Macklock National Credit Alleged Consumer Frustrated Discover Sued Them

I’m sharing my story out of pure frustration and I don’t even know where to start. First off I’d like to remain anonymous if you choose to share my story as I am still unfortunately dealing with Macklock.

While trying to find more information on Macklock I came across your website and this is why I’m sharing my story.

Back in November of 2016 I was $17,000+ in debt and desperate. I applied for a debt consolidation loan from some place that sent me a letter in the mail. I don’t believe it was Macklock, and unfortunately can’t remember who it came from. I applied and was denied but the representative I spoke to did tell me that they had something they could do for me…

Enter Macklock. I spoke to them on the phone for some time, they did a credit check and looked at all my open accounts and debts I have, all of which were current at the time. They at first lumped them all together and told me what my monthly payment would be, it was significantly less than what I was currently paying, which was just the minimum. It all seemed to good to be true. They told me that this did mean that all the accounts we spoke of would be closed. I then decided that I maybe shouldn’t do it to all my accounts and chose to keep two credit cards, the two that had the highest credit limit. Still, with the changes made what I would be paying between those to credit cards and my Macklock account would be significantly less than that I was currently paying. I was thrilled, I was desperate… I didn’t ask any of the right questions and just bought what they were selling me. I agreed to a 19 month contract that would cost me $375.55 a month, from November 2016 to May 2018, for the three accounts I chose to have enrolled. Along with that I also got a SmartCredit account which would monitor my credit score monthly and from my understanding would be used to remove the disputed accounts from my credit report.

Basically what had happened was the person I spoke to told me to stop paying on all of the accounts I chose to enroll in the program. From there they said I would start receiving collection letters from the creditors, they informed me to pay nothing and speak to no one. If I did speak to anyone to inform them to stop calling and only communicate through mail. Eventually the accounts would be sent to third party debt collectors and that’s when Macklock would work its magic. What they would do is ask the third party debt collectors to provide proof that I owe them, if they provided proof we would go from there, if they couldn’t provide proof we would send a second letter, after that second letter if there was still no proof they would basically fight it and get the account removed from my credit report, eventually, at some points making it seem like it would happen immediately, at others at the end of the program but then at other points making it seem like it was something we would discuss when the time came, never giving me an actual time frame.

I starting getting calls from the creditors. I ignored them. I started getting letters from the creditors. I sent them to Macklock. I started getting emails from the creditors, I sent them to Macklock. As Macklock told me they would take care of it all. I was assigned an account manager that I would have monthly phone calls with to update me on the progress of everything. Little did I know that my account manager would change, rather often, four times total, so far. At first I was told they got promoted. Then the second time it happened I was told that the person no longer worked for them. After that I stopped questioning… I know I shouldn’t have, but at the same time, I’m clearly a naive idiot.

Of the three accounts, one being LendingClub. They wrote it off and sold to a third party, the third party couldn’t provide proof and therefore had to write it off and it’s been fully disputed. But is still on my account. I no longer receive calls from them or letters. I just have to wait for it to be removed, keep in mind Macklock won’t give me a time frame. One of the accounts was a PNC Credit Card. They have written it off but that’s it. I no longer receive letters or phone calls in regards to that account. Both my current account manager and myself have no idea what’s going on with that as it is still listed as “Active” on my SmartCredit account report. The last time we spoke about that he said that it will probably be written off before the new year? But from my understanding I already received a letter saying it was written off.

The third account, the pain in my ass. Discover. Discover repeatedly attempted to settle and collect. Every settlement letter I got, every collection letter I got, every statement I got, I sent to Macklock. Finally I got a letter from Weltman Weinberg & Reis. A supposed law firm who had my Discover account turned over to them, once it was charged off. Once I got that and sent it to Macklock that was when they would work their magic, as Macklock only works with third party people. They sent a request to Weltman asking for validation of the debt. In response Weltman sent me a packet of every statement I’ve received for the last year or so. Once I sent that to Macklock, Macklock then sent a “Notice of Insufficient Response” to Weltman. And the account status in my Macklock Portal for had changed to “Full Disputed / NOIR Expired.” So I’m now thinking, “this is great! Two down one to go! This is going so well.”

Keep in mind, when I started this program, all my bills were current. I wasn’t behind on anything. At the time of enrollment my credit score was probably around 650ish? Which at that time was the lowest it had ever been and that alone had me stressed. Since enrolling I have been as low as a 512 now since doing this.

So I’m thinking, okay this is going well. It’s been a little over a year since enrolling in almost done with my 19 month contract. I’ve managed to bring my score up to a 577. I haven’t heard from Discover or Weltman in about two months now. Then Tuesday December 26 I get a knock on my door. It’s a man with a summons. I’m being sued by Discover who is allegedly being represented by Weltman. I’m in full on panic mode. I don’t know what to do. It’s past 6 pm so I can’t call any attorneys or Macklock to let them know what’s going on. Instead what I do is upload the 10 page document to my Macklock portal and I think “I’ll call first thing in the morning.”

I go to bed panicked. I can’t sleep, I’m restless. The next day I call my account manager with Macklock at around 11am. I tell him what happened that the paperwork is there. He informs me, once again with such reassurance, that he’ll look over everything and come up with a plan. Forward to 5 pm he calls me back with a plan. “The plan,” is, they work with an attorney group that will be calling me in the next two days. This attorney charges a one time fee of $400, at that moment I’m thinking, “ummm, but I pay you guys $375 a month. How in the hell am now supposed to afford $400?!” That’s when my account manager informs me that because this has happened what he will do for me is remove the Discover account from my Macklock contract and it will then in turn lower my payments, “take a guess at what your new payment will be!” He said with such excitement, “how much?” “ZERO! Your account will be paid completely off and I will still be working on your other two accounts!” At the time I’m thinking “okay, that’s cool. Like awesome. No longer had to lay $375.55 for the next 5 months. I’m down.” He then tells me the attorney will call me either tomorrow (Thursday) or Friday. And the attorney and I will then discuss a plan of action, settling etc. I ask questions like “won’t settling be a negative on my credit report? Like won’t then affect me in a negative way?” He says that that is something I’ll have to ask the attorney.

So Thursday comes, I’ve had a night to think of some more questions. A night to honestly just get pissed off at everything. I also go through the paperwork Macklock sent me when I first signed up. I’m no lawyer obviously, but what I’m reading almost made it seem like that the money I had been paying them could possibly be used to pay the debts IF it came to that. So I now have a few questions for Macklock. I was hoping to speak to the attorney first but still hadn’t heard anything. So I call Macklock back midday to ask a few questions this phone call was different from the rest. My account manager seemed so put off and his attitude was just awful.

I let him know I still haven’t heard from the attorney and wanted to express some feelings. I told him no one at any time that none of my previous 3 account managers told me I could possibly get sued, them then rebutted that “well you knew that when you signed up for the accounts we’re taking care of,” whereas yes, this could be seen as true, it is Macklock that told me to stop paying on said accounts. I tell him I feel as if I’ve been scammed and robbed that none of this is playing out the way Macklock had explained to me it would over the last year and a half. He gives me the same reassuring bullshit he’s given me many times. Only this time he throws in that “one of my other clients just spoke to me today actually and they let me know that that they were able to settle with Discover for significantly less than they owed!” I then circle back to the attorney. I ask for a name, he doesn’t have it. I ask for a law firm, he doesn’t have it. I ask for a phone number, he only knows the area code, 608… he tells me to just wait to speak to them and go from there. I end the phone call.

At this point I feel robbed. Scammed. Taken advantage of and just all around like a complete naive idiot. I should have known this was too good to be true. I should have known that it wasn’t gonna be this easy. It’s currently 11:15am on Friday December 29 and I still haven’t heard from the attorney. I’m due to be in court January 5th.

I didn’t ask the right question back in November of 2016. I didn’t do research on Macklock, which you can find almost nothing on by the way. I messed up. And now I’m fearing that it will haunt me for a long time. I feel that my dreams of being debt free are far from best. My dreams of buying a house in the next year will remain dreams. I have totally messed essentially every aspect of my financial life up and have no idea how to repair it.

Long story short, don’t fall for this credit repair program.