Friday, August 03, 2007

Knowing the score can reduce finance charges


Knowing the score can reduce finance charges



By TERESA McUSIC
Special to the Star-Telegram
Take this quick true/false quiz.
Your credit score is influenced by:

A. Your income

B. Your age

C. Your state

D. Your ethnicity

E. Your education

If you answered true to any of these, you don't know what a credit score really is.

Low scores mean higher interest rates on everything from car loans to mortgages to credit cards. Low scores can also mean higher insurance rates, an inability to get services like cellphones, and difficulty getting a job or a place to live.

Your credit score has enormous influence on your daily life, yet a recent survey by the Consumer Federation of America and Washington Mutual reveals that most Americans still don't understand it.

"I'm surprised so many people know so little about their credit score," said Stephen Brobeck, executive director of CFA. "I expected to see an improvement of knowledge over the last couple of years."

Yet an amazing 74 percent of people surveyed thought income influenced their score. More than one-third said age, education and state of residence had some effect. Nearly 20 percent thought that ethnicity had an impact.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Let's all go back to Credit Scores 101.

Credit scores serve one purpose: They indicate your risk of not paying back what you owe.

FICO scores -- named for their creator, Fair Isaac & Co. -- range from 300 to 850. The higher your score, the better off you are with lenders, insurers, employers and landlords. Most scores fall between 600 and 700, according to Consumers Union, with higher-cost lending, called subprime lending, starting with a score of 620.

How much can that difference in cost be? FICO estimates that someone with a credit score between 760 and 850 will pay $466 less a month in interest on a 30-year, $200,000 mortgage in Texas than someone with a score of 500 to 579.

Washington Mutual estimates that $20 billion would be saved in lower credit-card charges if Americans raised their credit scores an average of 30 points.

The scores are generally made up of five different criteria. Fair Isaac breaks it down like this:

Payment history, 35 percent. This means just what it says. A long history of making payments on time leads to a better score. One or two late payments won't usually hurt, but missed payments, bankruptcies, foreclosures and liens can have a serious effect on your score.

Amounts owed, 30 percent. Owing money in itself does not trigger a low score. Your score is hurt if you are close to maxing out a credit card or if the amount you owe has jumped recently.

Length of credit history, 15 percent. It's possible to have a short history and a high score, but longer is better.

Type of credit in use, 10 percent. This portion looks at the mix of your credit, from mortgages and installment loans to credit cards and retail accounts. It's not a key factor unless there's not much other information about you.

New credit, 10 percent. Timing again plays into this part of the score, in that opening up several lines of credit in a short period can lower your score. Multiple card requests can also lower your score.

This year, the three credit bureaus introduced a new scoring system called VantageScore. Its range is 501 to 990 with accompanying letter grades from A to F.

Adding another score and range to the market complicates things for consumers, Brobeck said. But as long as you know the range, either score will give you an idea where you stand with lenders, insurers and others you want to do business with.

"If you don't know what a good score is, you can't understand if you have a good score," Brobeck said.

Getting your score generally costs about $14, although the new VantageScore is selling on Experian's Web site for $5.95.

For three years, Washington Mutual has given its customers free access to their credit scores online, said Alan Elias, senior vice president at the S&L.

"We have to pull the scores every month anyway to monitor them," he said. "And our customers can use it as a way to monitor identity theft."

Remember, credit scores can't generally be repaired overnight. But for most of us, working on some of our credit habits for six months can make a big difference.

Bottom line: if you're planning next year to buy a house or car, sign up for a credit card, cellphone or electric plan, rent an apartment or go to a job interview -- check out your score.

What's in your report?

Check your three credit reports at no cost at www.annualcreditreport.com, call 877-322-8228 or request a form at the Web site and mail it to Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281. You will need to give your Social Security number. The report does not include a credit score.

Source: Consumer Federation of America

HOW YOUR CREDIT SCORE AFFECTS YOU

A good credit score can save you thousands of dollars, particularly when you're borrowing money to buy a house. Here are several ranges of scores and the monthly payment on a $150,000, 30-year mortgage associated with them:

700-759: Rate: 6.52% Cost: $950

680-699: Rate: 6.7% Cost:$968

660-679: Rate: 6.91% Cost: $989

640-659: Rate: 7.34% Cost: $1,033

620-639: Rate: 7.89% Cost: $1,089

Average U.S. credit score: 678

Source: Bankrate.com

Boosting your score

There's no magic to raising your credit score. Here are the basics:

Pay bills consistently and on time.

Don't max out credit cards or other revolving credit.

Pay off debt rather than moving it around.

Don't open new accounts often.

Source: Consumer Federation of America

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

For Rent: Your Credit Score

For Rent: Your Credit Score
Loophole in FICO Enrages Lenders

By Martin H. BosworthConsumerAffairs.Com

June 5, 2007

Plastic Prison • Credit Tips And TricksGet Control of What You OweNo Easy Way Out Of Credit Card DebtPenalty Fees, Interest Rate Hikes, and Misleading Contracts Await Credit Card Shoppers"Convenience Checks" Carry a Heavy Price TagNew Forms of Credit ScoringUnderstanding CreditCredit Bureaus: Who You're Dealing WithReading Your Credit ReportCredit Scoring: The Fickleness of FICOCredit Knowledge: A Long, Hard, Struggle---News• For Rent: Your Credit ScoreFed Proposes Tighter Controls On Credit Card RatesSenate Bill Would Curb Abusive Credit Card PracticesSenate Panel Slams Abusive Credit Card PracticesCongress Targets Credit Card Companies For ReformReport Finds High Debit Card Overdraft FeesBank, ATM Fees Continue To RiseCredit Card Fees Rise, Disclosure Statements InadequateFree Credit Reports Mark First AnniversaryCredit Card Debt Sinking Many Older ConsumersExperian Launches New Credit Score; Critics UnimpressedCredit Cards Target StudentsCredit Card Companies Fear "Perfect Storm"Credit Bureaus Introduce New Scoring SystemMore Banks Using Universal Default to Hike Interest Rates

The all-important three-digit number known as your credit score has become the central pivot on which the financial industry moves.

Borrowers are repeatedly told to demonstrate good financial behavior not just for its own sake, but to ensure that their credit score stays high enough to receive approval from lenders. And a score that doesn't meet with lenders' approval can keep otherwise responsible borrowers from getting a home or car loan for years.

So it should come as no surprise that companies like InstantCreditBuilders.com (ICB) and Addatradeline.com have devised a way to game the system -- in this case, by paying people with high credit scores to let low scorers "piggyback" on their ratings and receive boosts to their own scores as a result.

The new trick takes advantage of a loophole in the credit system. People who have little or no credit histories, such as college students, can be added as an "authorized user" to credit cards that are ultimately paid for by Mom and Dad.

In this case, the "authorized user" with good credit is paid several hundred dollars to "rent" their credit score out to someone else, with the agency taking their cut from the potential piggybacker.

Lenders Object

Although the Federal Trade Commission has been taking a wait-and-see approach to the issue, the financial and mortgage industries are already on the warpath.

The National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) is planning to release a statement opposing the practice. Mortgage lenders say the practice undermines the trust lenders place in the FICO score, which is by far the most widely-used scoring system for new loan approvals.
"We have become so dependent on FICO scoring that we rely on it almost to the point that FICO is the decisionmaking process," Bremer Mortgage president Jim Miley told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "If we can't get assurances that FICO scores are accurate, then we will definitely go back to manual underwriting of loans, a time-consuming and expensive process."

Unforeseen Consequences

Fair Isaac, creators of the FICO score, has said that it will close the "authorized user" loophole in its credit scoring model to protect against "piggybacking." John Ulzheimer of Credit.com says that the move is going to "screw consumers royally."

"A lot of people are going to get penalized for something a few bad apples did," Ulzheimer said in an interview with ConsumerAffairs.Com. "The value of any authorized user on a credit card is now totally lost."

Ulzheimer said that anyone who has built a credit history as an additional user on a card, ranging from college students to married couples and divorcees, will have to "rush out" and open up new credit accounts to rebuild or maintain their scores and credit histories.

"It won't be as big a rush as people filing bankruptcy before the new laws took effect,"
Ulzheimer said, "But you'll see it happen."

Ulzheimer, who formerly worked at both Fair Isaac and Equifax, said companies like ICB are liable for enforcement under the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA), which mandates the rules that so-called "credit repair organizations" work under. "The minute they take money in advance, they're liable under CROA," he said. "This is a case of merchants ripping off businesses, and some consumers ripping off lenders."

Bad Data

FICO became dominant largely because it streamlined the formerly cumbersome and detailed process of lending down to a simple number.

Whereas local credit bureaus and mortgage lenders would previously look at a person's entire financial history and make calls based on individual judgment, the modern system relies almost totally on the proprietary algorithm developed by Fair Isaac, and based on information in credit reports that is very often inaccurate.

The ease with which credit could be approved led to an explosion of availability of lending to people who would not ordinarily have qualified, but the mania to approve credit and sell reports and scores to lenders also led to constant errors and mistakes in reports that are very difficult to correct.

Now the housing market is in the doldrums, thanks to subprime loans going into default and foreclosure accross the country. Even the Federal Reserve is reconsidering the easy access to credit that consumers have come to take for granted.

And the closing of the "authorized user" loophole won't just make building credit tougher for consumers -- it's exposed a vulnerability in the FICO score that has competitors like the credit bureau-backed VantageScore ready to pounce.

John Ulzheimer had previously criticized the new score, which is sold right from the three bureaus, as "an effort to confuse consumers and unsophisticated lenders."

Now, he said, "I wouldn't be surprised if there was an all-hands meeting at VantageScore Solutions to discuss what to do" about the loophole in the FICO score. "They're licking their chops."

Report Your Experience If you've had a bad experience with a consumer product or service, we'd like to hear about it. All complaints are reviewed by class action attorneys and are considered for publication on our site. Knowledge is power! Help spread the word. File your consumer report now.

Monday, June 04, 2007

Highs & lows for consumer in search of his credit score

BY ASA AARONSDAILY NEWS COLUMNIST
Posted Monday, June 4th 2007, 4:00 AM
When Mel Larson requested his free annual credit report from a major credit reporting agency, he also ordered his credit score. "There was a $5 charge, but I felt it was a good idea since the number is important," he explained.
But he wasn't happy with what he got. "I received something called a VantageScore, not the FICO score I expected," he said. "My score was 898, well over the top FICO score.
Can a VantageScore be translated to a FICO score?"
Not exactly. Credit scores are the three-digit numbers that lenders use to assess the credit risk of a potential borrower.
Fair Isaac's Classic FICO score is the most often used credit score in consumer lending and mortgage lending. FICO scores range from 300 to 850.
Although FICO scores remain dominant, several alternatives have developed within the past few years.
In March last year, the nation's three leading consumer credit reporting companies - Equifax, Experian and TransUnion - jointly launched their own proprietary credit scoring system, VantageScore.
When you order your credit report fromExperian or TransUnion, you receive a VantageScore. Equifax, however, still provides FICO scores.
If you want to get a FICO score based on your Experian or TransUnion credit report, you have the option ofordering it from Fair Isaac (www.myfico.com).
Otherwise, you can only roughly compare your FICO score and VantageScore.
VantageScores range from 501 to 990, and approximate the letter-grade system used in most schools. That means a score of 901 to 990 is an A, while a score of 801 to 900 is a B, 701 to 800 is a C, 601 to 700 is a D and 501 to 600 is an F.
If you have a FICO score of more than 730, then you're in the solid B range. If it's 770 or more, you get an A. FICO scores of 680 to 729 are in the C range, while scores of 620 to 679 are Ds. Anything lower than 620 is an F.
Asa Aarons is a consumer reporter whoappears at 5:30 p.m. weekdays on WNBC-TV, Channel 4. His special Daily News column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Send your questions to Ask Asa, P.O. Box 3310, NewYork, N.Y. 10116 or e-mail him (AskAsa@gmail.com). Questions can be answered only through this column.End Content Columns -->

Friday, May 25, 2007

VantageScore Solutions Names Michael Dunn Vice President of Strategic Planning and Communications.

STAMFORD, Conn. -- VantageScore Solutions, LLC, an intellectual property company whose VantageScore consumer scoring model has unparalleled predictiveness and can be uniformly applied to credit data from the three national credit reporting companies, announced today the appointment of Michael J. Dunn as the company's vice president of strategic planning and communications.

Mr. Dunn, 44, is responsible for leading the design, execution, and integration of myriad strategic planning and communications initiatives, such as advertising, branding, public relations, and trade association and regulatory community outreach. He reports directly to Barrett Burns, VantageScore Solutions' president and CEO.

"Mike's considerable brand management experience, general business acumen, and financial services expertise make him the ideal candidate to assume the mantle for overseeing VantageScore Solutions' strategic planning and communications function," said Mr. Burns. "We are delighted to have someone of his caliber on board as we continue to build on the positive 'buzz' in the industry for VantageScore."

Prior to his new position, Mr. Dunn most recently served as vice president of marketing at Webster Bank, a 177-branch retail bank based in Waterbury, Connecticut, where he was responsible for brand marketing strategy, execution, and performance measurement. During his tenure, Webster Bank enjoyed the strongest consumer awareness levels in its 71-year history for its brand in the bank's core Connecticut marketplace.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Dunn was a managing supervisor at Mintz & Hoke Communications Group, one of New England's largest advertising and public relations firms. He also served as vice president of marketing at Intergis, a B2B software development firm, and held several positions of escalating authority at communications firm Mason & Madison (now Mason, Inc.), where he created an independent e-business unit that helped clients formulate online strategies.
Mr. Dunn earned an undergraduate degree in communications with an emphasis in advertising from Ithaca College. He is the recipient of the marketing industry's prestigious Silver EFFIE Award for his contributions to the Vermont Lottery marketing campaign.

About VantageScore Solutions

Stamford, CT-based VantageScore Solutions, LLC was founded in March 2006 as an independently managed joint venture between the country's three national consumer credit reporting companies -- Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion -- to develop a universal, highly predictive, and consistent credit scoring system for the consumer credit markets. The resulting VantageScore service is independently marketed and sold separately through the three credit reporting companies via licensing agreements with VantageScore Solutions. For more information, please visit www.VantageScore.com.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Overhaul of FICO is coming

Overhaul of FICO is coming

Kathleen Pender

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Fair Isaac said last week that it will introduce a more powerful credit-scoring system in September, but said it's not a response to criticism that the company's widely used FICO scores did a less-than-stellar job predicting defaults as the mortgage market grew more exotic.

The Minneapolis company said the new version will increase "predictive strength by 5 to 15 percent," especially for new accounts, subprime borrowers and borrowers with thin credit bureau files.

While it's promising big improvements for lenders, the company says the new system will have little impact on consumers.

"Some consumers' scores will go up slightly, some will go down slightly," says Fair Isaac spokesman Craig Watts.

The company would not explain what would cause a score to change, which is a shame considering the growing impact credit scores have on our lives. Lenders use credit scores to make or deny loans and set terms and rates. They are also being used, where allowed, by insurance companies, landlords, employers and utilities.

Credit scoring applies a formula to the information in your credit file and comes up with a number that predicts how likely you are to default on a loan.

Credit scores have performed so well that lenders have placed growing faith in them, perhaps too much. As long as borrowers had decent credit scores, many lenders were willing to lend them up to 100 percent of a home's value and let them make no principal and partial interest payments for a number of years. Many let customers state their income without documenting it.
Some critics say FICO scores did not perform as well as expected in this Wild West environment.

In a December conference call, HSBC finance chief Douglas Flint said that in 2005 and 2006, a "considerable amount of activity ... moved away from more-traditional products to affordability products" such as adjustable-rate mortgages, stated income loans and option ARMs. These products let people afford bigger mortgages with smaller monthly payments.

"What is now clear is that FICO scores are less effective or ineffective in circumstances where the ability to meet payments is beneficially enhanced by virtue of the fact that the payment obligations have been reduced because of very low interest rates. In other words, the FICO scores' predictive ability, because people weren't missing payments, were recording higher creditworthiness than might have been the case if they had had to make payments at more normalized interest rates, or without the benefit of affordability elements," he said.

Fitch Ratings, which rates mortgage-backed securities, says that as lenders added more layers of risk to a loan, the borrower's FICO score became less predictive.

For mortgages issued in 2003, before lenders abandoned common sense, borrowers who defaulted had significantly lower scores than those who didn't, says Glenn Costello, a Fitch managing director.

Borrowers who became 90 or more days delinquent had an average FICO score of 589 compared with an average score of 620 for those who never paid that late -- a difference of 31 points.

For loans made in 2006, that margin had shrunk to only 10 points. Borrowers who became seriously delinquent had an average FICO score of 615 compared with 625 for those who didn't.
"The loans that are defaulting now have higher FICO scores" than in the past, Costello says.

He adds that FICO scores still do a good job predicting risk, all else being equal. "If you have two loans with the exact same attributes, the person with the lower FICO score has a higher probability of default. If I take person with the higher FICO, give them a piggy-back second or a stated-income loan" and the default risk increases, he says.

Costello says FICO scores can still be useful as "part of a healthy balanced diet."

PMI Group, which insures mortgages with low down payments, uses FICO scores "as one of many different data elements in assessing risk," says Mark Milner, the firm's chief risk officer.

PMI looks at borrower-related data, including FICO scores; loan-related data, such as the interest rate and payment structure; and property-related data, such as whether the home is owner-occupied, a rental, single-family or condominium.

"For what it is, a FICO score is a very strong variable. But it's hardly the only one," says Milner.
Ron Totaro, Fair Isaac's vice president of global scoring solutions, says the FICO revamp has been in the works for 14 to 18 months and is not a reaction to recent criticism.

"We've talked to lenders, regulators and individuals who use FICO scores to drive their decisions. There has been no feedback that says these scores are working any differently than they have over the last 18 years," Totaro says.

The new version could be a reaction to VantageScore, a credit-scoring system developed jointly by the nation's three major credit-reporting agencies: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.
Fair Isaac has sued the three agencies, alleging that VantageScore violates antitrust laws and confuses customers.

One of VantageScore's touted benefits was that it would do a better job with thin-file customers, meaning those without much credit history such as young people and recent immigrants.
The FICO upgrade also expands assessments of thin-file borrowers.

Fair Isaac now divides the population into 10 segments based on credit histories and applies a slightly different formula to each. Eight segments include people with no serious credit blotches and two are for people with serious problems.

The new system will divide the population into 12 segments: eight for people with good credit and four for people with bad credit. This will deliver better results for people in the lower end of the credit spectrum, Watts says. The system also incorporates changes in consumer behavior since its last upgrade.

Net Worth runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail Kathleen Pender at
kpender@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page E - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Thursday, May 10, 2007

FACTBOX - FICO credit score components, from Reuters, Posted By Robert Paisola

FACTBOX - FICO credit score components

Thu May 10, 2007 5:09PM EDT

Credit scores, dominated by the Fair Isaac Corp.'s FICO system, are relative measures of a person's creditworthiness.

The scores are used by banks and other lenders to determine if a person will get a loan and how much they will pay.

Here are components of the FICO score:

-- Payment history, 35 percent of score. Late payments on credit cards, mortgages, student loans etc. will show up here and reduce the score.

-- Amounts owed, 30 percent of score. Total amount owed on a credit card compared with the total credit line. The higher the amount owed relative to the credit line, the lower the score.

-- Length of credit history, 15 percent. A short credit history will reduce the score. Experian, Equifax and TransUnion have developed VantageScore to reach more people with "thin" credit histories.

--New credit, 10 percent. The more request one makes for new credit accounts, the riskier they are perceived.

--Types of credit used, 10 percent. FICO considers the mix of credit cards, retail accounts and mortgages.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Opinions differ on effectiveness of FICO score, Posted by Robert Paisola

Opinions differ on effectiveness of FICO score

Fair Isaac says its FICO score works just fine. But rising defaults have prompted some to question whether the system has flaws.

By Thomas Lee, Star Tribune

Don't blame the messenger.

That might not be anyone's idea of a great corporate slogan, but executives at Fair Isaac Corp. are finding themselves playing defense this year about the company's most vaunted product.
As subprime mortgage defaults continue to rise, some lenders are questioning the value of Fair Isaac's FICO score, which measures a consumer's ability to pay back a loan.

"FICO scores were one of the best predictors of early defaults," said Glenn Costello, an analyst with Fitch Ratings, a credit-rating agency based in New York. "Today, that is not true."

In December, a top executive with HSBC Finance, a major subprime lender, told investors that FICO scores were "less effective or ineffective" in predicting behavior during a period of aggressive lending and low interest rates.

Defenders of the FICO score say the product works just fine. They say overaggressive lenders, hungry for profits, are more to blame for the increasing number of defaults among homeowners, because they loosened underwriting standards to take in more marginal borrowers and also sold riskier products such as adjustable-rate mortgages.

"We're confident that FICO does what it is supposed to do," said Ron Totaro, vice president of global scoring solutions for Minneapolis-based Fair Isaac. "Lenders develop their lending strategies, and they use as little or as much information as they want."

Totaro said there is "no evidence" that FICO scores are not effective when applied to borrowers who fit in the riskier subprime portion of the market.

Any perception that FICO is faulty could have serious consequences for Fair Isaac. FICO is both the company's best-known product and the most popular credit-scoring system in the United States. Last year, FICO scores generated $177.1 million in sales, about 21 percent of Fair Isaac's total revenue.

What's worse, the company has already been struggling to boost its sales. Last week Fair Isaac said second-quarter revenue fell 3.4 percent to $201 million.

FICO also faces a challenge from VantageScore, a new credit-scoring system developed and marketed by Experian, TransUnion and Equifax, the country's three top credit-reporting agencies. Fair Isaac is suing the agencies, claiming VantageScore violates antitrust laws. By jointly offering VantageScore, the agencies are in the position to shut out FICO and other competitors from the credit-scoring market, according to papers filed in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.

VantageScore executives see the subprime fallout as an excellent chance to promote their product.

"Absolutely, it helps us," said Barrett Burns, VantageScore's chief executive. "It offers us a great opportunity for lenders to look at VantageScore. Since our score is more accurate and predictive, there would have been improvement" in mortgage defaults had the industry used VantageScore instead of FICO, he said.

A recent Fitch Ratings report seems to lend some support to Fair Isaac in the debate. Some of the industry's riskiest subprime products -- high loan-to-value mortgages, piggyback loans and others that required little or no documentation of income -- made the FICO score "less significant relative to other attributes as an early default indicator," Fitch said.

In 2003, loans that defaulted within 12 months of issuance had FICO scores that were 30 points less than loans that did not default. Last year that difference shrank to 10 points, according to Fitch.

Others say the troubles among subprime loans simply show the limitations of credit scores. Loan officers can't look to FICO scores when trying to weigh how changes in interest rates, the type of loan or sudden events could affect a borrower's ability to pay, said John Ulzheimer, president of Credit.com Educational Services, a San Francisco-based financial services company.
"The score is the score," said Ulzheimer, a former Fair Isaac manager who helped build credit-scoring models. "It doesn't take into account external factors."
For instance, Hurricane Katrina's devastation could have turned healthy FICO scores of 750 among Gulf Coast residents into 450s in a relatively short period of time, in which case "the credit scores looked like they had failed," Ulzheimer said.

Still, credit-scoring companies must do a better job in establishing consistent scores for borrowers with patchy credit, said Craig Focardi, an analyst with TowerGroup, a research and consulting firm in Needham, Mass. Credit scores below 640 fluctuate more often than scores of 700 or better, he said. Companies such as Fair Isaac also should develop credit scores that take into account additional categories of risk instead of "lumping customers into similar brackets," he said.

Fair Isaac sells a product called NextGen FICO that Focardi says better measures the credit risks posed by subprime borrowers, but mortgage lenders have been reluctant to adopt it because it costs more than a standard score. VantageScore could inject some needed competition into the business, Focardi said.

"The mortgage industry needs to reevaluate whether one score is good for all customer segments," he said.

Totaro of Fair Isaac said the company constantly updates and refines FICO scores. Asked if some subprime lenders are unhappy with the service, Totaro replied: "We have talked to numerous clients. We will work with them to show them how the FICO scores work."

Ulzheimer said lenders never liked FICO scores, especially when a low score disqualified a potential borrower from getting a loan. Most lending operations are set up so that fees are generated by granting loans, not turning people away. But in the recent housing boom, lenders just got too greedy and sold unsuitable products to consumers, he said.

"You do your best to explain how the model is built and what it can do," Ulzheimer said. "But some lenders are going to do whatever they want to do. You never hear from lenders when things are going well. But the minute the FICO score doesn't do what they want it to do, it's amazing how loud they scream."

Thomas Lee • 612-673-7744 • tlee@startribune.com

©2007 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Robert Paisola, CEO of Western Capital, Announces 2007-2008 Price Schedule


Due to the Recent Media Attention, we have been receiving a large number of calls regarding how much it would cost to have Robert Paisola speak at events throughout the world. Here is a simple price sheet. Prices are subject to change based on topics covered, Profit or Non-Profit and General Attitude of the Requestor.

See www.RobertPaisola.com for an Introduction based on the Hit Movie "THE SECRET"

2007-2008 Fee Schedules

Email : bookings@mycollector.com for the next Available Date!

3 1/2 FULL DAYS ONSITE WITH ROBERT AT YOUR LOCATION ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD $15,500.00 USD

3 1/2 FULL DAYS ONSITE WITH ROBERT AT YOUR LOCATION ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD ON TIMESHARE SALES $12,500.00 USD

CONVENTIONS, TRADE SHOWS, CORPORATE MEETINGS & CONFERENCES

NORTH AMERICA (Includes Canada and Mexico)

Keynotes and Seminars (up to 3 hours) $6.995,000

Full Day Seminars (up to 6 hours) $8,995.00

INTERNATIONAL

Keynotes and Full Day Seminars $15,500 USD

MULTIPLE PROGRAMS

We offer a 50% discount for additional programs booked for the same day at the same conference. For example, the first program is contracted at full price and every additional program is contracted at half price. We offer a 25% discount for additional programs booked by the same client/sponsor. For example, the first program is contracted at full price and every additional program is contracted with our 25% multiple booking discount. NOTE: This discount is applicable only if the contracts are issued simultaneously.

MEDIA & PUBLICITY

In order to create excitement and awareness of Mr. Paisola’s appearance at your event, he is happy to fulfill media requests when his schedule allows. Pre-recorded interviews are preferred over live interviews.

TRAVEL EXPENSES

Travel expenses are in addition to the speaking fee. Travel expenses include first-class airfare, up to 2 night’s hotel accommodations (Before and After the event) (king, non-smoking, guaranteed late arrival), meals and ground transportation in host city. A $75 per diem is also charged to cover ground transportation in home town, tips, and meals while traveling. To reduce Mr. Paisola’s out of pocket expenses, we request that hotel room charges be billed directly to the organization’s master account. When Mr. Paisola’s schedule includes more than one program on the same tour, airfare expenses are prorated.

HOLDING & CONFIRMING DATES


If you have specific dates in mind for your meeting, we're more than happy to hold a date for you. This hold can be placed on our calendar for up to 30 days. If another client requests the dates you are holding, you will be notified by phone and given 48 hours to make your decision either to go to contract or release the dates. To secure the date, a program agreement will be issued. This agreement is to be executed and returned within two weeks and requires a 50% deposit. The remaining 50% balance is due two weeks prior to the appearance.

RECORDING THE PRESENTATION AT YOUR EVENT

If you wish to video or audio tape Mr. Paisola’s presentation, you must sign a release. There are two forms; one is if you wish to use the recording for archival purposes only. The other is for those who wish to make the recording available to attendees or later for a period of time (either video or audio.) In either case, the releases must be signed, returned and approved by Robert Paisola

What Clients Are Saying About Robert’s Presentations:

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"This was by far the best class that I have ever attended.
You covered so much valuable information; I want to get back to my queue NOW!"
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Great information presented in easy to understand language.”
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Robert is teacher that knows his stuff and, more importantly, he presents it in a way that makes even my seasoned collectors collect more cash!”
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"Robert Paisola is incredible, My staff increased gross collections 130% after his trainings"
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