Real Stories

If you have a credit-related horror story that you would like to resolve, let our credit expert John Ulzheimer help. Each month, John shares some of his most interesting and complex credit-related emails we call Real Stories. So others can learn from Real Stories, send us yours! We’ll change your name to protect your privacy, but we’ll include all the details you send.

Each Real Stories installment identifies the problem, explains the negative impact on the victim’s credit report and credit score, and provides expert advice on how to solve the problem.

We invite you to submit your credit nightmare to Real Stories and let us help you with the best solution! Summarize your experience and send it to: realstories@credit.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

About John Ulzheimer

John Ulzheimer has 15 years of experience in the consumer credit industry. He spent 7 years with Equifax Credit Information Services where he held various positions in credit marketing, fraud services, database management, and trade line verification. He also spent 7 years with The Fair Isaac Corporation (inventors of the FICO Credit Scoring system) where he served in various consulting and development roles. Most recently he oversaw business development and partner management for their East coast consumer operations as part of their myFICO.com consumer direct group.

John is a nationally recognized expert on credit reporting, credit scoring and identity theft topics. He has authored numerous articles on the subject, written forewords, appeared on CNN, produced content for Freddie Mac's "Know Your Score" campaign, is a regular guest on various radio shows dedicated to credit related topics and has also edited and ghost written books and product literature on the subject.

He has presented credit reporting and credit scoring seminars to The Fannie Mae Foundation, The National Foundation for Credit Counseling, The National Home Equity Mortgage Association, The Federal Home Loan Banks and The Mortgage Bankers Association as well as scores of state level banking associations. He also appeared before members of Congress during the CDIA's 2002 symposium debating mandatory credit report and credit score disclosure.

John holds a B.S degree in Criminal Justice from the State University of West Georgia and is currently the President of The Ulzheimer Group, LLC, which specializes in producing hyper-accurate credit related content for websites, newsletter and books. John also serves as Vice President of The After Bankruptcy Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the 1.6MM consumers who file for bankruptcy each year on the benefits of sound credit management.

John can be reached at johnu@credit.com