7/23/25 Teen Financial Basics, Rising Local Costs, and Credit Solutions with Anselmo Moreno

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Tuesday, July 22nd BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Guys" podcast call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management LinkedIn: Moneywise_Wealth_Management Guest: Anselmo Moreno, Innovative Credit Solutions website: https://bakersfieldcreditrepair.com/ phone: 661-369-8130

• 0:00Speaker 00

  From the Garo Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway, here is Money Wise. Call or text into the show 24/7 at 396-1000.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  Here is Money Wise. Money, money, money, money.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Welcome to the Money Wise Show. We are live from the Garo Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway on ESPN Bakersfield, 1230 a.m., 101.1 FM, and always streaming at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. Today, we're your hosts. I'm Sharad Wade and...

• 1:03Speaker 02

  Sammy Abiyawi.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  Sammy, great having you.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  Same here.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  There is a lot going on. We mentioned this yesterday. I think I'll mention it again.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Yes, very good thing to mention.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  We don't do a lot of these public educational workshops, and we have one that's coming up. This one is specifically for teenagers, and so I just wanted to give another shout out to anybody who might be interested. If you've got kids that are teenagers, this is really geared towards those ages 14 to 19. Parents, obviously, can attend as well. It's a financial basics for teens. We're going to talk about banking basics, budgeting, building credit, saving, and investing. It'll be given by one of our very good Money Wise financial advisors, Seth Perry, who taught high school for many years.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's got great experience in teaching teens about finance and investing. It is coming up on August 6th. That's Wednesday. It's a Wednesday night, August 6th, from 5:30 to 6:30. Doors open at 5:15, and there will be pizza and snacks. And it's at the Club Room at the Bakersfield Racquet Club, which is over on downtown.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, for all of you tennis players, and no discrimination, pickleball players.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  Welcome to both. Both are welcome. Yeah, we've always talked about sometimes in high school and teenage years, we, our school system does not do a very good job in teaching these kids financial literacy. So this is a great opportunity for parents and kids to attend something like this, which is free and maybe learn a thing or two. So we're excited for it.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  We are. We are. It'll be great. And if you're interested, you can call our office, 661-847-1000. You can go to moneywiseguys.com, shoot us an email, however you want to RSVP. We'd be happy to help you with that. Got a few listener questions, Sammy. Why don't we jump into it?

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Yes, I was just gonna give a quick update on the market. Close that record high again today. A lot of it has to do with optimism following the deal making between the president and Japan and the tariff reduction of 15%, which boosted the markets. And I think there is some room to do even more. Japan committed to $550 billion of, as an investment package in the US manufacturing and energy infrastructure over the next five years. In return, they're gonna get a 15% tariff reduction on key electric vehicle components and semiconductors. This

• 3:43Speaker 02

  is a huge deal. A lot of it has to do too, a lot of people are watching this, think that the EU, European Union, will follow in the same steps of Japan and potentially get the same deal or get the same deal done with the president.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it sounds like there's just some optimism in the markets in terms of what's gonna happen with all of these trade deals. The deadline is coming up.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  August?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  August something?

• 4:07Speaker 02

  Is it first?

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Eighth? I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if it just, it continues to shift because that's what's happened in the past. And there's all these deals with all these different countries. I think it's pretty complex and it's, oh, it is August 1st, I think. Yeah. You know, despite all of these issues with tariffs, where, like you said, markets are at all time highs. S and P 500 and the NASDAQ have hit their all time highs.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  45,000 points, I think, for the...

• 4:37Speaker 01

  S and P 500?

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a S and P is at thirty five or sixty three fifty eight. And the Dow, though, it also ended up, but not quite to its record close. It's four points shy of its first record close of the year. That's why we call it dumb.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  S and P five hundred, there we go, that's a little bit, little bit more like it. But yeah, but record levels for the S and P and the NASDAQ. It's really shocking to me that the resilience of the markets. You just, you know, go back to the beginning of the year and there was so much panic. And people were really panicky about the tariffs and, you know, the new administration.

• 5:21Speaker 02

  Well, a lot of retailers and people that were important things too, they stocked up. So they were able to weather this uncertainty.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  So that's, that's the reason why we had a lot of imports in the month of, I think, March, April. A lot of these companies imported so much, stocked up.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Inventory.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Anticipating the increase in costs because of the tariffs and then it.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  But also it gave them a chance to weather this, and the market, I think, knew that.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's remarkable, really is. We're really in the heat of earnings season there, which kicked off a week ago. Or maybe it's, maybe it's been two weeks, a week or two. We were in the earnings season, so this is in the beginning of the earnings seasons. We usually get a lot of information from some of the big companies like Google. And today we heard from Tesla, reported a slight earnings and revenue miss in the second quarter of this year. And of course, they deflect with their announcement of a more affordable model that's supposed to come into production sometime this year. We're seeing a lot of these newer.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Is it going to be eight thousand dollars like the Chinese one?

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Like the BYD?

• 6:37Speaker 02

  The one that sells in Europe for eight to maybe ten thousand dollars?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  I, no, I, no way, I don't think they can get it that cheap. So cheap.

• 6:47Speaker 02

  I was able, there was a, there was a show on YouTube that I watched about the Chinese manufacturers, but it was in Arabic, translated into French, and I was able to listen to it. But it's also available through closed caption in English. BYD, they're beginning since the early nineties to where they are today, what they do, what they produce, the robotics, dude, different world.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  Way in the future.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, they, they can cut out, uh, I think a lot of the regulatory issues that we deal with here in the United States. And I think that's part of the reason why they're not legal to sell or buy here in the US, right? Cause it's like, well, this would disrupt the auto industry as we know it.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  They have a vehicle that goes into water up to and floats.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 7:36Speaker 02

  For almost like forty five minutes, if you get caught in a flood or something.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  No way.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  I'm not kidding.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  I can't wait for those videos to come out.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  It's available today. You can, you can go and watch what BYD is doing.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  It's amazing. Mind you, these people started as just, I think, battery manufacturers.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Uh, when I was in Mexico, a few weeks ago, they were all over the place, the BYDs. Cause they could, they could, they could sell them in Mexico and they were, there, I couldn't believe how many were there. You know what BYD stands for?

• 8:05Speaker 02

  No.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Build your dreams. I think that's what it stands for at least, cause in all the BYDs that I saw down in Mexico, it was, it had like, it said, build your dreams.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  It's catchy.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Like on the back.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  I don't know. It seems weird to me. Yeah, well, we got a few listener questions and comments though. Should we hit it?

• 8:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, please. You wanna go to the first one?

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, do you want me to read it?

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Yes, please.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Okay, so here we go. Let me, uh, let me, uh, pull it up here and get right to it. So here's a question, Sammy from a listener. It says, how is there emergency mortgage relief? I'm trying to find some information for my mother and a lot of what I'm seeing feels a little bit scammy lol.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah, because if you go to Google, you, you're gonna get scammers and you're gonna get people that believe they know something, they're gonna charge you fees, uh, and, and, and you're not gonna get anywhere. Okay, so, so to me, the, one of the first things you wanna do is first call your bank. There's federal and state programs, especially here in the state of California, that you can, if you qualify for them, given certain things, would be there to help you. They started back, the homeowner assistant fund, which is a federal program. It started back in 2020, I believe. And is available still. There's a $10 billion federal program that was created back then.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  And you just have to call your bank or your loan servicer.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  To go through the application process, qualification process, and see if they can help you. If you're a veteran, there are VA loans that you can go and apply for, loan deferment, modifications, or refund options. USDA, we live in a rural area. So if you happen to be in the outskirts and you qualify for the USDA options, they can provide forbearance, payment assistance, and sometimes even loan restructuring. But if you don't have none of that, California has a program, California Mortgage Relief Program. They offer grants if you missed your mortgage payment for property taxes.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  And the eligibility is your household income has to be below 150% of the area median income. So I researched that for Bickersfield. It's about $77,000.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  You have to have experienced a hardship after the January 21st, 2020. And you just need to show that you're not able to make payments.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  So what, does it say what hardships qualify? Would it be like health?

• 10:51Speaker 02

  Loss of job, health.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  I see.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Things like that.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:56Speaker 02

  I did not see exactly what those hardships are. But back in 2008, when these things were rampant and everybody was doing forbearances and everybody was trying to apply for modifications, a hardship could be just you having a loss of income or reduction of income.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:17Speaker 02

  Okay, um, sometimes you have to miss a payment. I'm not encouraging people to miss their payments. That's why I'm encouraging people to call the bank first.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, call your lender first. Let them know. It, it, which brings up some of the red flags because this, this listener mentioned scammy.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  So like what some red flags that people should be aware of are companies that are charging upfront fees for mortgage assistance. Like, don't, don't do that. Talk to your, your actual mortgage lender first. And if the company's requesting you to stop communicating with your lender, that's another red flag.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  That's correct.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  You want to work with them. They lent you money.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  I want to, I want to say this, a bank, bank's goal is never to wanting to take back collateral.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  It's expensive for them. It's a headache. They're rather work because how do, we talked about this just two days ago. How do banks make money?

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, fees.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  And interest.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  And interest, yeah.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Right? So they, they don't want to stop collecting down that interest. So they're going to get something done for you somehow. Uh, to, to, to continue collecting that interest.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  So the California program, uh, uh, ca mortgage relief.org. Check that out. And, and, and, and they have a bunch of, um, uh, FAQs, is it called?

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, FAQs. There's some resource information there on the website. There's also the Cal Assist Mortgage Fund. This is more for people in California that can qualify for grants for disasters. Like a, a, you know, a forest fire or a, a regular fire, like you see the LA disasters or. And there are some, I don't know, there, I believe that there are some areas of Kern County that have been declared disaster zones from, um, the flooding that we had, was it two years ago? Um, you know, we're, now we're starting to move on beyond some of these disasters. But if you qualify for a disaster or you're in a disaster area, then there also could be some potential grants.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  So, so going back to. Scamming comment. There is a HUD approved housing counselors. These are free. You can go to www.hud.gov/findacaounsellor. And you can talk to somebody that can assist you at least with the process, answering questions, put you on a path that you then have to follow with no payment, none whatsoever.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  This is a free service.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. No, that's great. Good job. Good job. Good answers. Another comment that we have here from a listener. It says, how much was your first home? Ours was 180,000 out off Panama where Albertson's is before, where Albertson's is before it opened. Just wondered how long you guys stayed at your first home before moving on. It's insane because the same home that I got for 180,000 is now up to 350,000. Do you think the shortage of homes here in Kern County and the cost of homes will continue to go up? Hearing a show last week, I forgot that, I forgot that with Tahone and high speed, we may want to keep our properties for a bit longer.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  This is really interesting, Sammy.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  Very, very interesting because he bought or she bought the house for about the same price. I bought my first home, $200,000 and thank God right now it's about 425 to maybe even. I, I think with the school district where my house is, I probably can get up to 365, 465,000.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  It's essentially doubled.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Both you and this listener's homes doubled in the time that they owned it.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I stayed 16 years.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  In your first home?

• 14:52Speaker 02

  In my first home.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  And you still own it?

• 14:55Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  And now you, now it's a rental for you. And mine is also my, our first home, we, we lived in our first home, which is also off of near Panama and Panama and Harris, you know, out in Silver Creek area. We stayed there for 10 years. We bought it for 110,000 and I think today it's worth somewhere around 400,000. But this was in the year 2000. So it's a 25 year old house. It was a new construction and we have it now as a rental. So we stayed there for 10 years, moved into our current house that we're in now. We've been in that house now for. Fifteen, almost. So, you know, but part of the end of this of this comment is what is interesting.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  It's like, well, we think we're going to hold on to this property because of some future development that we think is going to happen, whether it's high speed rail or to hone ranch or hard rock or whatever. And that that's, you know, real estate over the long run generally has gone up. There's no guarantee, but real estate can go up or down, but you hold, the longer you hold real estate generally, the more it's worth, unless it's in a, I guess it's in an area that is

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Distressed or whatever.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, you know, a town that's dying or, you know, there's certainly some areas of towns. It was like, well, that's not going anywhere. But generally speaking, if you've got a decent property, you know, it's nice to hold on to. That doesn't mean that somebody should just hold on to any property they have, because what you're carrying is what you potentially costing you is an opportunity cost. You have equity tied up into a property that you're not renting, or it's not generating any income. And so you you may find that you could do better somewhere else in terms of investments. But your your primary home or residential homes, there's just such a shortage of them, you know?

• 16:50Speaker 02

  So I've, I've, I stayed in my house because I've upgraded it. I think once I spent, I spent about thirty or forty thousand dollars after living there for about 10 years.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  Versus buying a new one.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Because I made the decision that I want to upgrade this and make it make it modern.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Versus going and buying a house and spend extra and tie myself to a higher mortgage payment.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  And, and it was not a popular decision because my wife and I went back and forth.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  And me, I'm thinking about it from a financial standpoint. I want to retire early. I want to have savings. I want to do this. Versus, hey, well, no, we can afford a bigger house.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Yes. The fact that you can afford a bigger house does not mean you need to have it.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Right. That's right. Definitely.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  It's so easy to get. It's like keeping up with the Joneses, essentially.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  That's right. So I, I made the financial decision. Again, it was not a popular decision, but long, I mean, now she sees it and we got a bigger house now, but we were able to afford it.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you, and you found a good deal.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  You weren't rushed into that decision.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  No, I didn't rush into it. It's a good deal. Not the area I truly, truly want, but it's a good deal. The size of the house we wanted, the amenities we wanted, the yard we wanted. And my payment is not that high from the original payment that I had in the other house, which is now a rental house.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Right. Right. Yeah. And so now you have that income also to help offset some of the costs.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  Some of the new costs from my increased mortgage payment on the new house.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  Right? So wanting it versus needing it are two different things. And we always talk about that on the show.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. It, it, it just, I mean, besides my pet peeve of people spending too much money on their transportation or on their cars, right, right after that is people just spending way too much on their housing.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  You, you can only get qualified for a loan of a certain amount, but then, you know, people, it's very common, half of your income or more is going towards your home.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  It's like, man, you, do you really enjoy your home that much? Oh, maybe, maybe you really wanted, needed that, you know, an extra 1,500 square foot home or whatever.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  But, man. Yeah. All right. Well, good. Good deal. We got, uh, let's see, one more question here. We'll read this and then we'll take a break. It says, hey, guys, I asked a few of the hosts last week, but ahead of Woolworths reopening, I was wondering what your favorite local burger place is in town. Woolworths was always my favorite. Did I hear the news right? But there will, that there will be pies. I love pies.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  I love pies too.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, so the, the, the Woolworths is still slated to open up, uh, end of August, beginning of September, and the burgers are gonna be amazing, just like you remember them being there. And we will have some desserts. There's gonna be-

• 19:51Speaker 02

  The lemon, the lemon cheesecake that Richard makes, which is-

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Icebox cheesecake.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  That's, that thing is, I, I requested it for my birthday, for Father's Day, Marianne requested it for Mother's Day. Um, and every chance I have or I have to get together at my house, I ask Richard to make that for me, and it's amazing. That's sweet, that's sweet.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  The pies were good. We ta- we taste tested the pies. I, I'm a big fan of pies, dude. They're almost like the old, uh, pocket pies, like the McDonald's pies, the old McDonald's pies, you remember-

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  That they used to have. It'd burn your, burn your tongue off.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  Then you have to follow it with the Coke, cold Coke, so to cool it. That's right.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, what's your favorite burger?

• 20:35Speaker 02

  I'll be honest with you, I don't have one.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  I mean, if, if, In-N-Out is probably my, my, my go-to, always.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Other than that, I make my own at home.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's hard to beat that.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I, I mean, the patty, the mix with the meat, the spices I put, that's, but if I was to eat, to eat outside of my house or my kitchen, I'm gonna go to In-N-Out.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  It's consistent. And it's not local, though.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Oh, it's not local, that's true.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, locally, uh, Moo Creamery has some great, great burgers.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  You know what? I, I'll, I'll give you that, yes.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  I, I've always liked, uh, their burgers.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  There is, there's a lot of other really good-

• 21:16Speaker 02

  I'm sorry to say this, but their burgers are almost becoming, uh, what are they called, those? A slider. The size of it is, keeps shrinking, man.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  That's one thing bothers me about a burger-

• 21:25Speaker 02

  It's everywhere. Yeah, I'm telling you.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  I don't like it when they're too big.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  You know what did not shrink? Steven? What's that? Costco hot dog.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  No, there is a, there is a great burger at the Padre and it's their western, I think they call it a cowboy burger or a western burger and it's so good because it reminds me of my, one of my top favorite burgers, fast food burgers is the western bacon cheeseburger from Carl's Jr. It's just, it's just nasty good. It's just so nasty good. It's real simple with the onion ring and the bacon and the barbecue sauce and the cheese. They make one that's like that at the, at the Padre downtown. It's so good. So those, those are, there you go. Great, great questions for our listeners. We're gonna do this, we're gonna take a break. When we come back, we have Enselmo Moreno joining us. He's our

• 22:16Speaker 01

  credit specialist. If you've got questions about building up your credit or fixing your credit, Enselmo's the guy. We're gonna get to that, plus much more when we come back. Welcome back to Money Wise. We're your hosts today. I'm Sharad, that's Sammy. We're joined right now by our guest, Enselmo Moreno. He is the owner, operator of Innovative Credit Solutions. This is a local company that is involved in accommodating, helping people's individual credit and credit situation, improve their situation. I'm doing a terrible job here of your elevator. How do you, what's your elevator pitch for, for your company?

• 23:00Speaker 01

  I typically say I help consumers improve their credit scores and deal with bad debts. Oh, that's, that's so much better than my...

• 23:06Speaker 00

  Well, you just said the same thing.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. And Enselmo, thank you for coming back on the show. It's one of the more common questions that we get from our listeners are questions regarding their credit. How they, how they, they can either fix their credit or how they can, you know,

• 23:23Speaker 00

  Improve it?

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Improve it or, you know, approach it. So, you know what, you know, maybe we can start with what you just said off the air. You said, I asked how business was going. You said, well, it turns out that this generation has very similar credit problems as the previous generation. So it just kind of keeps repeating the same mistakes. What, what do you say are those mistakes? You know, what are the, what are the key errors that people are still making? So, something that I find myself repeating all the time...

• 23:53Speaker 00

  Is listen, you know, Mr. Client, Mrs. Client, I need you to spend less than you earn. I need you to never co-sign for anybody and don't ever pay anything late. Right. Those are the three tenants that we like to instill on our clients. Because that's, those are the problems. They spend more than they earn, meaning that they, if they don't have the money, they might put it on a credit card and you know, they're spending next week's money. And we, that's a consistent bad habit. Co-signing for people always, well, not always, but often ends in a, you know, a bad situation.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  Um, and then late payments are literally the worst thing on a credit report. So never pay late, never co-sign, spend less than you earn. As long as you do those, you'll never have a credit score problem.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  You say never co-sign even for your kid? There's depend, there is, there can be some.

• 24:40Speaker 00

  I mean, you know, I would co-sign for my kid, of course, right?

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  But, but really the disclaimer there is if, if I would close out for my kid, I'm making the payment and the kid's gonna pay me. Right? So, so that's, that's how I would, if you do have to co-sign, which it's totally fine. I mean, my parents co-sign for me at one point in time. So, uh, but really what, what I refer to or what I really mean is for a friend, a brother, a sister, a family member, or not a family member, like a significant other, like that's a boyfriend, girlfriend, right? That, that's what I really mean, but it's very often that your credit score is bad because a car got repossessed that wasn't even your car.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. It, it, almost like what you're saying is if you're gonna co-sign, accept that that's your, that's your debt. It like you, you, you should be okay assuming that debt if you're gonna co-sign.

• 25:29Speaker 00

  You're, you're telling the bank, if this person doesn't pay, I will pay on their behalf, right? That's what a co-signer is.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  And I think you need to calculate your cash flow and make sure that your cash flow is enough.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, to cover that.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  To cover that payment in case it goes bad or the other person does not make payment.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. If anybody's calculating their cash flow to make that decision, they're probably not gonna co-sign. They're gonna be astute enough to say, no, you know, but, but you know, the disclaimer is if you have to, just make sure you make the payment, you're in control and then let that other person, person pay you. I mean, it's so easy now. Just hey, zell me every month and I'll, I'll take care of the payment. I mean, you know, it's easier than ever.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  It's funny, but family members will come sometimes and I'll ask you, hey, can I, can I, can you co-sign for me? And my answer was always no, but it always creates friction between family members.

• 26:14Speaker 00

  It creates way more friction when the car gets repo'd.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  Oh, yes. That's true. So that is true.

• 26:20Speaker 00

  Keep that in mind.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or you're going, hey, where's my payment? Why didn't you, why didn't you pay this month or whatever? And then you gotta, you're, you're like a bill collector.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  For your nephew or whatever.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  What, what would you say the biggest misconceptions are that people have about their, how the credit score works?

• 26:38Speaker 00

  There, there's quite a bit, actually. I would say right now, the biggest one, because everybody has access to it on their phone is, you know, through Credit Karma or similar apps like that. And the biggest misconception is that Credit Karma is not accurate. And that is just something that always kind of rose me the wrong way because Credit Karma pulls directly from TransUnion and Equifax. So if you have a negative item or a positive item on the report, it's because it, it's from, it's accurate. It came straight from the credit bureau. The whole inaccurate comes from the fact that they're just not using the credit score model that your mortgage lender or your auto lender is using, right? So the mortgage lender says, hey, you can buy a house as long as you have a six forty credit score and you check your credit karma. You're at six forty one, you're thinking you're, you're ready to go.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  Mortgage lender pulls credit, you come in at five ninety and you know, now Credit Karma is the bad guy because they gave you the wrong score. Well, not quite. They're just using a different credit score model because it's assessing a different type of risk.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:33Speaker 00

  And that's probably the biggest misconception that we see.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I can see. I, I, I'm a fan of Credit Karma, not total fan, but I like it. I think it's useful.

• 27:43Speaker 00

  I approve it. Yeah, I endorse it.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, that's good. That's good to hear from somebody who's like lives in that world. And it, it, it, more than anything, I think it's useful for somebody to have easy access to what their cred, what's going on with their credit, you know, and what, because that, there can be problems if you never pay attention to it. You gotta pay attention to it.

• 28:05Speaker 00

  I mean, before you, you used to have to write a letter, wait, maybe send a check for eight bucks and you'd wait for the credit bureau to mail you your credit report. Right now you can wake up and check it in the morning and check it in the afternoon. No problem.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Watch the little graph.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  That leads me to my next question. Now, if you have access to your online credit report through whatever service you decide to experience, or one of the other credit bureaus, or Karma, or whatever, and then you go in and you see, oh, I have all these negative items, and you start maybe disputing or asking questions, how long does it take for those things to either clear or get answers? To your point earlier, back in the day, it takes a long time, letters and stuff. How long does it take today?

• 28:50Speaker 00

  I don't think much has changed, honestly, because those are all governed by federal laws, right? So, for example, negative items can be on your credit report for seven years. And so that's a federal law that states, hey, a late payment, a collection can legally be reported on the credit report for seven years. A bankruptcy can be on the credit report for 10 years, inquiries for two years, right? So, these are governed by statute. And then also, when you dispute something, that's also governed by statute, that they have 30 days to respond. So, those timelines are still relatively the same, not much has changed. And if anything is faster, it's because most disputes are done electronically now, so you just kind of eliminate the snail mail aspect of it. And so you don't have to wait for Experian to get your letter in Texas, or Equifax in

• 29:35Speaker 00

  Atlanta, right? They get it right now, instead of waiting for the snail mail. But for the most part, everything's governed by statute. I hope I answered your question there.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  No, no, you did. I was gonna jump into just medical and stuff, which we talked about during the break. And medical collections, there were some bills or some stuff was happening a year ago, coming out of Congress. Has the medical collections changed at all, or how you can dispute them in the last couple of years?

• 30:09Speaker 00

  There's been tremendous changes on them, and then there's been changes on the changes as of a couple of weeks ago. And so essentially, what happened is when President Biden was on his way out, he ordered the CFPB to basically block all medical collections to be able to be credit reported. So, if you have a medical collection, they could not be credit reported. Like, that was just an order from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Well, when President Trump came in, he had a different point of view, and he assigned different people to be in charge of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and so they didn't like that. And they stopped pursuing that, then some trade agencies sued, and...

• 30:50Speaker 00

  Just last week, a couple of weeks ago, the judge sided with um the trade associations that basically said, no, uh, the CFPB overreached, they don't have that authority, and so medical collections are fair game back on consumer credit reports.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 31:04Speaker 00

  So as of last week, it's basically that that order has been voided. Now, we saw medical collections just disappear.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  March of twenty twenty five, they were all gone. And so we haven't seen them come back yet. And it's interesting, it's even more complicated because California and a couple of other states, they passed their own rule that said, well, we don't care what the CFPB says. Our state law says no more medical collections on consumer reports. Well, that order from the judge basically said, well, we're preempting those because federal law is going to trump state law. And so, you know, those states, those rules are un- they're unconstitutional. And so it's a mess. So right now, as of right now, no medical collections are on the credit reports. But we don't know what's going to happen next week.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  You're right. It could, that could change at any point.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  So it's been a wild ride.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  What's your opinion on that? On on just the whether it should be reported or not?

• 31:59Speaker 00

  Well, the argument was it's not predictive in nature. It's not really assessing the consumer's financial ability to pay or not, because it's not like they chose to get sick and then didn't pay, right? It's not the same as a credit card default or defaulting on a loan. You know, you don't choose to get sick, you know. So I I get that argument. I feel that it's certainly not predictive in nature as equal to a credit card default. And then also then you add the element of health insurance and then how complicated all that is.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:29Speaker 00

  And so I I feel that if they're, if they are on reports, they should at least be weighed less.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  Than a credit card default. But, you know, they're not listening to me.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  If it's not reported on a, on your credit report, an outstanding medical bill, it doesn't stop the hospital or the medical provider from continuing to pursue collection.

• 32:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, but they they don't really have any tools outside of credit reporting, right? I mean, what they're just gonna call you, and that's kind of it. They could technically sue you, but I haven't seen a medical collection lawsuit in years.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Really? Like, even if it's tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands?

• 33:05Speaker 00

  They're not, I've never, I haven't seen it in a long time.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  Reputational risk for a bunch of, for for for this, is that why they don't pursue it?

• 33:12Speaker 00

  At least here in Bakersfield, I haven't seen it. The last lawsuit I saw was a KMC lawsuit from like 2009.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  And I haven't seen one since. And people, I mean, medical debts are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and they're not gonna, I haven't seen a lawsuit and for that.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  When medical, when, when, when owed, you know, medical bills were reported on people's credit reports, how much would it impact? Would it impact them just as much as like a credit card default?

• 33:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, there was no distinction between medical and non-medical collections. And so, e- especially for the mortgage credit score formula, that's really the one that we work with the most, right? Helping people fix their credit to buy a house. So immediately, like I always focus on medical collections because that moved the score. And so, yeah, I mean, it was a big deal when they ordered them that they, you know, they banned them basically, and now they're unbanned. And I, I thought we were safe because California banned them, but then the order, you know.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, the federal stuff.

• 34:11Speaker 00

  And so, yeah, it's a fun time.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like a blast. Again, we're joined by Enselmo Moreno. He's a credit specialist with Innovative Credit Solutions. Enselmo, what, maybe you can walk through, walk through with us, what, what you do? What's the process that you take people through when they have a, a, a poor credit score?

• 34:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. So the first thing that we do is we just wanna go over the credit report with the client line by line. Is this yours? Do you recognize it? Do you agree with it? Disagree with it? And that'll really help us kind of craft the plan, right? Because everybody's gonna have something on their credit report where they'll go, yeah, that's mine. They'll, they'll accept it. And then there's something they'll say, hey, well, I disagree with that. I returned the equipment to Spectrum. I returned it, you know, whatever the situation or the dispute is, there, there's gonna be something there. So we'll just kind of like, we're gonna fight this one. We're gonna pay this one. We're gonna dispute this one, right? This one we don't recognize. And so as we kind of create the game plan going through line by line, we'll know what we're gonna do. And then from there, we need to

• 35:13Speaker 00

  look at how many open active accounts do you have? Like, if I remove all the bad stuff, what's good that's left? If there's nothing good that's left, I need to make sure I help. You open up two to three open active accounts and make sure you understand how to keep those in good standing. So that's our typical, you know, process. Um, obviously there's going to be some variations to that, but that's, that's typically what we do. Take a look at the report and go through it line by line and hey, tell me your side of the story.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  It can be a little counterintuitive for somebody who has poor credit that they're now opening up new credit or like new lines of credit. But I'm guessing that has to do with the utilization. Credit utilization, which is a big part of the credit score. How much credit you have available to you and how much you're actually using is that?

• 35:59Speaker 00

  That's, that's part of it, but just also payment history, right? I mean, if we just, if you have nothing, then there's nothing positive to give you a good score. So I, I always say like the general rule of thumb is two, three accounts, open, active and in good standing. And it could be something like a student loan, a credit card and a personal loan. Or a car loan, a credit card and a student loan. Even crazy, a child support account, a credit card and a car loan, right?

• 36:25Speaker 01

  That counts too.

• 36:26Speaker 00

  It's on your credit report and if you pay it on time, it helps you. And if you don't pay it on time, it hurts you.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Wow. So maybe also can you talk about what tools or services you recommend for people to monitor their, their credit?

• 36:43Speaker 00

  Credit Karma. I said, I endorse them. Uh, and then Experian. So if you have Credit Karma, you don't have Experian on there. You just have TransUnion and Equifax. Experian doesn't want to play with Credit Karma, so they made their own app and it's actually a fantastic app. I really like the Experian app. And, and so if you, and they're both free, right? So you can have free access to your TransUnion and Equifax to the Credit Karma. And then you get your Experian app. You have free access to that one on Experian. And that's a really good way to keep your finger on the pulse of your credit reports. And then above and beyond that, I do like myfico.com. Uh, that is a paid app. It's about 29 bucks a month, but it shows you all the different versions of your credit score. And it's a very powerful tool when you're mortgage shopping or auto loan shopping,

• 37:26Speaker 00

  because you get to see the precise score that the mortgage lender is going to see before you show up. So there's no surprises. And so I, when you're shopping for something, I'll always recommend my FICO over, you know, the free versions.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  I, I love these, there's some credit hacks that I know are available that, you know, people can use to sort of boost their credit or help their situation. One of them that we've talked about, I don't know if you told us about this, but somebody told us years ago about how a parent can add their child on as an authorized user.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  On their, on their credit card and like boom, it gives them that instant.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  History.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  History. Like what? That, that's amazing. What a, what a cool hack.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. You could be 20 year, 20 years old with a 30 year old credit card on your credit.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like how cool is that? Um, are there any other similar type hacks or tips? That, you know, maybe listeners don't know about?

• 38:20Speaker 00

  That's probably the best one, I would say, the one that could be most impactful. Um, so outside of that, um, I can't really think of any. I mean, I think that's the, the one that's, and it's still relevant today. It's still very useful and I, I recommend it all the time.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or, or, or anything that is like, what's the low hanging fruit if somebody does have a credit issue, whether it's from a lender or you know, something that's on their credit report that they're trying to dispute. Are there any, um, like, like, would you recommend, you know, just calling them, you know?

• 38:55Speaker 00

  No. I mean, it's, it, that's a, that's a, that's a tough question.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:00Speaker 00

  So, I mean, we, our specialty is helping people fight. Like we have some tremendous war stories of helping people fight back against, you know, just unscrupulous creditors that just take advantage of the little guy because they're, they're the little guy. And so we're very well versed in fighting, but that also helps me know when not to fight. And, you know, you just gotta kind of, every situation is extremely unique and I would.

• 39:26Speaker 00

  I would caution somebody to talk to a professional debt collector because you're you're taking the fight to their venue where they're good at. And unless you're really good on the phone, you know, you want to keep everything in writing because you can't be bullied in writing, right? You're not gonna have a debt collector bully you in writing like it's the venue is different. And so they're not so so I'll always say approach them in writing as opposed to calling them unless you know, you're you're someone with experience that can deal with the phone call. Yeah.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  We we we have a question, listener question. What are the best steps on trying to get those medical bills cut down to a reasonable price? If I continue to pay the forty per month, I'll get paid off when I'm hundred thirteen years old.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  They won't have to worry about it then.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, medical bills are are interesting. So it just depends, right? So if you owe a hospital money, you you they all hospitals have some type of financial hardship program where they can significantly reduce the debt or maybe sometimes even completely wipe it out. So the first step is, did you go through the financial hardship program like that's step number one? And then step number two is determining like if they're willing to settle. Most hospitals are willing to settle on a lump sum payment for twenty thirty percent of the balance. And that's always a great strategy, obviously, if you're in a financial position to be able to do that.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  And then step number three is you're just kind of assessing the whole situation, right? Because what if you have other debt, right? And so then maybe we can look at a debt elimination strategy like a bankruptcy because that's really what a bankruptcy is, is a debt elimination tool. So we need to see if that tool fits this situation. So but but really, I mean, all the time, I would always say, let's do a financial hardship program and then a settlement and then ultimately a bankruptcy. And and for the last six months, it's been like, well, we're not really too worried about those medical, you know, I don't care if you have a hundred thousand medical bill like we're not too worried about it. But now we're back in the same position where maybe we do have to worry about it now. Yeah, it's been it's been interesting.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  Does the settlement still show on your credit?

• 41:40Speaker 00

  No, no, because on medical collection, so the the rule changes before this rule change was that any paid medical collection had to be deleted off the credit report. So it wasn't even something you negotiate. It was just like if you pay your medical collection by statute, it has to be removed from the credit report. That was the previous change. And then that was completely like pointless when they just eliminated all of them. But that is still technically in effect. So if they do come back, or when they do come back, any paid medical collection automatically has to be deleted from the credit report.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  I suspect there's been a lot of confusion also surrounding student loans because there's been like these forgiveness and deferments and, and are you seeing that an uptick in just student loan issues?

• 42:24Speaker 00

  A huge uptick in February. So the COVID protections were in effect on student loans until about October of 24. I mean, COVID was 2020, right? So they just kept kicking that can down the road every year. And then October of 24, they said, well, no more, right? And a lot of people blame it on the administration change, but it had nothing to do with that. It's literally October of 24, the protections ended. Student loans don't report late until you're 90 days late. So January, it was 90 days from October, everybody that just forgot about their student loans were reminded of them with a 90-day late payment on their credit Karma. Credit Karma woke them up that morning and said, surprise, you've lost 150 points. Our phones were ringing off the hook during those months.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Like in January of this year?

• 43:08Speaker 00

  January, February, March, and some people that don't watch their credit, they're accumulating those late payments to this day. So if you have student loans and you don't know what's going on with them, you think they're still on pause, double check.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  And you can't negotiate those. Those are non-negotiable, right?

• 43:22Speaker 00

  Not only are they non-negotiable, but those late payments so far have been impossible to remove.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  So that's just like a seven-year ding on your credit?

• 43:30Speaker 00

  Seven-year ding, that's right.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Dang.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  Now, the other, one thing I've been seeing, my credit card app, like Citi or American Express or Discovery, they have a credit score. Is that accurate when you look at it?

• 43:44Speaker 00

  I mean, all credit scores are accurate. It's just like who's looking, right? So some apps will show you a FICO version eight, some apps will show you Vantage version three. And so, I mean, I, I think all credit scores are accurate in the sense that, I mean, it's just the version. But if you're gonna go buy a house, the only accurate score for your scenario is the mortgage score. And, and you can't see that on any credit card app. So, uh, but I do, I mean, the transparency of credit scores has increased tremendously because they are included in, in your credit card statements now. I think that's a, a good thing. And, and, and they move in the same direction, right? So if your credit, if your credit score that you see on your credit card app goes up, all your other credit scores went up. Doesn't matter the version, right? And if your credit, uh, if that score goes down, all the other ones went down, like.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  And if you have great credit, like, you don't really worry about what version they're running, right? You just know you have great credit and run whatever version you want. It's gonna be great on all of them.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Right. Another listener question here for you on Selma. It says, I pulled out some cash from our home to pay off some debt. But now 20 of these loan places call me and my wife every day. How do I get the calls to stop? This is interesting. So basically the question is, how do I stop solicitors?

• 44:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. That actually is a, a big problem. And boy, are they tough to stop. But, um, the, the only layer of a defense that we have is optoutprescreen.com. And so that essentially is where you remove yourself from the marketing list that the credit bureau sell for, for leads. So they have these trigger leads, right? And so you could buy a, hey, Experian, anybody that applies for a mortgage, when that trigger hits, I want the, I want the data. So the bureau sell these trigger leads in bulk. And if you go to optoutprescreen.com, you can remove yourself from these marketing lists. And that should significantly cut down on the, on any new list. But if you're already on a list, like, you're not gonna be able to remove yourself from them unless

• 45:36Speaker 00

  they follow the rules. And if you tell them, please remove me from the list, maybe they will. But, yeah, these lists get sold and resold and resold. So it's extremely difficult to stop these spam calls.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  That's a big revenue generator for the credit agencies, right? They're just selling their data.

• 45:51Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, that's what they do. They, they're in the data selling. Business, they sell your data, my data to anybody that wants to, um, to anybody that has a permissible purpose.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  But.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is a lot of people across the world. And, you know, I, we were talking about Credit Karma, which is a free service. But I, I always tell people that if, if you're getting a service for free, you're the product.

• 46:13Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Which means Credit Karma, one, one thing I don't like about it, all the ads, they're just constantly just saying, well, try this credit card. Look at this, look at these rates and look at this and that.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  That's why I paid a $4.99 for the experience.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  Option. And it gives me a lot of the tools you talked about earlier, like do some, play with, pay off this credit card. You know, or keep it and do things here and there and see what your score does. Uh, it's, it's, it's pretty cool.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it is cool. Um, the, um, the, uh, I forgot what I was gonna ask. I'm gonna ask something about the, about the credit scores and, and, uh, and Credit Karma, but I, I now it's, it's.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  We, we started the show with, with a listener talking about, uh, mortgage, mortgage relief, but also scams. In, in, in your world, what are some of the things that people should pay attention to from scam standpoint? I mean, including the phone calls that they might be getting, especially the elderly part of the population.

• 47:15Speaker 00

  You know, uh, financial elder abuse is a big problem and with that becomes, uh, for some reason. Grandma and grandpa always have the best credit scores, right? Like just, they take care of their credit. They don't like debt and they always have a high credit score. And so they're kind of primed to be taken advantage of. Um, and they could get a loan, not really knowing what the circumstances are behind the loan. So I, I, I've seen quite a bit. I always say, you know, um, you want, you always want to get a second opinion on, on whatever loan that someone's trying to give you because these loans can be very predatory in nature, very, very predatory. You could.

• 47:54Speaker 00

  You put your house as collateral without knowing, right? I've seen, I'm not kidding, like 500% interest rates. And we think about like, how's that even possible? Like, there's gotta be a law against that. And so the big, we could call it a scam, is that there are tribal lenders that are operating on sovereign tribal land, that they're able to set whatever interest rates they want and lend money to people at 500, 600% interest rate. And that's technically legal because they're not governed by the California Department of Finance. And so a $500 loan can easily become a $2,500 debt. And so we're seeing that a lot.

• 48:37Speaker 00

  And that's something that you gotta be very careful with.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  What about debt consolidators? This is different than what you do.

• 48:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  And I know that people can get themselves in trouble with that sort of arrangement.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  So debt consolidation, you see quite a bit, right? You see, you have a lot of the big players, Freedom Debt Relief, National Debt Relief. These are like national companies that all their focus is, is helping you quote unquote consolidate your debt. But that's, that's not what actually happens. And I've never seen it work. It's a very bad idea 100% of the time. So who they target is consumers that have a significant amount of credit card debt and they don't really see the light at the end of the tunnel. They're just making their minimum payments and they're just kinda getting tired of owing the same amount every month. And they're paying $1,000, $1,500, $2,000 a month in minimum payments. That's their target audience because what they'll say is, hey, instead of you paying 1,500 bucks a month on these minimum payments, pay us 750 a month and you get to stop paying everybody.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  You get one payment as opposed to 10.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:38Speaker 00

  Well, the consumer doesn't, they don't do a good job at explaining it that all the cards are going into default. So all your credit cards, you're gonna stop paying for them. And your credit score is gonna tank because you're gonna build up all these late payments because nobody's getting paid. Meanwhile, the 750 bucks is being held in a trust account and you're just kinda saving that, right?

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:59Speaker 00

  So in 10 months, you have $7,500. And at that point, everybody's in collections and they're able to take this little nest egg that you've saved up and then make settlements with everybody. So they default it on purpose to get a settlement down the line. If you tell the client that at the beginning, most of them are going to say no, like they're like, "Oh, I don't want my credit score to be ruined," or "This is not, this is not what you said," right? And so a lot of the times people, when they find out what happened, they instantly regret it. And then the fees that they charge are just ridiculous. So the fee structure for these companies is 25% of your balance. So if they settle the debt for 60%, then you're going to end up paying 85% of the debt back, right?

• 50:42Speaker 00

  So you save 15% of your debt and you ruin your credit score for it. So it's, it's always a bad idea. I never recommend them. Don't do it.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  I'm with you on there. If anybody is looking at improving their credit, look at, talk to a professional that understands how to improve your credit rather than, you know, paying some person or some organization to do some, you know.

• 51:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, you could come see us in person.

• 51:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, great insight today.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  And you can see in person, exactly. And Innovative Credit Solutions here downtown, here in Bakersfield, great company. You've been, you've been a guest on Money Wise for, what, 10 years?

• 51:16Speaker 00

  20 years.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  20 years, come on. You know, there. Have you ever calculated all of this, how much credit score's gone up? Like, that'd be kind of like, "We've improved credit scores by a million points over 20 years."

• 51:28Speaker 00

  No, I haven't, but I'd go for the million.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  All right. Well, I want to thank our listeners. Remember, be smart, be safe, and always be Money Wise.

• 51:36Speaker 03

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