Pulling Credit Reports for Clients: The Do’s and Don’ts

If you’ve read Everything You Need to Become a Credit Repair Specialist, you’ll know the basics of getting started:

• How to get trained & certified as a credit repair specialist
• Why you need credibility in the community
• Where you can access advice and support from credit experts

Once you’ve gotten that down, you’re ready to start helping credit repair clients by obtaining, scouring, and improving their credit reports. Read on to learn how and why to start pulling credit reports for clients and what to do next.

How Credit Repair Specialists Help

We like to think credit repair specialists are unsung heroes in our current financial climate. Many folks are finding themselves with lower credit scores than they want or hit with credit claims that they do not know how to dispute. As a credit repair specialist you are able to guide your clients through the seemingly arduous and confusing process of repairing their credit and getting back on track financially.

Here are some of the important ways credit repair specialists help:

• They understand the credit repair process inside and out
  • Easily guide clients through the process

• They work with client to find and dispute errors on their credit reports
  • After pulling credit reports for clients, learn how to write credit dispute letters that work for your clients

• They negotiate with creditors and collections agents
  • Credit repair specialists can help clients reduce monthly payments and cut total debt amounts by 50% of the original debt owed

• They help clients to:
  • Qualify for loans or credit cards
  • Buy a car
  • Buy or rent a new home
  • Return to a place of financial stability and peace

Being a credit repair specialist is an important job, and it takes a familiarity with the basics of reading credit reports.

Credit Reports 101

• What is a credit report?

Credit reports are a client’s financial report card. There are three nationwide consumer reporting companies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) that each use the Fair Isaac method to calculate a client’s FICO® score. Pulling credit reports for clients gives you all the information you need to start improving their score.

• What factors affect a credit report?

Seemingly innocuous items like overdue library books, missing payments on your credit card, or using more than 25% of a credit line, can seriously damage a credit score. (This is one reason it is important you review your clients’ credit reports monthly  to keep up with any “negligible” factors client may overlook.) You can help clients build better credit habits to avoid costly mistakes that affect their score.

• What matters in a credit report?

Once you get certified through the American Credit Repair Academy’s training, you’ll know:

• How to read a credit report
• What the Date of Last Activity means and why it matters
• How to recognize errors and dispute claims with confidence

How to Access Client Credit Reports

Clients must obtain the reports themselves. As a credit repair company you are not authorized to request the credit report. As a credit repair specialist you will know that pulling credit reports for clients actually hurts their score, whereas there is no penalty if they pull the report themselves.

We suggest guiding clients toward a credit monitoring service.

• Many offer free trials for $1, though most clients see the benefit of keeping the monitoring service after the trial ends
• Recommended providers can be found in our Credit Repair Cloud Software (log in to client’s dashboard and click “Import online credit reports”)

• Make sure to get a report from each of the three nationwide consumer reporting companies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion)

Once a client signs up for a credit monitoring trial, they can provide you their log-in information for continued access to their most current credit scores and reports.

Simply upload the client’s credit reports by clicking “import online credit reports” and following the instructions on your screen. From here, you can start working your credit repair magic!

To learn about pulling credit reports for clients and other important parts of running a credit repair business, click here to download your copy of The Ultimate Guide to Starting A Credit Repair Business.