BoroPark Snapshot: Credit Up, Mr. Yitzchok Friesel

By Yehudit Garmaise

      When Mr. Yitzchok Friesel, a Skvere Chussid, was an inexperienced yungerman, just of out kollel, he had the misfortune to fall into credit card debt after a trusted friend asked to use his credit cards to make purchases for his business, while Mr. Friesel kept the card’s points.

    Mr. Friesel’s friend, “a responsible person,” said he would pay off the credit cards every month, and he did: for a while. When the business of Mr. Friesel’s friend started to falter, however, his monthly payments did as well. Mr. Friesel’s debt continued to climb, and his credit rating continued to fall.

     Full monthly payments turned to minimum monthly payments, and then to no payments at all. Mr. Friesel’s once-good credit was now was sullied by the constant phone calls of collection agencies.

     “After devising several techniques, I was able to get my credit back to a high score, and now I have very good credit,” said Mr. Friesel, but don’t ask him to reveal his credit repair techniques, which are the secrets of his successful business.

     After successfully repairing his own credit, Mr. Friesel realized that a lot of other people also need credit repair, he created Credit Up, his credit repair business.

     As real estate prices continue to rise in Brooklyn, and people move out to other communities, such as Monsey, Airmont, Lakewood, and Toms River, the demand for credit repair in the Jewish communities has risen because to take out mortgages, Mr. Friesel pointed out, buyers need good credit.

     “A lot of people have bad credit, unfortunately, and now that people can’t stay in Brooklyn because prices are skyrocketing, and people want to take advantage of the low mortgage rates in less expensive communities,” Mr. Friesel said. “A lot of people now need their credit fixed, and Baruch Hashem, the demand is keeping me busy.”         

     Although many of Mr. Friesel’s clients want to repair their credit before they take out big mortgages, he said, everyone in Brooklyn needs good credit: “People who just want to lease a car need good credit,” said Friesel, who has been quite successful in helping people in the community to build back up their credit.

    While other credit repair companies promise to restore customers’ credit ratings within 30 to 60 days, Mr. Friesel does not make such unrealistic promises.

     “Every case is different,” Mr. Friesel said, “I never give false hope, and I don’t make promises that I can’t keep." 

   The process of credit repair is unpredictable, explained Mr. Friesel, who also said that he never promises clients that he can repair something that he does not believe that he can deliver.

   “Clients must understand that credit repair is different from grocery shopping, where you pick up your items and then pay and leave in less than an hour,” explained Mr. Friesel, who said that credit cannot usually be repaired in a day, a week, or even a month. “Customers with extremely poor credit should not expect results for a few months.”

   Patience is required during the process of credit repair, but the results will make the wait worth the efforts.

   “I have to take every client on a case-by-case basis,” he said. “Sometimes it can even take up to four to six months to repair someone’s credit.”

   One exciting victory, however, came a month ago, when Mr. Friesel successfully raised a client’s credit by 100 points in one week.

    Because credit repair is a painstaking process, Friesel only asks to be paid a 50% deposit at the beginning of his services, and he gets paid individually for each negative item that he removes from his customers’ credit reports.

    “Although some items on credit reports cannot be remove, most items, like collections, charge-offs, late payments on credit cards, and credit inquiries are the things I work to take off for people,” Friesel said. “But we always need patience, and I give my customers reasonable time frames. Baruch Hashem, I have a 90% success rate.” Readers can reach Mr. Friesel at Credit Up at (914) 824-9600 and [email protected].