I’ll understand if you’re unsure about the title. Breakfast cereal. The FTC. Holy war? It’s ridiculous. But that’s the news. The FTC is hell-bent on “conditioning” the breakfast cereal industry so that consumers can make fair and reasonable decisions about…well, cereal.
So far Kellogg’s, Whole Foods and General Mills—the world’s leading cereal companies—have all come under recent fire from the FTC, and have been backed into making “improvements” to their marketing systems (these “improvements” are primarily geared toward advertising and product disclaimers).
And that all sounds pretty familiar. The FTC has recently clenched the credit repair industry for similar reasons. For example, we’ve got to be ever-mindful in this industry to avoid the promise of specific results when it comes to credit repair services. We cannot give legal advice. We must provide our customers with a written statement of their “credit repair rights.” And there are a boatload of other rules and regulations we must follow in order to help “protect” consumers from unfair or abusive practices.
While we support the FTC in these kinds of regulatory enforcements, we’re finding that there’s an entire field of consumer protection that’s being completely overlooked—consumer education. We (and the FTC) can try to help with consumer protection until we’re red in the face, but more than often, the biggest problems people face during the credit repair process are caused by assumption, confusion, or just a simple lack of knowledge.
Hey—we didn’t learn this stuff in school. While studies in foreign languages and even liberal arts are now required courses in most high schools (at least for college acceptance), the realm of financial management is being virtually ignored by almost all public educational facilities. Why? Isn’t it clear that we—as consumers, as a society, as the leading populace in the entire world—are in dire need of knowledge about credit, finances and economic responsibility?
The FTC can certainly help with this. By providing more educational resources, strengthening the qualification standards of credit repair companies and financial counseling services, and developing a more interactive system of financial training, the FTC can take consumer protection to a much higher level. Let’s face it. We need to know how to be more responsible with our money. Making sure our Captain Crunch has the appropriate disclaimers just doesn’t seem as important…does it?
We haven’t given up, but it’s really getting harder and harder to defend the credit repair industry. There’s an overwhelming level of complaints, rip-off reports, lawsuits and all-out scams. It definitely makes one wonder: is credit repair a truly legitimate industry? And as much as I’d like to assure you that it is, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would believe it.
But here’s a fact: you can improve your credit. You can rectify your financial mistakes. You can make a total difference to your credit profile and rise above the damage you’ve caused in the past. We can’t speak for the industry as a whole, and we surely can’t promise solutions to each and every credit problem, but we can do our best to help restore your credit and we can promise a commitment to educating the consumers who are still willing to put some trust into our service.
If you’re interested in learning more about the FTC and consumer protection, check out their website. Maybe you’ll discover how the FTC is reforming your breakfast experience to make it more fair, safe and reasonable. But if you’re interested in learning more about credit repair, credit repair laws, or what you can do to optimize your financial situation, then give us a call. We’d definitely like to help.
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