Rebuilding Credit After Bankruptcy with Author Philip Tirone

welcome facebook viewers uh we appreciate you joining us for this week’s episode of the bond and botes facebook live uh we do these episodes every week and we try to address topics that are of interest to people in our community and the communities we serve and today our topic is is really targeted towards uh the aspect of the portions of the community that we really help it find and voters and people with credit issues you know many people that come to us are very concerned about their credit scores and their credit reports so today we have one of the experts um one of the persons in the country that i think knows more about these issues than anyone else philip tirone runs a company by the name of 720 credit score dot com if you haven’t been to the website it has a great deal of information phil thanks for joining us today brad it’s a pleasure to be here and i just love to dispel the misconceptions around credit scoring and and just what people think will happen especially around a bankruptcy and um but what what reality will happen yeah well there certainly are a lot of misconceptions we’ve been doing this type of work and i know you have also for for decades and decades and we try to correct some of those misconceptions but they’re still out there so we’re going to make another effort today phil i know you and i know you as somebody that bankruptcy attorneys across the country both within my firm and other firms around the country have gone to for help advising clients as to how to rebuild credit following a bankruptcy can you elaborate a little bit on your background uh your background how you got into this field and what you do on a daily basis oh yeah well i mean it all started i was in the mortgage business and way back and i went into a bank to deposit a check one of my paychecks and i was overdrawn and the late the teller said you know you can apply for an overdraft protection and you’ll never have to pay the overdraft protection fees she’s i said okay great let’s apply she’s like well we’re gonna have to run your credit i said okay i thought to myself i have good credit and i she ran my credit and she she said it’s sort of like in a loud voice oh i’m sorry mr tirone you’ve been denied your credit score is too low right i’ll never forget that moment i was so embarrassed i looked around i was doing just hear that so i went back to my mortgage company i ran my credit and i had some collection and you know i just didn’t pay attention to credit so i thought to myself well i can’t really it’s sort of disingenuous to provide loans to people if you can’t get the best loan yourself so i hired a credit repair company to help me and i ended up getting a letter from from either tran junior one of the bureaus saying you know your your credit file is locked due to fraudulent activity it was like fraud what happened and they emailed me or they contacted him on the phone and they they said you sent us a letter saying that this collection was a mistake and needed to be taken off and it was some some some um you know um you know some consumer finance company and what the credit repair company did was basically fraudulently create a letterhead and send to the bureaus and it just happened to get audited fortunately i didn’t sign the letter so i could say that’s not my signature i just hired a credit repair company but at that moment i realized i can’t refer anyone to credit repair and i started using my credit as a guinea pig and years and years and hundreds and hundreds and thousands of credit reports later we work with bankruptcy attorneys all around the country helping them helping their clients rebuild their credit after bankruptcy and you know to get their life back and that’s what we focus on that’s what we do and you do a great job with it but you know thank you you’ve already aged both of us by talking about going into the bank to deposit a check because you know most folks most young folks today they take a picture on their phone or there’s a automatic deposit but a lot of of the rules are still very similar i had a similar experience got married out of law school my wife and i wanted to buy a home and we applied for a mortgage and these things popped up on my credit that you know i couldn’t explain i had to look into them and from that day forward i’ve tried to keep a close eye on my credit so to our viewers the bond and botes law offices are located throughout alabama and mississippi and we help people with money problems and we know after this last year year and a half a lot of people are struggling a lot of people have financial problems we’re coming to an end of the eviction moratorium the foreclosure moratoriums we did an episode a few weeks back about the fact that student loans are going to become payable again soon so a lot of things happening and at this point the bonnet voters law offices are offering absolutely free initial consultations with an experienced attorney so if you’re having financial problems or you think you’re going to have financial problems be proactive folks reach out we’re doing these consultations from the safety and comfort of your own home or office if you prefer uh we’ll meet with you like philip and i are meeting today by video or we’ll meet by telephone but we want to help you our attorneys are experienced we’ve been doing this for decades and decades and we just want to offer a free consultation and give you some direction we want to talk today about a concern that virtually every one of the thousands and thousands of clients i’ve met with over the years have expressed and they always say and philip i know you’ve heard this they always say but i don’t want to file bankruptcy it’ll ruin my credit yeah so let me just put that out there phil the person says i don’t want to fail bankruptcy it’ll hurt my credit what’s your response to that well i mean when i hear this often and and you know i don’t recall because i don’t want to ruin my credit so so i guess what what i say and i say this over and over and over is is first of all your credit is easily rebuilt after bankruptcy and a lot faster than people think right we can get into that a little later but you know we can rebuild the credit score from bankruptcy discharge foreclosure and during a chapter 13. we can build to from wherever it is 550 500 credit score to a 720 credit score somewhere between 12 and 24 months right and it happens over and over and over we have a hundred thousand people have gone through our program you know post post bankruptcy so we just understand how the system works so i guess my first thing i would say is it’s this is not going to be a ball and chain for 10 years it’s not going to be with you forever it’s going to be a short short pivot where we’re rebuilding your credit and frankly what i hear most is bankruptcy attorneys tell me or my excuse me the clients tell me my credit is now better than it ever was before i filed bankruptcy because they got rid of all this debt and all the burden of the payments yeah it’s it’s it’s amazing to me because the other factor is by the time most people come to see me unfortunately they may already have missed a mortgage payment or two they may have missed a car payment they may have a credit card in default so the credit’s already in bad shape and as you and i both know um getting that bankruptcy discharge can create a fresh start and for a lot of reasons and let’s let’s let’s go into this kind of step-by-step so

if i go through a bankruptcy and i get a discharge when should i start rebuilding my credit philip so on a chapter 7 bankruptcy which is you know the elimination of all the debt it’s right after discharge you start rebuilding your credit right after discharge and we can go into how we do that a little later but it’s very easy right um during a chapter 13 it’s after the confirmation so you can explain this better than i but during a chapter 13 you pay little payments over the course of a number of years and what what most people are surprised to hear i mean you can have a 720 credit score during an active 13 years before a you know you you get out of the 13. we have hundreds of clients that have gone into a 13 raised their credit score and actually bought a new home during an act of 13 right sam it just you know it’s a it’s a common misconception that people don’t even realize it’s possible it is and it to clarify there for our viewers and we’ve done episodes on this in the past but a chapter seven uh most people think of as a straight bankruptcy a fairly quick proceeding where you’re able to eliminate or discharge most of your debt uh typical chapter seven bankruptcy takes four to five months to get to that discharge that philip talked about in a chapter 13 you propose a plan to catch up or pay back part of your debt over a period of time and there are a number of reasons why somebody made shoes a chapter 13 over a chapter seven and philip in my part of the country in alabama and mississippi chapter 13s are probably more common than just about anywhere else in the country for a variety of reasons also but for our viewers chapter 13 is a reorganization bankruptcy while chapter 7 is a straight bankruptcy so that’s fascinating to me philip and i want to ask you about that rebuilding credit while in an act of chapter 13 bankruptcy yeah what are some of the ways that a an individual can do that well so the key to rebuilding after a bankruptcy or during a bankruptcy is establishing a different type of payment new credit around the bankruptcy so a lot of people come to me and they say oh um how do i get that bankruptcy off my credit report like they come to us thinking we’re going to get it off the credit report and i’m and my response is well did you have a bankruptcy and if they say well yeah i had a bankruptcy i referred my bankruptcy attorney i’m like okay well trying to get it off even the act of trying to get off is illegal let’s not try to get anything off the credit report that is legitimate and frankly i don’t care if they have 20 late payments i don’t care if they have a foreclosure a bankruptcy i can still get them to a 720 credit score in 12 to 24 months just by rebuilding around the bad credit so there’s certain yeah you were gonna say something brad no i just i’m shaking my head because i agree completely with what you’re saying that’s been my experience absolutely well and not only that i mean people spend thousands of dollars with credit repair companies that is an absolute waste of money they don’t even they don’t even do what they’re going to say most of the time when they promise you all get a bankruptcy off your credit report no you’re not right well and you and i become frustrated with those type companies because their advertisements sound so good that they’re going in fact the example you gave early in your career you contacted it sounds like one of these type companies yeah and often they engage in just fraudulent activity they just continue to challenge items hoping that the company will continue to report the debt um but it’s not effective and usually if it sounds too good it’s going to be too good go to somebody that’s proven that’s been doing this for a long time and that has good reviews somebody like philip tirone with 720 credit score.com so i also hear this philip i hear people that come in and they’ve had a bad time with credit and they’ve gotten behind and it’s really been agonizing and they say you know what once i get through this bankruptcy i’m never going to incur credit again i’m not going to use credit cards i’m not going to take out any loans is that a good approach to take well so here’s the thing is if you do not people think that once i file bankruptcy my credit score is going to naturally go up and it does to some extent but it doesn’t give you get us to the point where you’re you’re you know you’re benefiting with your car insurance and your car loans and stuff things like that and when people say i’m going to wipe my ham claims of credit when we talk about credit scoring i’m not talk i’m not saying we should go back in debt matter of fact in our program we coach against that right all we have to do is play the game of credit because the truth of the matter is this is a game and if you’re not playing it you are hurting yourself and your family financially you are i mean you will overpay in car insurance you will pay on homeowners or renters insurance you will overpay i mean if you ever get a car loan i mean a simple simple example the difference between a 720 credit score today and a 659 like the average person wouldn’t think that a 659 credit score is a bad credit score but that 61 points is 7.44 difference right it’s a hundred dollars a month on a fifteen thousand dollar car and over sixty months at six thousand dollars for the same car yeah brad i mean we’re talking the same car and this is what i try to just share with my clients i’m like look all we have to do is play the game and we’re going to rebuild some credit you’re going to get a credit card you’re going to get a couple a secured card you’re going to buy one thing per month and you’re going to pay it off and i and i would argue and i have this often on our question answer calls so we we feed people we educate people a couple ways one is through um you know an online portal but also i do live you like these type of live question answer calls with the real people asking real questions and a lot of people that ask me this say you know what i don’t want to go back in debt and my response is i would argue that after you go through a bankruptcy you’re not the same person you were you’re not going to make the same decision you know there’s a small percentage of the people that that that play the game right but as our clients brad you know the the average person is being pushed in the bankruptcy with medical bills student loan repayment they just can’t afford it and they need a break and this is why the laws of bankruptcy work for our debtors and work for our country it’s a very critical piece and they don’t go out and just get in debt again they’ve learned yeah you know phil everybody i’ve been doing this for 35 years now and everybody seems to have a negative perception of somebody that files bankruptcy until they’re in financial trouble on their own and financial problems as you just said can result from a number of different reasons it could be health problems it could be a divorce where suddenly the same you know income is supporting two houses instead of one house that there are so many things that can happen to people um that we’re acting in good faith um the stereotypical bankruptcy is somebody just like you or me or the people that you know i may go to church with or my kids parents kids friends at school as parents there are people we run into every day and the fact that they’ve filed bankruptcy the only way i tell folks you really know is that they have a lot less anxiety and stress than they had before they sought advice from a bankruptcy attorney now philip you just made a good point and i’m not sure a lot of people understand this but a credit score impacts a whole lot more than your ability to just get another credit card um insurance rates um purchasing a car there are so many factors that are impacted by a poor credit score so to that individual it says all right i’ve gone through this bankruptcy i’ve had some problems i’m not going to incur debt again we don’t tell them to run up debt but we do want to make sure they know their credit score is important for many other reasons absolutely so just how quickly can you know i get my credit score back up if i get a chapter 7 discharge or i’ve got my chapter 13 confirmed um you know i i here still to this day so my credits ruined for seven years or my credits ruined for 10 years right right yeah yeah how do you respond to that well first of all i’m convinced that the banks created that narrative right okay let’s get let’s get in everyone’s mind let’s run a pr campaign that if you file bankruptcy you’ll never get another credit card again or you’ll never be able to get a car loan or home loan because that’s why what keeps people fear the fearfulness of it once they realize that no no all the freedom you you want in life financially is going to come out of this rebirth that’s going to happen out of bankruptcy right and i say often if if our clients understood what this rebirth and this new life was going to give them they’d file if they’d file tomorrow but it’s this misconception that they just have that oh my gosh i’m screwing something up right so to your point brad or your question is it it it it takes i always say it takes 12 to 24 months but the reason why i say 12 to 24 months is because um inevitably some people you know they they don’t start the program immediately or they drag their feet or they don’t do a step or whatever right so i say 12 to 24 months to give me plenty of room but i mean we run we we have constantly get pictures sent to us of people and they’re like hey here’s um i’m standing in front of my new house right these are these and you go to our facebook page we have dozens and dozens maybe even hundreds of people who’ve submitted their picture with their testimonial and it’s just real people real results i don’t know most of them right i’ve never talked to most of them and and we have one lady who recently raised her credit score from the mid fives to 7 19 and i think she said it was four months maybe it’s five months but it’s it’s all about how quickly they follow our steps because it’s like gravity i know the credit score will rise it’s just a matter of like the getting the getting the ducks in order and that’s what we do for our clients it’s easy i want to make it abundantly clear this is easy it’s simple and that’s a constant theme we hear from our clients on our we have i think it’s 570-ish google reviews um and you’ll see it consistently it’s like wow this is easy it’s a lot easier than i thought and the common other thing is thank god i filed bankruptcy yeah i mean thank god i took this step right absolutely and before before i comment further i do phil just talked about answering questions if any of our viewers today have questions please feel free to post them i’m going to let phil philip answer some of those questions near the end of this episode phil i i want to make it clear neither you or i are saying bankruptcy is a good thing or should be a person’s first step but we both know that people deal with financial problems insurmountable financial problems for far too long before they reach out for help because of all of these negative perceptions they have about bankruptcy and the impact it’s going to have on that on their lives and those are the folks we want to talk to today if you’re having financial problems if you need help if you need someone to talk to reach out and we’ll provide an absolutely free initial consultation and if bankruptcy is right for you if seeking protection under the bankruptcy code is good for you we want to help you rebuild your credit following the bankruptcy just as soon as possible and philips company does an excellent job of helping people 720 credit score.com has been around for how long now philip i know you’ve helped thousands and thousands of thousands yeah i 97 i mean it’s been a while yeah it’s been a while so so again people go to somebody you know and you can trust that’s been around for a while whether it’s with filing your bankruptcy petition or in rebuilding your credit after you file a bankruptcy so another question i get often philip is how long after a bankruptcy um will it take me before i can buy a home because i really want to buy a home what’s your answer there so okay so it based it depends on the type of bankruptcy so if it was if it’s one of those clean bankruptcies i think you call the chapter seven straight bankruptcy chapter seven trade bankruptcy so fha has a two-year requirement it can be reduced to one year with certain circumstances and um and and then with regards to a 13 it’s during an active 13 i believe fha’s requirement on that is 12 or 18 months of on-time payments of the 13. but it’s very very easy and very reasonable time frame and it’s not this seven or ten year waiting period that that most people hear about the seven in canon so now eight year period folks it comes from the fair credit reporting act it’s the amount of time that the bankruptcy filing can be reported on your credit report but that by no means signifies that you have bad credit um in fact philip you know in response the comment you had earlier about how can i get a bankruptcy off my credit you said well that may not be something you want to do um it wouldn’t be legal to do but furthermore the bankruptcy itself um can actually create i tell people if they know you filed bankruptcy or a straight chapter 7 bankruptcy they know you can’t file again and get a discharge for eight year period of time so i assume that also can be a good point oh absolutely i mean i i i mean it’s when i when i think of people and when people talk to me about what’s on their credit report they will find out very soon once the credit score goes up and they re-establish it the right way right around the bankruptcy then it becomes the moot point they there i mean frankly a lot of our our clients forget once they get the 720 credit score and you know they forget about us which is good right they forget about us they’re forgetting about you brad i mean they’re just moving on in their life and they’re moving on without their debt and for without all those financial pressures and it’s it’s really um you know it’s just i mean they don’t even yes people when they run their credit report may see a bankruptcy from two years three years or five years ago but it’s not something that they even bring up that the bank wouldn’t even bring it up as long as we rebuild the credit the right way yeah i i can’t emphasize enough folks it and this has changed to some extent over the years when i first started filing bankruptcies back in the 1980s um it was a little bit more difficult to rebuild credit but today it’s it’s almost the opposite i i have to work with people to keep them from getting into the same situation again because the office of credit start coming in fast and furious after that bankruptcy discharge um so philip the

it’s kind of interesting you and i are both in businesses where we don’t want repeat clients uh we’ll help them if they get into trouble again right but if i file a bankruptcy for somebody i hope their life going forward that they’re able to enjoy the benefit of that fresh start that they’re able to rebuild their credit and you’re the same you said clients forget about you well that’s your objective to get them to a point where they don’t need to worry about their credit absolutely but we we we take what we do seriously um so you you mentioned items on their credit reports and people are concerned about getting that negative information off their credit report i want you to talk a little bit more about that we talked about the bankruptcy in particular but if a prospective lender is looking at my credit report following a bankruptcy what are they looking for well so you know keep in mind i was in the mortgage business for for many many years right so i’ve i’ve looked at the benefit of looking at thousands and thousands of credit reports before i even start doing this and what i would hear consistently and i hear it consistently to this day is oh you had a bankruptcy okay so what new credit have you established after the bankruptcy because the common misconception people think oh um you know without credit i’ll have good credit no it’s the exact opposite having no credit is as bad as is is is equal to having bad credit because there’s no feedback that the bureaus can give so they don’t assume the good they assume the bad right so um so that’s that’s the point the point is we need to re-establish credit around the bankruptcy so when the bankruptcy is showing okay you had a bankruptcy in 2021. okay what a credit have you established after it which is why we talk about you know the need to get three different types of revolving credit right and revolving is credit where like a credit card or a secured card or something like that where you can use it pay it off you know use it the next month but there’s no set you know payment and the other type of credit we need is sort of like an installment and credit or installment line this is like a flat a set period or set payment for x number of months right and that doesn’t have to be i mean example the easy example like a car loan but you don’t have to go out and get a car loan for that there’s credit rebuilder loans there’s different things you can do to re-establish your credit for very you know i mean we’re you know this is easy like i just want to brad i keep bringing that up because people think credit’s hard right they think oh my goodness i’m gonna have to write letters and i’m gonna spend hours a week no no you’re not gonna do any of that right and the my biggest problem is pointing people in the right direction you mentioned a few minutes ago that when someone follows bank groups they get to get all these things in the in the letter about credit cards right well the problem is is on that note you know there was a federal reserve board study done 44 percent of credit cards don’t pro don’t report the proper credit limits to the bureaus if you don’t have the proper credit limits and you charge one dollar on that credit card you’re maxed out which is gonna drop your credit score so this is the thing like we have to i have to navigate for my debt for my clients all the misconceptions with all the bogus marketing from credit card companies buy here pay here dealerships like it’s it’s tough and i know you deal with it too right you deal with alabama mississippi this is what i’m dealing with so go ahead philip at this point and and give our viewers kind of a synopsis of exactly what you do at 720 credit score i know there are steps for people to take and go through uh tell us about how you help people following a bankruptcy yeah well i mean primarily we work with hundreds of bank consumer bankruptcy attorneys around the country right right and and you know we we when we decide to marry bankruptcy in our credit program it really allowed me to help more people i mean up to for the first 12 years of doing 720 credit score i helped 12 000 people right the following 12 years i did 100 000 right it just became so much easier when i partnered with bankruptcy firms and this is all we do i mean we focus primarily on rebuilding credit after a bankruptcy to give these people a fresh start and take this misconception out that you are going to be um you know strapped by this bankruptcy for seven to ten years right and and that’s and how we do it is we have an online portal which has all you know plenty of information someone can consume at their own pace and my videos are specifically the longest one is seven minutes long the longest video okay i have some videos that are three minutes long i don’t want to i don’t want to take a lot of time on credit because frankly once you understand the basics it’s easy right and we talk about what to do if you’re married you know rebuilding credit when you’re married is is a nuance and we can talk about that a little later but but what really um we do that we also have live question answer sessions and this is turned in i mean this was a afterthought frankly but brad it turned out to be frankly the biggest part of our program where we we email everyone and say call in for your live question answer sessions and we have hundreds and hundreds of people that listen and call in on it on a on a you know whenever we have these they just listen in they don’t ask a question they just want to listen because the reality is is my credit problem is the same as yours it’s a different account number different balance right and once you understand this but also it’s very therapeutic to hear hundreds and hundreds of people that have the same exact problem i mean you know where do you go to to get the reality about like oh have i have bad credit you’re not embarrassed to talk about it right so we have those two aspects and then the other the last thing about 720 credit score when you get enrolled by your bankruptcy attorney you have lifetime enrollment and it’s not just lifetime for you it’s lifetime for your kids i mean like we are very generous i say on the call all the time i’m like if you have a sis you have a you have a your your son your daughter you know give them your username and password like we have to share this information right the more we share it the better it is and and some people after a bankruptcy they’re just exhausted and they just want to pause it for six months and pick it up in six months and we’ll be there for them when that time comes well and it’s a tremendous service you provide and i want our viewers to know that you know at bonnie bodis we’re not just here to get a bankruptcy filed for you we’re here with you for the long run also we want to help you with issues with your credit report we want to help you by getting you to somebody like philip and his company to help rebuild your credit it’s very easy to do there are tremendous resources but just like taking the first step and calling a bankruptcy attorney you’ve got to be proactive you’ve got to reach out for help folks i know a lot of you are having money problems right now and i know how tough it is to deal with those problems alone i know the impact that that stress of dealing with debt that you can’t pay can have on a marriage or on your ability to be a good parent or in your ability to do your job correctly it’s just not worth it it’s not worth the impact on your marriage and your health reach out for help you don’t make any commitment by calling us and just learning what your options are we’re offering absolutely free initial consultations throughout alabama and mississippi right now you can either call the number that will be on your screen or you can go to our website gather a little bit more information and fill out a form there and we’ll reach out to you but we’ll arrange for you to talk to one of our experienced attorneys one-on-one confidentially where you can get your questions answered and if you seek bankruptcy protection and if we help you get through that important period in your life we’re then going to get you on the road to rebuilding your credit and there are tremendous resources available for you to do that phil i want to give you an opportunity to answer some of the questions that we’ve started to get coming in from our viewers um i’ve got a list of them here so um interesting question here um there are three primary credit reporting agencies um is one more important than the others no i mean there’s transunion yeah transunion equifax and experian and it i mean not one’s not necessarily um more important the other certain creditors report to certain credit bureaus not all creditors report to all the bureaus and that’s what and each credit bureau has their own algorithm so that’s why the credit scores are different because certain credit cards report or certain credit agencies report to certain bureaus but no the the key thing is you when when you go to a bank and they run your credit report and we always look at like the main example or like a home loan for example because they run all three bureaus they look at the middle credit score so you know it i wouldn’t say that one’s more important than the other but we just wanna you get them all up so that we can get the middle score the highest because that’s what they’re gonna look at so so all three are essentially important you want to make sure there’s not inaccurate information on any of them so we talked about the period of time um it takes to rebuild credit following a bankruptcy this next viewer asks how often are credit scores updated so they’re updated all the time all the time i mean you know one of the one of the quick credit strategies we have which i’ve seen work tremendously so say for instance you’re you’re buying a car or buying a home and you run your credit and it’s just artificially low right what you do is you want to go to you want to look at your credit card credit report see where if there may be a balance that’s temporarily high because you plan on paying off the card right i hear that all the time i pay my cards off in full every month i don’t have to worry about this utilization number that’s how much of the credit card i’m using i don’t have to worry about it because i pay it off in full each month and that’s not the case you need to because when they run your credit that’s a snapshot in time so for example if the client has a thousand dollar credit card and they’re paying it off tomorrow but they ran your credit report today and it’s 900 you’re 90 utilized your credit score is going to be 30 40 points lower so what what i tell people if that’s the case pay off the credit card or pay down as much as possible and then have them re-run the credit the the next day it’s constantly updated that’s fascinating so credit score may be much better one day uh than it is oh yeah the next day or just a few days later

so this next viewer i think we’ve already answered the question but is there a way to get a missed or late payment off my credit report well there is if if it’s an actual mr late payment right and the beauty is that you mentioned the fair credit reporting act we have plenty of of of ways and and and um capability to get anything that’s an error off your credit report and by the way 42 of the time this is lesson number one in our program lesson number one in our program is review your credit report for errors 42 percent of the time we find an error and that’s one error brad i’m not talking about the number of errors on a credit report so someone files bankruptcy or goes to 13 or checking out their credit report 42 percent of time so this is another common big mistake people do people make they the um they don’t look through the credit for errors because if you can’t get if you don’t get the errors off your credit report we’re not going to get it up right and so that’s a big problem and it’s so much easier today than it was years ago to access your credit reports oh yeah i know individuals are entitled to a free copy of their credit report once a year they can get that from freecreditreport.com there are other resources available uh what about credit monitoring services philip are those a good idea oh yeah i mean you know i i we tell everyone go sign up for credit karma right it’s a free account you can’t really use credit karma’s number right i think i tend to find that it’s somewhere between 30 and 50 points higher than what’s normal i mean i’ve had people call me calling these question answer sessions oh my goodness i was buying a car and i had a 720 or 740 credit score on credit card and i went in and at six something right and then there it’s a tough situation to be in you’re buying the car you think you can qualify for the best loan and all of a sudden it’s like do i wait or pay four percent higher each month right or four percent higher in interest rate so we don’t the thing on credit karma the beauty is you can look for the trend lines are the trends going in the right direction that’s the easiest way to do it and it’s free yeah to emphasize your point there is so much misinformation on people’s credit reports out there there’s so much inaccuracy at bond and botes we also provide a representation of the fair credit reporting act and the fair debt collection practices act right and many of the folks that come to see us we’re actually able to find errors um that end up paying for the bankruptcy but we can have your creditor uh pay for your bankruptcy if they’re if they’re reporting information incorrectly in your credit report we’ll help you review that um we can sue them and they’re they’re often required to pay you damages and it may be enough to actually get your bankruptcy filed so folks reach out and let us help you review your credit reports make sure what’s there is accurate um and an important important thing is to not just look at one of these merged credit reports that often you’ll see out there i think it’s important to go to the actual big three credit reporting agencies brad brad can i jump in one thing on that absolutely you know also i just for all the listeners i know you know this but i just want to reiterate this because it’s super important collection companies they can be like harassing you they can call you at work when you tell them not to they can call i mean they they can do things that are blatantly illegal and if you’re getting harassed and if you’re getting called when and it just doesn’t feel right they should call your office immediately especially because you follow you understand the fair debt credit reporting act most attorneys frankly don’t really get that it’s not bankruptcy attorneys are you know a lot of them are siloed into bankruptcy but thanks to your firm and understanding that if you feel like you’re getting harassed by a creditor you call just for that right yeah absolutely and it and again it’s such a tough situation to be in when you’re being harassed and they’ll do it with phone calls they’ll do it with letters and and philip you know they do it in more subtle ways too these credit these collectors will report information on a credit report that may not be accurate at all sometimes it’s just flat out wrong but it’s there because it will pop up when somebody’s applying for credit and may cause the individual to pay a debt but they really didn’t need to or didn’t owe um those are the those are the ones that are easy to get off tasks are getting things off yeah those illegal activities you can they can come off in a second and really pop a credit score i mean who knows you may be having a listener right now who doesn’t really need bankruptcy what they need is some help with some creditors right right so and and there are good laws you know in alabama and mississippi there aren’t a wealth of um state consumer protection laws but both the fair credit reporting act and the fair debt collection practices act are federal laws that we can utilize in federal courts to help protect your rights and we can make these bad guys pay your damages and they have to pay our attorney’s fees also so you’re not out of pocket anything but philip thank you that’s that’s an excellent point um you know we want to talk to you about your financial issues bankruptcy is never going to be the first option it may be that we can help you clean up your credit report by using the fair correct reporting act or the fair debt collection practices act it may be that by getting you to philip we can just help you rebuild your credits there are always options to look at a good experienced attorney is going to help you look at all your options before a bankruptcy is recommended so philip this next viewer asks a good question here um are the buy here pay here car dealerships a good place to go to rebuild credit well so the problem with the buy so i’m going to talk generally here because i every buy here pay here dealership is typic is different right but generally buy here pay here dealerships don’t report to the bureaus right because they don’t want you to re-establish credit i’ve had these conversations with them i’m like wow what a great opportunity i can refer clients they buy here pay her dealerships they could rebuild the credit and it’s exact opposite i mean i had to buy here daily deep buy here pay your dealership say to me point blank no no we we want the clients to pay here we use our buy from us forever right right so the beauty is what i found what i found

in dealing with a lot of car dealerships the larger banker or the larger dealerships they typically have some type of post bankruptcy or um you know poor credit process or department and you know if we can establish credit consistently and then establish credit revolving you know with our program get the errors off the credit report you know as long as they get into a starter car you know you what i what i don’t recommend is going out and buying a fancy car right out of the gate because you know the payments are so high when you’re paying a 25 interest rate right right but fast forward a year you can you’re going to be down in the in you know you know four or five six percent if you do it rebuild your credit the right way so i just i tend to move away from the buy here pay here dealerships because i just haven’t found one that supports my philosophy and your philosophy brad on reestablishing credit and light your life after a bankruptcy or some type of financial breakdown exactly there are exceptions of course there are some buy here pay here places that will provide a decent interest rate and that will report your payments your on-time payments to the credit reporting agencies but as a rule uh we have found that not to be the case and philip is dead on there are many many many car dealerships now that write us that encourage us to send our clients post discharge for financing so the important things are you want to buy your car somewhere or finance your car somewhere where they’re going to report your on-time payments that you’re going to make following your bankruptcy and you want a good interest rate which you should be able to get it’s not going to be the great rate that you may have gotten you know before philip helped you get your credit score back up to 720 um but you can get a decent rate you don’t need to pay that 20 25 percent rate that a lot of dealerships will charge you or buy your pay here places will charge you post petition folks it it’s a lot more important than just what your monthly payment is you need to look at the interest and how soon you’re going to be able to pay off that vehicle um bill we have that problem often people just want to know what their monthly payment is yeah what do you say to people when they look at a mortgage or a car from that perspective well i mean what i say to people when they say that i’m like look we got to look at your options holistically like completely you know what is the interest rate what is the term what are the fees because you know you’re making new decisions now after your bankruptcy right you know we’re going to rebuild the right way and not the not the fast way right and because if they do it trans they they it it trans the knowledge transfers to their kids it’s all of us i mean we all you know most most of us have kids i have five kids my own and all i want are my kids to stand on my shoulders and i hear it on these question answer calls these people calling in and they’re like let me tell you i’m learning this because i’m gonna do better i want my kids to do better than me and that’s inspiring to me right absolutely so if we just slow it down a little bit let’s not just look at the payment like you said let’s look at the whole situation i have people that we refer our clients to brad i mean there’s no one better than your firm if you if you have a question on okay where do i buy my next car you’ll point them in the right direction and that’s the beauty about team right it’s we can make much better decisions together than separately and you know that that’s where i go with it yeah thank you for that we we work very hard to make sure our people are able to take full advantage of a bankruptcy fresh start helping you find at the right place to finance a car giving advice concerning getting a mortgage featuring experts like philip tirone here today i want to remind our viewers you may be watching this you may be saying well this is just great information philip really knows what he’s talking about remember that these facebook live videos live on our facebook page so you can refer somebody back to watch this video later it’s also on our firm’s website at bouninbodis.com so many people could benefit from the advice that philip is providing today so please think to refer them back to our facebook page or to our firm’s website for this information philip interesting question that this next person asked and i’d like to know the answer to this myself so i know for a long time years ago we encouraged people to get prepaid or secured credit cards following a bankruptcy to rebuild their credit um and this person says is that the way um should i get this person says a prepaid card to rebuild my credits um my perspective is it’s probably just as easy to get a credit card with a small balance post petition or post discharge than it is a prepaid card these days uh can you talk about that that the advantages and disadvantages of a prepaid card yeah brad i i feel exactly like you we talk about in the program you know this is step two of the program right step two is re-establish with revolving credit card so yeah um start with unsecured apply and try to get unsecured credit where you can get one without putting a down payment down um but unfortunately sometimes you know because what’s on your credit or various things it’s all different and sometimes it’s hard to actually figure out why um the client can’t get credit after bankruptcy right so if that right our way i mean i’m talking unsecured credit so what we want to do is okay great let’s keep the ball rolling do you have a hundred dollars you could put into a savings account and get what’s called a secured card for that amount right and and if they do they establish with secured card and then the following card’s easy easier if they don’t have a hundred dollars for a secured credit card there’s other ways we could you know we can help them to reestablish credit but a secured card is the is the backdrop right certain districts around the country during a chapter 13 they can’t get any new debt so they have to do a third the secured card right it just depends on the nuances of the of the bankruptcy district and of the clients consumer credit but that’s what we’re here for i mean you know i we’re here all the way until the client hits their 720 number and like we talked about earlier never thinks of us again which is fine well i i do want to make this point i have seen some secured credit cards or companies that bill themselves says providing a secured credit card that doesn’t necessarily report payments to the credit reporting agencies whatever way you go i think it’s important to make sure that that provider is reporting on time payment information that you make hosting well thank you brad for bringing that up absolutely you don’t want to do anything that is not reported to the bureaus i mean if we’re gonna get credit we’re gonna do the effort might as well do it and while i’m thinking about that store carts like cards that can only be used in the store so for example a home depot credit card but it’s a credit card that can only be used at home depot right just those are called consumer cards right it’s it’s best to avoid those now home depot has a credit card that’s a visa that you get points at home depot that you can use wherever that’s a different story i’m not talking about that credit card i’m talking about a consumer credit card where it’s like oh you want to save 10 percent by getting this kohl’s card or getting this whatever card just avoid that it’s not it’s not it’s not worth it and the problem is with those type of cards the likelihood of an error popping up on your credit is is higher and that’s why we want to avoid the amount of credit we have on a credit report we want to be very strategic because if not you’re going to see these huge swings up and down because of an error oh my goodness and then if you’re applying for a home or a car you see an error on your credit report well guess what then you’re going to contact us and we’re going to contact you brad and say okay brad this client’s got an error on the credit report you know manage it under fikra or you know fair credit reporting act um so that’s it’s just better to be strategic with the credit rebuilding process absolutely which is why you need the guidance of somebody like philip and his company certainly if you’re one of our clients we encourage you to reach out to us but the important thing is reach out to a trusted source and get advice as you’re rebuilding your credit so that you make sure to do it properly all right so this next viewer’s question is um if i go through a bankruptcy and i surrender my home um what impact will the foreclosure have on my credit report and what can i do about it you know brad it’s the same exact thing i don’t care if it’s foreclosure i don’t care if it’s five foreclosures i don’t care if the short sale bankruptcy i don’t care if you went through a bank uh a divorce and it was nasty and you have 40 late payments the beauty about the credit reporting industry and i can i can go on a litany of reasons what i don’t like the credit reporting industry but the beauty about it is that you can rebuild you can rebuild from wherever you’re at it really doesn’t matter and that’s the beauty about the credit reporting system so yeah i mean you know we’re just going to rebuild around the foreclosure we’re going to rebuild around the late payments or the short sales or whatever it is you know and i mean it’s it’s it’s the same basic premise just just to elaborate on phil’s comment you may have four or five foreclosures i remember a couple that i represented back in 2009 the last time we really had a dip in the economy this couple had a number of rental homes that they had acquired to produce income and when they filed their chapter 7 bankruptcy they surrendered 12 of these rental houses and each one of them were foreclosed upon those people were able to rebuild their credit following that bankruptcy in a very short period of time because they took responsible steps following the bankruptcy so it wasn’t just one foreclosure or two foreclosures there were numerous foreclosures plus a bankruptcy on their credit but they were able to rebuild by being responsible moving forward and and making good decisions going forward about one quick thing brad sure the beauty about the the the the bankruptcy laws and the fair credit reporting act laws and all these things that you know your your firm specializes in is that it’s here to protect the consumer right and and i guess can’t tell you how often i hear from my clients and saying hi i wish i would have learned more sooner yeah and i just really invite everyone who’s listening who just you know consider and just be like look make the call to learn it doesn’t mean you’re going to make a decision but just understand it and that’s the thing i say constantly in our question answer calls take the next step to learn about the information because it can truly shift your life forever and your family’s life and your kids life i mean you know that brad but i just wanted to bring that up there’s no better feeling than when somebody finally comes to talk to us and i know they’ve dealt with the stress the anxiety for months sometimes years and they finally come into our office or today we consult by video or phone but we make the decision that seeking bankruptcy protection is is going to get them where they need to be in the future and the relief is just it we have to keep boxes of tissues the relief is just overwhelming people break down into tears and when they leave when we’re done there’s a new spring in their step because they’ve got a plan to deal with all of those dead issues philip we’re closing in in the hour and i do want to be respectful of your time i’m going to give you a warning i’m going to say a few words here about our firm but then i’m going to ask you if i’ve missed anything and give you a chance just to kind of wrap things up with respect to rebuilding credit following bankruptcy folks i want to say one more time i know a lot of you are having difficulty paying your bills right now and things are about to get serious because the prohibition on foreclosures and evictions and student loan payments all of those moratoriums are coming to an end and the rubbers can hit the road you need to reach out for help the bounty voters law offices have been helping people with financial problems for over 30 years we represent people throughout the states of alabama and mississippi we have board certified attorneys and we are providing absolutely free initial consultations right now you don’t even have to leave your home or leave your office give us a call we’ll schedule or transfer you directly to one of our experienced attorneys there’s no obligation the communication is confidential but we’re going to answer your problems and we’re going to let you know what would happen if you decided to seek bankruptcy protection or if there’s inaccurate information in your credit report that’s creating problems for you or if a collector is being abusive with their tactics and trying to collect the debt that you or don’t don’t owe in some instances if you know somebody that would benefit from what you’ve heard here in this presentation please share this facebook live video with them or please refer them to our website where these videos will also be available we have been very very fortunate to have one of the nation’s foremost authorities on rebuilding credit today philip tirone and his company 720 credit score dot com have been helping people rebuild credit following bankruptcy for decades now um if you need help go to somebody that’s been around for a while the bonnie voters law offices we’ve been doing this for over 30 years and philip uh and 720 credits score.com have been doing this for close to 30 years now it sounds like yourself philip i want to thank you for being here what have i missed what do our viewers need to know that we may not have covered today i i think i think we covered a lot i mean i think we covered the basics of it and i what the theme that i always like to talk about and just share for the consumers is that you know there’s the pressure you’re feeling with your debt and the confusion and the harassing phone calls and all those things um there’s a better life out there and and i just i’ve seen it over and over over the since we i started working with bankruptcy firms that life becomes infinitely more easier when you’re not juggling and i just that that’s the only thing that’s that’s my main focus anytime i do type these type of presentations brad i just want people to know that there’s options out there and they’re not trapped by the banks and buy their collections and they’re they’re there there’s something out there that they should at least go check out because i mean brad there’s times that people call you and you’re doing an intake and you’re doing an initial consultation and you realize oh no bankruptcy is not for you right absolutely so that’s the beauty especially working with virtuous firms like yourself like you’re going to be the you’ll you’ll tell people the the right way to manage their debt because i know i hear it i hear it on my from my my clients on my bankruptcy on my question answer calls they’re like i was enrolled by my bankruptcy attorney but they i didn’t have to file bankruptcy they told me not to file and they gave us our your program so sure anyways i just want to acknowledge that that’s the real theme that i’m looking for i wanted to get by today thank you and i i i know that you and the folks at your company are just like what we do at the bounty voters offices we want to do what’s best for you uh you contact us you’re not just a number you’re not just you know somebody out there you’re an individual you’ve got your own individual challenges your own individual goals your own individual objectives we want to help you and we’re going to give you what advice is best for you bankruptcy should never be your first option but if you do need protection if you do need help we’re here philip thank you again on behalf of everyone with the bonnie voters law offices on behalf of philip tirone and 720 credit report 720 credit score.com i’m sorry perfect doesn’t matter what i have on your screen folks don’t don’t don’t just listen to my words on behalf of all of us thank you and uh abundant bonus we’re all about faith family and finances please let us know if we can help you thank you brad talk to you soon bye