Jennifer O'Brien

About Us:

Thrive Credit are the experts when it comes to raising credit scores and repairing credit fast. Our passion is to help people to develop healthy financial disciplines for life. We accomplish our mission though providing advice from years of knowledge of working with people that have fallen financially and are seeking help to correct their path.

Jennifer O'Brien

President

Mission: We educate and coach people looking to improve their credit score and overall financial health so they are able to learn financial disciplines and achieve a more secure future.

Vision: To raise the standard of living for all people and inspire them to live their passions and dreams and have peace of mind.

Call us at 916.880.4027 for more info or sign onto www.thrivecredit.com to sign up.

We are about credit restoration. You get what you focus on, focus on improving your strategies with a credit coach to help get you there.

Here are some helpful hints:

How to Raise Your Credit Score 100 Points in 45 Days

GET RID OF YOUR COLLECTION ACCOUNTS.

Did you know that paying a collection account can actually reduce your score? Here’s why: credit scoring software reviews credit reports for each account’s date of last activity to determine the impact it will have on the overall credit score. When payment is made on a collection account, collection agencies update credit bureaus to reflect the account status as “Paid Collection”. When this happens, the date of last activity becomes more recent. Since the guideline for credit scoring software is the date of last activity, recent payment on a collection account damages the credit score more severely. This method of credit scoring may seem unfair, but it is something that must be worked around when trying to maximize your score. How is it possible to pay a collection and maximize your score? The best way to handle this credit scoring dilemma is to contact the collection agency and explain that you are willing to pay off the collection account under the condition that the all reporting is withdrawn from credit bureaus. Request a letter from the collector that explicitly states their agreement to delete the account upon receipt/clearance of your payment. Although not all collection agencies will delete reporting, removing all references to a collection account completely will increase your score and is certainly worth the involved effort.

GET RID OF YOUR PAST DUE ACCOUNTS.

Within the delinquent accounts on your credit report, there is a column called “Past Due”. Credit score software penalizes you for keeping accounts past due, so Past Dues destroy a credit score. If you see an amount in this column, pay the creditor the past due amount reported.

GET RID OF YOUR CHARGE^­OFFS AND LIENS.

Charge­offs and liens do not affect your credit score when older than 24 months. Therefore, paying an older charge­off or a lien will neither help nor damage your credit score. Charge­offs and liens within the past 24 months severely damage your credit score. Paying the past due balance, in this case, is very important. In fact, if you have both charged­off accounts and collection accounts, but limited funds available, pay the past due balances first, then pay collection agencies that agree to remove all references to credit bureaus second.

GET RID OF YOUR LATE PAYMENTS.

Contact all creditors that report late payments on your credit and request a good faith adjustment that removes the late payments reported on your account. Be persistent if they refuse to remove the late payments at first, and remind them that you have been a good customer that would deeply appreciate their help. Since most creditors receive calls within a call center, if the representative refuses to make a courtesy adjustment on your account, call back and try again with someone else. Persistence and politeness pays off in this scenario. If you are frustrated, rude, and unclear with your request, you are making it very difficult for them to help you.

5. CHECK YOUR CREDIT LIMIT(S) AND EVENLY DISTRIBUTE THE BALANCES YOU ARE CARRYING.

Make sure creditors report your credit limits to bureaus. When no limit is reported, credit scoring software scores the account as though your current balance is “maxed­out”. For example, if you know that you have a $10,000 limit on your credit card, make sure that the limit appears on the credit report. Otherwise, your score will be damaged as severely as if you were carrying a balance of the entire available credit. Credit scoring software likes to see you carry credit card balances as close to zero as possible. If it is difficult for you to pay down your balances, read the following guidelines to maximize your score as much as possible under the circumstances:

There are different degrees that scoring software can impact your score when carrying credit card balances.

Balances over 70% of your total credit limit on any card damages your score the most. The next level is 50% of your balance, then 30% of your balance.

In order to maximize your score without having to pay down your balances, evenly distribute your credit card balances among all of your credit cards, rather than carry a large balance on one credit card. For example, if you are carrying a $9000 balance on a credit card with a $10000 limit, and you have two other credit cards with a $3000 and $5000 limit, transfer your balances so that you have a $1500 balance on the $3000 limit card, a $2500 balance on the $5000 limit card and a $5000 balance on the $10000 limit card. Evenly distributing your balances will maximize your score.

6. DO NOT CLOSE YOUR CREDIT CARDS.

Closing a credit card can hurt your credit score, since doing so effects your debt to available credit ratio. For example, if you owe a total credit card debt of $10,000 and your total credit available is $20,000, you are using 50% of your total credit. If you close a credit card with a $5,000 credit limit, you will reduce your credit available to $15,000 and change your ratio to using 66% of your credit. There are caveats to this rule: if the account was opened within the past two years or if you have over six credit cards. The magic number of credit card accounts to have in order to maximize your score is between 3 and 5 (although having more will not significantly damage your score). For example, if a card was opened within the past two years and you have over six credit cards, you may close that account. If you have more than six department store cards, close the newest accounts. Otherwise, do not close any at all.

7. KEEP YOUR OLD CREDIT CARDS ACTIVE.

15% of your credit score is determined by the age of the credit file. Fair Isaac’s credit scoring software assumes people who have had credit for a longer time are at less risk of defaulting on payments. Therefore, even if your old credit cards have horrible interest rates, closing those cards will decrease the average length of time you’ve had credit. Use the old card at least once every six months to avoid the account rating to change to “Inactive”. Keeping the card active is as simple as pumping gas or purchasing groceries every few months, then paying the balance down. An inactive account is ignored by Fair Isaac’s credit scoring software, so you won’t get the benefit of the positive payment history and low balance that card may have. The one thing all credit reports with scores over 800 have in common is a credit card that is twenty years old or older. Hold onto those old cards­ trust me! Preparing credit is a slow and time consuming process.

Full knowledge of your credit profile and how it represents you to creditors and credit bureaus is pivotal to full credit restoration success. Credit bureaus always advise individuals that they have a right to dispute their own credit files, but when the rights of the Credit Bureaus slow you down; you know where to ask for help.

Areas of Expertise

Top 10 Reasons Why Mortgage Brokers and Realtors

Should Use Credit Repair Companies

These services make so much sense, you would assume everyone in the mortgage and real estate originating industry would be using them. However, this is simply not the case! So the question is, why not?

Let's outline the top 10 reasons why loan officers and mortgage brokers should utilize the services of credit repair companies.

1) Credit repair works!

Thrive Credit has years of experience in the credit repair industry. The credit bureaus hate us and our clients love us. We do not dispute that the client has these trade lines; we simply take the creditors and credit bureaus to task for what they report.

We use the consumer protection laws to force the creditors and credit bureaus to produce the information that they must have to verify the debt. More specifically, they must prove that everything is exactly accurate. If they do not have the documentation or they reported something incorrectly, by law they must remove it!

Knowing the specifics of the ever-changing laws is crucial. Now if the consumer knows the in's and out's of the laws as well as Thrive Credit and has years of experience doing this work day in day out, they could possibly get the same results. They can also represent themselves in a court of law, do their own taxes and sell their own homes. But they hire attorneys, accountants, and realtors everyday to get the job done most effectively and as quickly as possible.

2) Credit repair makes a client's credit better.

Thrive Credit's primary focus is credit score improvement. This is done by removing negative items on the client's credit report as well as educating the client on how to use credit to positively affect credit score. The value of our advice can last a lifetime.

3) When negative items are removed, they stay away.

After we have removed negative items from a credit report it is always possible that the original creditor can re-report the negative item. However, this is rarely the case. Given that the original creditor generally will only hold the debt for 4-6 months, they do not waste the time or the money to check on these items and re-report them. What typically happens is that the debt is sold or transferred to a collection agency which will re-report them in an effort to pressure the client to pay the debt. When this occurs we can go back and dispute the items under the same dispute that removed them in the first place.

4) Removing old negative items improves scores.

35% of your client's scores are based on these derogatory items. This is the biggest chunk of the credit score pie! The less derogatory items they have, the higher their score can be. On average, our clients see a 40% cleanup in the first 45 days.

5) It frees up your time if you are trying to repair your client's credit yourself.

Consider this, as a loan officer you are paid to originate loans. The more loan volume you write, the more money you make. A simple business concept called “leverage” dictates that the way to make the most money is to spend your time doing the things that generate the most income for your business. For you, that means meeting with clients and taking applications.

Show me a loan officer who processes their own loans and I will show you a loan officer who does very few loans. Focus on the things that pay you the most money for the time you spend doing them and delegate the other tasks to people who are proficient at those activities. How many times have you spent hours trying to repair someone's credit only to be unsuccessful or have them go somewhere else to get the loan?

Allow us to be your "Ace in the Hole" for all of your short term and long term credit score improvement needs.

6) The client saves significantly more compared to the cost of service.

Given the tremendous impact credit score has on a person's overall financial life, the question really is, How can your client afford not to contract with Thrive Credit? Credit affects your client's mortgage payments, car payments, credit card payments as well as auto & homeowners insurance, and the list goes on. If we improve your client’s credit score 50-100 points, how much can you lower their monthly mortgage payment?

7) Not everyone you work with has great credit.

If you have been in the mortgage business for 10 years or more you are seeing more bad credit reports than you probably ever have. With the changes in the bankruptcy laws this trend will only increase. Currently at least half of people in the market for loans are candidates for sub-prime mortgage products.

8) At CC, we can be trusted.

Every industry has people who do not operate in the utmost professional manner. Thrive Credit looks upon this as a tremendous opportunity to distinguish ourselves. In addition, a lot of the negative stigma in the credit industry about credit repair companies is hyped up by none other than the credit bureaus themselves.

Think about it for a minute. A dispute by a consumer or a credit repair company is going to add overhead to the credit bureaus operations. If the dispute process is successful, then the consumer will not be applying for credit as often because they do not need it as much. This reduces the credit reports sold by the credit bureaus. Is it any wonder that the credit bureaus would create bad press about credit repair companies?

9) Five out of ten clients are loan worthy in the first 45 days!

There are many credit repair companies who only work on 1-3 negative trade lines at a time until they are removed. If the client has 20-40 negative trade lines, which is not uncommon, this could easily take 2-3 years. Given this, we understand why you might feel the process takes too long.

At Thrive Credit, we pride ourselves on speed and are not limited to a couple of trade lines per bureau per month. We give you the ability to receive automatic email notifications each time your clients file is updated. You can login to a portal and track each client you have sent to us, no matter how many there are. Proper follow-up is KEY to closing more loans.

10) It is important to care even if you cannot close the loan this month.

In certain situations we may be able to bring the score up in 30-45 days to get a loan done. If it can be done, we are uniquely qualified to get it done. However, the goal of our service is to increase the scores 50-100 points in 90-120 days. This may allow you to do a band-aid loan today and guarantee a second transaction in the future. In addition, the long term loyalty this creates between you and your client will keep them coming back to you for life.

You don't send clients to Thrive Credit because you have nothing better to do with them. Rather, you send them to Thrive Credit because you care enough about their future.

Testimonials

Thrive Credit has helped my client raise their scores to get loans and me to close more deals."

Chris W.

Folsom, CA

Re: Credit Class

Thank you for you time. Your class was very helpful. I will send clients your way. I look forward to doing business with you.

D. White (Realtor)

Re: Credit Class

Wow! The information provided is going to make a true difference for my clients & myself. being able to provide this tool is going to increase opportunity.

(Realtor)

Re: Credit Class

Great information you shared! Accurate information about how FICO scoring works is KEY to my being able to serve my clients, and you have provided me with that!

D. Knowles (Lender)

Re: Credit Class

I learned alot more than I thought I knew. This was a really helpful course that I will be referring all of my clients with challenge credit to you.

J. Carrol (Realtor)

Re: Credit Class

I've been thru several classes like these from several different companies, and I still learned some more new info, thank you!

C. Washington