor's information on the front part. They have to sign it when they receive the letter. On the back side, it has your address. So that way, you can receive the green card after the US Postal Service employee pops it in the mail, and it'll go right back to you at your address. And so, what ends up happening is, once you have that green card, you wait 30 days. If they don't send you anything, then you just send a copy of that green card and a copy of the letter that you sent to the creditor. And you say, "Listen, Experian, listen, Equifax, listen, TransUnion, I received nothing from these people. As per federal law, they're in violation of federal law. They were unable or unwilling to provide me with the original agreement about this debt that they're claiming I owe. So therefore, by law, you have to remove this off my credit report as if it never happened, okay? As if it never existed." Which is probably better than just upgrading it as paid as agreed, but late, or whatever those other alternative options are, right?
So, this is the way to do it. It was quite controversial. I don't know why when I explained this whole process, how it works using the United States Postal Service certified mail, people like, "Oh, that's illegal." That's how is that illegal? You're walking into the US Postal Service. You are walking up to the counter. You're asking the employee behind the counter to provide a service called certified mail, which the USPS has been providing for like, ever, okay? And you're having them mail a letter to your creditor and collection agency. Like, what the hell is wrong with that? Like, nothing, okay?
So, I think what people were thinking was that it was unethical because if you think that, you know, you owe the debt, why would you be asking for proof? It's like, because you have the right as a citizen and as someone who they're claiming is owing the money, you have a right to see that original contract or original agreement as per federal law, okay? So if they're unable to provide it, it means that they can't collect from you anymore, period. Because they don't have any agreement, they don't have any proof that you even owe the debt to begin with, which means they can't legally collect on it anymore. And like I said, the beauty of this is, if you go after the collection agencies, they're not going to have that agreement from their, from the original creditor. So case in point, with my second husband, I ended up, you know, asking the collection agency on behalf of Mercedes-Benz Financial where the original agreement was. And they were unable to find it because they had to go back to Mercedes. Mercedes didn't respond. They're too busy with everything else. They might have not even had the original contract. So they just, not, didn't respond, right? So I ended up getting it removed off his credit report.
Now, this is really important. Listen to this very carefully. So, what ended up happening was that I took that letter that I sent to the collection agency on behalf of Mercedes, and I sent that to Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, all separately, in all separate envelopes. And I said, "Here, credit bureaus, here's the copy of the letter I sent to this collection agency collecting on behalf of Mercedes. And here's the certified card, a copy of it, showing that they had signed for it. More than 30 days has gone by since they received that, and we received no contract or any proof that this debt was his. So you need to take it off by federal law." And they took it off.
Now, this is the part that you need to listen to very carefully. Because what'll end up happening is that that collection agency will probably end up selling that debt to another collection agency who's had his clueless on the fact that you had this removed, right? So they're going to kick the can down the road. And you have to save every lick of paperwork you receive from the credit bureaus. So the credit bureaus will send you a letter in the mail saying, "Hey, we removed this debt off your credit report." Save it. Do not get rid of that piece of paper. Save it. Because what'll end up happening is the next credit, you know, agency. So the first credit, the first credit collection company may have been called ABC Collections, right? And you had that one removed. Now they're like, "Well, hey, we don't want to get stuck holding the bag. So we're going to sell this to XYZ Collection Agency for 10 cents on the dollar and then we're just going to get this off our books." So XYZ Collection Agency is going to turn that, turn right around and throw that right back in your credit report. And you're going to say, "Uh-uh-uh. Take a look at this, Experian. Equifax, and TransUnion. You already removed this." So this is the original debtor, the original creditor of Mercedes-Benz Financial or whoever it is. You cannot put that back on my credit, even if a different collection agency is trying to collect on behalf of that same debt. It's illegal by federal law. They cannot do it. And this is why it's imperative and mission-critical that you save every lick of paper that comes back from the bureaus, pretty much from anybody, really. But save everything.
So the second that the second collection agency ended up putting it back on my ex-husband's credit report, I had the paperwork from Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. And it basically said, "Hey, we removed this because this debt could not be validated." So the, the next credit collection agency had to remove it off the credit because they, they couldn't put it on there. And it stayed off forever after that. So this is why you always have to save all your paperwork.
So that's why you start with your collection agencies first because the likelihood they're going to have the accounts, the original account information, paperwork, contracts, agreements, etc., is pretty close to 0%. So they're going to be scrambling to let all of these different original creditors know, "Hey, I need this paperwork, and I need it lickity-split." And Mercedes and these really giant companies, these conglomerates, are super slow in getting any paperwork back. And it's usually past the 30-day time frame that they can actually get the contract back to them or the agreement or whatever it is, right? So please note that this is a really good way to get stuff off your credit.
Now, I've had people argue with me and they're like, "Hey, well, shouldn't we let the creditor know in advance that we're about to dispute this before we dispute this with the bureaus?" No. Do not let them know anything, okay? Period. Always dispute first. I like to dispute first with the creditor, with the credit bureaus first, rather than, you know, letting them know in advance that I'm going to be basically filing a dispute because then it gets them the opportunity to find the paperwork, right?
Now, you might want to do this a little bit backwards. You might just say, "Hey, Monica, it kind of makes better sense to just go after the creditors first or the collection agencies first before I file with the bureaus." And if that makes better sense to you, then by all means, you can do it that way as well. I'm not stopping you. If you've not started your rounds of disputes yet, then there's really no way that you could be stopped from filing the US PS certified mail with the collection agency and creditors first, definitely not giving them a warning that you're about to dispute it with the credit bureaus and then demanding that they give up the actual original contract or agreement with the original creditor, whether they're a collection agency or they are the actual original creditor.
I had so many things fall off my credit this way just by using the US Postal Service certified mail. So, one student, let's get to the controversial part because that's probably the part you're waiting for. So, one particular YouTube viewer said to me, "Hey, what if I sent a certified letter in an envelope? Could be a 9x12 like this, or it could be just a number 10 business envelope. Does not matter. But what if there's nothing in the envelope?" And I was just like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "Well, you know, there's nothing in there, which means that I have a certified letter, right? And I put the name of the creditor or collection agency on the letter. I make it trackable. And I make it US Postal Service certified, which is of course trackable. And they sign for this. And then they open it, and there's nothing in it. And I don't have my return address or anything. I just have the name of the creditor. The, the, the green, the green uh card will come back to me. So they won't even know who it's from. And they'll open the envelope and there's nothing in there. They won't even know who's like making this request. And then I have proof that they received this envelope, which had nothing in it."
I'm like, "Well, obviously that's not ethical. That's not legal." But he ended up using that strategy to have literally everything removed off of his credit that was negative. And he didn't even bother disputing with the credit bureaus like I usually recommend that you do at least three rounds with the bureaus first. He didn't even bother with any of that. He used my strategy with the certified mail to go directly to the throats of the creditors and collection agencies first, completely circumventing communicating with the credit bureaus. And of course, remember, you don't want them to have any information anyway. I recommend that you actually send them a letter and state who you are and state that you need proof as per federal law that this debt is yours in the form of a contract, a signed agreement, etc., because that's federal law. You have 30 days to do it. If you don't, it has to come off your credit. So you can go directly to the creditors and collection agencies first before you file your rounds of disputes. Say, is this one student, this one YouTube viewer did. Again, I don't recommend that it's an empty envelope. But he used the empty envelope strategy. He sent them an empty envelope. Did not have his return address on the envelope, just their name. And he used the certified card. And so what happened is they ended up receiving the certified card, right, signing it, and then opening the envelope and nothing in there. So there was nobody to respond to. There was no account or agreement or contract for them to drum up from someplace because they didn't know who was sending them the information.
Now, the green card card that would have shown who was sending all of the information in this empty envelope would have been sent back to him. So they would have had no identifying anything about who sent this envelope. They would have literally received something like this with their name on the front and that's it. Do I recommend that you do this? No. I recommend you do it the ethical way. Not that most creditors or collection agencies are ethical anyway. But I do recommend that you do it the right way, which would be to actually put a letter in there, actually demanding by federal law, "You need to send me proof that account is mine in the form of a signed contract, signed agreement, etc." That's basically all you need to say in your letter. And don't, do not include your, um, driver's license information. Do not include any utility bills. Just the letter. That's it. And then don't ever sign with your actual signature, your legal signature. Just do a little squiggly with a little circle around it because you don't want them to have your legal signature on file either. I, I don't trust collection agencies. I don't trust creditors. I don't want them to have anything on me. I don't want them to have my real signature because then they might take that real signature of yours and then just apply it to some bogus contract and say, "Here you go, you owe this because you signed on it," and really, you never did.
I literally trust no, no collection agency or creditor because I think that they're all bogus. I think that they're all, for the most part, um, they run illegal operations. They are there to screw people over. And I don't believe and trust in any of them. So that's why I would never, ever, ever give them my legal signature. So for you, uh, I recommend that you do put something in your envelope. Do not use the empty envelope strategy. If you do use it, at your own risk. I did warn you about that. I did warn you about the illegalities of it. But I just wanted to showcase exactly what one of my viewers actually did, which is somewhat brilliant, I guess, if you don't mind potentially getting in trouble for it. But who was to say that there wasn't anything in the envelope? And that was his argument. It's like, "Okay, well, if I send this empty envelope, how do they know that there wasn't anything in the envelope when they signed the green card and I receive it back?" Well, they don't. And how did they know that there wasn't something in the envelope? But somebody lost it when they opened it up? They put it on somebody's desk and, you know, it blew away and, you know, with the ceiling fan or whatever. You don't, you know what I mean? But again, I don't, I don't recommend that you do it the illegal way. I recommend that you do it the legal way.
I just wanted to bring you, uh, what one of my YouTube viewer students, because I call you guys all students, what he ended up doing, which ended up taking, I think about eight or nine adverse or negative accounts off of his three credit reports, which would be Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, and he did it within 30 days. So this only works for accounts that are closed. This only works for accounts that are collection accounts. These do not work for revolving accounts that are still open. So if you have a credit card, for example, and it's, you know, revolving and you still, it's still open, then I wouldn't recommend that you use this strategy, whereas you're sending information about or asking for information about your actual agreed contract. But if it's a closed account, if it's a repossession, if it's anything like that, then I recommend that you definitely use this certified letter strategy to be able to get these things removed off your credit.
Because remember, they do have 30 days by federal law to furnish a signed contract, a signed agreement, something that shows that you agreed to the terms and conditions of the account. And if they cannot furnish that within 30 days, it has to fall off the credit. And it will fall off the credit. You do have to do the second step, though, which is to send a copy of that green card showing when they signed for and, you know, a copy of the letter that you sent. And you have to send it to Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion and state that they are in violation of federal law by failing to provide the terms, terms and conditions, the agreement that you had had supposedly signed. And that it needs to come off the credit. And remember, save every lick of paperwork, every lick of everything you receive from the credit bureaus. Because any collection agency down the road can put it right back on your credit. And as long as you show proof it already fell off, they have to remove it immediately. Trust me, been there, done that. They try to do it all the time. That's why you don't throw away any of your paperwork.
So I hope that you found that this was helpful and useful. You definitely want to do it the legal way. Don't take this the wrong way. Do it the legal way. Um, and make sure that you get that stuff chiseled off your credit to dramatically boost your FICO score. If you like a free credit book from me, go into the description box below. You can download the free book that I call "Credit Millionaire" and you can get it instantly, and it's 100% free. And I want to give that to you. So then that way, you can start the process of fixing your personal credit, as well as start the process of gaining access to virtually unlimited unsecured business credit.
So, if you found that this was helpful to you, give me a nice thumbs up, as well as consider subscribing to my channel because I have a lot of stuff to bring to you as far as not only repairing your credit, but also helping you build an income to pay off all these nasty bills that you know you probably have lingering on your credit anyway. So this is Monica Main signing off, and I will see you in the next video.