Various industry Ombudsman have expressed concern with the credit repair industry recently.
This seems to have been fueled by an increase of complaints received by the Ombudsman from credit repair companies. I feel the foundation of this concern is many feel that credit repair companies are charging people for a service that the Ombudsman can provide for fee.
As the director of Clean Credit Pty Ltd I can understand why many feel this way. The real problem is how some credit repair companies operate.
The key is what a credit repair company asks the Ombudsman to do. As is the case with some questionable operators within the industry, some credit repair companies will lodge a complaint with the Ombudsman, have them investigate the matter entirely and simply relay the outcome to their client. In this example the credit repair company is doing very little and the client most likely could achieved the same outcome if they dealt with the Ombudsman directly, no doubt saving money in the process. This sort of behaviour is clearly wrong and is what is drawing negative attention from the Ombudsman.
I can state with certainty however that not all credit repair companies operate in this way and do offer a genuine and much needed service to the community.
In the case of Clean Credit Pty Ltd Ombudsman involvement is limited to Telecommunication or utility matters. In these cases the Ombudsman is only used to gain timely access to the credit provider and not to review the process followed or document a foundation for the removal of the subject credit listing. This is in stark contrast to using an Ombudsman to run the entire matter. It could be said that when this process is followed correctly it actually reduces the Ombudsman’s workload not adds to it.
In order to provide a valuable service to our clients it is very important we conduct the investigation and deal with the credit provider directly. Professional credit repair companies such as Clean Credit pride themselves on having a high degree of understanding of the laws that relate to credit reporting, it is due to this point that companies such as Clean Credit are so successful in helping people restore their credit files. I am not in any way suggesting the Ombudsman does not understand the legal requirements of a credit provider, it is more that we see ourselves as acting for our clients as a opposed to being an impartial party, we means we will go that extra mile and this is often the difference needed to obtain a positive outcome.
It is a shame that a few operators within the credit repair industry are drawing so much negative attention to what is such a valuable and needed service. It is easy to forget that not all within the industry act in a dishonest way and companies such as Clean Credit pride themselves on offering a genuine service to their clients. We must remember that most industries have a level of dishonestly and corruption however that does not mean that all within the industry are dishonest or corrupt.
I truly feel that the credit repair industry and industry Ombudsman can work together in the interests of the community, however for this to happen there needs to be a genuine effort to improve communication and understanding of how the credit repair industry should operate and how when administered correctly it does provide a valuable much needed service to people.
John Dickinson
Clean Credit