“When United Collection Bureau Wrecked My Credit, I Turned to Lexington Law Credit Repair Service”

You Too Can Raise Your Credit Score Hundreds of Points. Check Out My Real Credit Reports and Documents That Prove My Story is True

If you’re being targeted by debt collectors from United Collection Bureau or any other organization, this first part of my story will be all too familiar.

Like many people, I had gotten behind on my bills. There wasn’t any one factor like a huge medical bill or other unexpected expense that put me in the hole. It was more like a gradual accumulation of small bills. Taken on their own, none of the bills seemed that bad. But together, they added up and totally swamped me.

One of the bills was from a Sears store charge card. I’d opened the card to buy some holiday gifts, and then pretty much forgotten about it. Next thing I knew, I was being contacted by United Collection Bureau for repayment of the Sears card debt. I tried calling Sears directly, but they said that since they had sold my account, we no longer had a relationship. There was nothing they could do.

Now, if you’ve got debt collectors after you, you already know how annoying they can be. United Collection Bureau was no exception. They followed the typical pattern of calling me every day and sending tons of letters with angry red “past due” notices stamped on them. It was definitely annoying, but since I didn’t have the money to pay them, I did my best to ignore the situation.

Next, United Collection Bureau called my boss! That was really embarrassing. My boss was already unhappy with me for other reasons, and calls from United Collection Bureau only made things worse. I’d been working hard at being more responsible while on the job, and having United Collection Bureau call and characterize me as an irresponsible, financially incompetent debtor wasn’t helping my effort to develop a professional at-work persona.

The next tactic United Collection Bureau tried was threats. They said that they would take me to court if I didn’t pay. They said I could be arrested, and they could garnish my wages to get their money. At the time, that really freaked me out. I definitely regretted answering the phone that day!

Later, I learned that those threats were probably illegal. Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, debt collectors are not allowed to make threats of legal action for the sole purpose of intimidation. They have to really intend to follow through, take you to court, and win the case. In most cases, going to court isn’t worth the hassle for them.

The final straw in my dealings with United Collection Bureau was when they ruined my credit. They reported my debt to all three credit bureaus as a collection item. I’m told I should have received a notice from the credit bureaus about this, since they are legally obligated to notify you whenever your credit history gets updated. However, by this time I was throwing out virtually all of my mail unopened, so I didn’t hear about the collection items until later.

As a matter of fact, the first time I realized I had a credit problem, I was sitting in a car dealership trying to get financing for a new vehicle. When the salesman brought back a copy of my TransUnion credit report with a big fat “F” on it, I nearly died of embarrassment. I’m not kidding. It was awful. I felt like an idiot, and I couldn’t believe I’d been so unaware of my own credit situation.

The reason my credit score had dropped to 501 points was that I had those collection items–one from United Collection Bureau and a couple from another company. I realized that I couldn’t live with bad credit any longer. I had to take action.

I started doing some research to try to figure out what my options might be. I read a lot of stories about other people who had had troubles like mine, and I started to feel less alone. I realized I wasn’t the first person to get into credit trouble. It didn’t necessarily have anything to do with my character. I was just young and naive and careless. I felt like I’d learned my lesson about credit, and I didn’t want to suffer for my mistakes any longer.

It would have taken years for the collection items to fall off of my credit report on their own. In the mean time, I would have been unable to get new financing for a house or a car, or pass a credit check for a new apartment lease. Plus, I’ve heard that employers have started running credit reports on potential employees as part of the application process. With bad credit, I would be locked into my current job forever.

The credit repair advice I found online seemed divided into two camps: those who thought you could repair your credit yourself, and those who advised getting professional help. At first I was tempted to try to handle things on my own, because I didn’t want to spend money on a credit repair service.

Then I realized that repairing my credit was an investment in myself, and well worth the money. I didn’t want to be one of those people floundering around on their own, trying to get the debt collectors to take them seriously while fees and interest just kept piling up around them.

I found a credit repair service called Lexington Law that looked really promising. Lexington Law has a fantastic track record of helping people just like me repair their credit. They employ 24 attorneys and over 200 paralegals and agents, and work in 19 states. They’ve been around since 1991, and they really know their stuff!

In 2010 alone, the attorneys at Lexington Law erased over one million items from their clients’ credit reports. This statistic is mind-boggling. It’s a huge accomplishment, especially when you think of it not as a number on paper but as a group of people that have been helped. Credit repair can really be life changing. It takes you from severely limited options to financial freedom.

I decided to call Lexington Law for my free consultation. In the course of that consultation, I asked tons of questions. The Lexington Law rep was able to answer every single one.

Best of all, I learned that Lexington Law has a commitment to transparency in the credit repair process. This means that they’re not just going to wave a magic wand and fix everything. Instead, they tell you about all the steps that they are taking and explain how those steps are backed up by your legal rights as a consumer.

Here are just a few things that Lexington Law can do to repair your credit:

They can initiate a debt validation process to make sure you actually owe the debt that appears as a collection item on your credit report. If the collection agency can’t prove that you owe them, you don’t have to pay.

Lexington Law can also check that your debt’s statute of limitations has not yet expired. If the debt has expired, you cannot be forced to pay it.

If Lexington Law is able to prove that you don’t owe your debt, then the corresponding collection item on your credit report is obviously inaccurate. They can then use the Fair Credit Reporting Act to get the collection item removed.

Also, Lexington Law can investigate the tactics used by the debt collection and see if anything violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. For example, calling you before 8 am or after 9 pm, or making baseless threats of legal action, are violations of this act.

I was really happy with my consultation, so I hired Lexington Law right away. Within an unbelievably short time, Lexington Law got my United Collection Bureau collection item removed from my credit reports on all three credit bureaus. Plus, they also erased several other collection items for me.

It was hard to believe, but my credit history was now perfectly clean! I had the proof right in my hands, or I wouldn’t have believed it myself.

Today, my credit has rebounded up into the 700s, and I have the freedom and confidence to get new financing, get a new job, or get a new lease. Bad credit isn’t haunting me any longer!

I feel like I learned a lot through this whole experience. I’m so grateful to Lexington Law for defending my legal rights and helping me repair my credit and move on with my life.