Entrepreneur Graham Doessel is delighted to announce placement at number 24 in the Australian Start-Up Smart Awards 2012 for his credit rating repair company, MyCRA Credit Rating Repairs.
Graham was once Australia’s most successful non-conforming broker. Now he’s a full-time ‘credit corrector’ and consumer advocate challenging creditors to improve accuracy in credit reporting – one listing at a time.
An excerpt from the Start-Up Smart Awards website explains the beginnings of MyCRA Credit Rating Repairs:
“At the busiest time in his career, Graham Doessel was diagnosed with cancer. Up to his ears in work, he was forced to step back from it all in order to make a full recovery.
While Doessel was receiving treatment, he witnessed the negative impact of the global financial crisis on credit applicants. In the wake of it all, Doessel decided to do something.
He developed My CRA for the sole purpose of giving customers the cleanest credit file possible.
The idea behind the service is to give customers the best chance of getting approval, secure a lower interest rate or reduce the upfront fees that can be associated with obtaining credit.
Doessel’s life experience, as both a broker and as a consumer at the wrong end of consumer credit reporting, drove him to create MyCRA Credit Rating Repairs from the ground up.
After extensive study of Australian credit reporting legislation, he was able to come up with a framework to correct credit rating errors.
It was now possible to work on behalf of a client and actually repair their credit rating, instructing creditors to remove negative listings where they were listed incorrectly or unfairly.
That’s how MyCRA Credit Rating Repairs was born.
According to Doessel, the most challenging part of starting up was getting leads and contacts, but this forced him to be creative and resourceful, particularly on a tiny budget.
“There is a massive demand for what we do at MyCRA. The barrier to entry is very high but MyCRA overcame all of those challenges on limited to no budget,” he says.
Doessel says the best part of starting his own business is “doing something that can make a tremendous difference to the lives of so many people, and getting paid to do it”.
He is now an active executive member of the Credit Repair Industry of Australasia and has interests in a direct debit service firm,” the website reports.
The recognition from the Start-Up Smart Awards has been significant, with Start-Up Smart also placing MyCRA Credit Rating Repairs amongst the Top Ten new trends for 2012 in the finance category.
“As the banks toughen their lending criteria, the finance industry is witnessing the emergence of a new type of business – one that aims to make it easier for consumers to obtain credit and finance.
My CRA, which appears at number 24, was developed for the sole purpose of giving customers the cleanest credit file possible.
The idea behind the service is to give customers the best chance of getting approval, secure a lower interest rate or reduce the upfront fees that can be associated with obtaining credit,” Michelle Hammond reports in the article 10 trends from the 2012 StartupSmart Top 50.
The MyCRA Credit Rating Repair mission is to empower people through negotiating the removal of listings, thereby restoring integrity allowing their clients and their families to regain control over their future.
The reason consumers very often need help when removing listings is two-fold. Firstly, their often limited knowledge of credit reporting legislation (and lack of time to get to know it) leaves them unsure of how to apply the letter of the law in their own circumstances.
Secondly, negotiating with creditors can be tricky. Clients have to know who to talk to and the way to talk to them. Sometimes people can do more harm than good when trying to fix their own credit rating.
MyCRA looks after clients who are facing identity theft or Identity Fraud; those with default listings incurred during separation from their spouse or other partners; some have been disputing the bill which went to default stage and many people are just victims of the fallout from inadequate billing procedures – wrong names, wrong addresses, human and computer errors.
Under current credit reporting legislation, consumers are entitled to obtain a free copy of their credit report from the credit reporting agencies once a year.
But if people find inconsistencies on their credit report, they can run into difficulty.
Listings are not removed by creditors unless the credit file holder can provide adequate reason and lots of evidence as to why the listing should not be there.
Credit rating repair requires knowledge of the legislation, lots of evidence and perseverance. But for those people whose financial freedom is hindered because their credit file contains errors, it is a point worth fighting for.
MyCRA was founded as a means of championing for the underdog in these situations. The company believe everyone should have the right to redress for mistakes in the credit reporting industry.
For the future, MyCRA is hoping to increase their level of success by improving the frequency of removal and closing the gap on their current default removal rate. My CRA has a previous track record of up to 91.7% of cases having a default removed.
The team hope to accomplish this through further increasing skill level and team numbers, building even better relationships with creditors, and continuing to educate consumers on credit reporting.
With CEO Graham Doessel’s heavy involvement with the Credit Repair Industry Association of Australasia (CRIAA) as an executive member, MyCRA has a strong policy of maintaining consumer advocacy and industry standards.
MyCRA is proud to be a part of building a set of regulations for the credit repair industry through the CRIAA. They see the introduction of the CRIAA as a catalyst for enforcing change and bringing about a set of standards which will revolutionise the credit repair industry in Australia and New Zealand.
MyCRA is also proud to be a Premium Corporate Partner with the Finance Brokers’ Association of Australia (FBAA).
Credit repair industry body the Credit Repair Industry Association of Australasia to hold first Board Meeting Thursday.