500,000+ Credit Errors Disputed with Dovly & How You Can Improve Yours As Well - With Nirit Rubenstein

Smart Homebuying Podcast: Formally knows as The First Time Home Buyer Podcast

Introduction

Nirit Rubenstein is CEO of Dovly - the first, fully automated, smart credit engine. Nirit is passionate about helping Americans maximize their credit and reach their financial goals. Outside of work, Nirit enjoys exploring the hiking trails and other natural wonders of her adopted home in Arizona.

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Podcast Sponsors

Find an Agent with HomeFlow: The key to having a calm and successful home buying experience starts with having the best real estate agent. This is why you need to interview a few. To get the process started just go to Tryhomeflow.com

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MyFico: 90% of top lenders use FICO® Scores—do you know yours? Check your FICO Score at MyFico.com

The Smart Home Buyer Calculator: Use our 4-in-1 super-smart calculator to make sure you know your numbers before buying your first home. Get it now at The Smart Home Buyer Calculator

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Awesome Resources For First-Time Home Buyers

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Transcript

Laura Moreno: [00:00:00] First Time Home Buyer Nation, I am Laura Moreno and I am super excited to bring you our fantastic guest today Nirit rubenstein needed is the CEO of Dovly. The first fully automated smart credit engine. Nirit is passionate about helping Americans maximize their credit and reach their financial goals.

Outside of work Nirit, enjoys exploring the hiking trails and other natural wonders of her adopted home in Califor in Arizona. I dunno why I thought you were in California. Why not? It's where I can came from. Are you ready to flow?

Nirit Rubenstein: I'm ready to flow. Let's go. Great.

Laura Moreno: So I've given our community just a little insight.

Please share more about you personally and then expand upon

your business.

Sure. So I am the co-founder and CEO of Doley. Uh, I'm also a wife and mother of three kids and proud homeowner of my adopted hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. I immigrated to the US as a young girl and witnessed firsthand how hard it was for [00:01:00] my family to get started in this country without access to credit.

So super passionate and, and excited to be here. I know owning a home is kind of the American dream. Uh, I, I love it when we're able to help people, uh, achieve that dream.

That's awesome. I mean, uh, first time I went into Dole's website, I was like, Wow, this is so cool. Tell me more about Dole. What do you guys do and what is the original story?

I mean, why do you come up with that idea?

Nirit Rubenstein: So it's in, So Doley is the fully automated credit platform that helps people track, manage, fix their credits. So regardless of where you are in your credit journey, we want there to be an easy way for you to get to where you're trying to go, because the reality is that there's nothing in America that will impact your financial ability more than your credit score.

But at the same time, it's a complete black box. [00:02:00] Very hard to navigate. It's counterintuitive. It's very punitive. Uh, so the first idea for Doley originated actually when I met my co-founder for the very first time. And we were having lunch and I was the CEO of, of this credit, uh, uh, repair company, and I met him for lunch and I was like, Oh my God, this guy is so brilliant.

He knows everything that you need to know about the consumer credit space. I have to get his brain into technology. There has to be a better way to deliver. This amazing service to customers and, and that was the very first concept. It took us a while to kind of start the company and, and develop the platform and the algorithm.

Um, but really what we try to do is provide access to Americans that either have been hurt by this, by the credit system, didn't understand the credit, uh, don't understand kind of how to navigate it, uh, to help them achieve their financial. That I,

Laura Moreno: [00:03:00] And what you're saying, this a story, I mean, it re resonates so much with someone that I, I met, uh, this girl, I always looked up to her.

She was just buying her first home. She had everything all together, you know, So, and then when we were talking about buying her first home, she said, You know, I haven't been doing it, although I have the savings and so on because of these credit card from Macy's that I. 10 years ago, and I forgot to make a $50 payment.

Mm-hmm. , I'm screwed for the rest, for the rest of my life. Right. And I was like, really? Like she, she had everything, the job, the money, everything. But there was this Macy credit card. Uh, tell me more about that. Like is there a way of fixing that or you're in the whole time.

Nirit Rubenstein: No, you're, you're definitely not in the hole forever.

But they don't, the credit bureaus don't make it easy to fix. Uh, and so you can easily get caught in the loophole of the credit bureau saying it belongs to the creditor. The creditor saying it belongs to the credit bureau. And then you get stuck in this kind [00:04:00] of never ending circle of. Not getting answers.

That's part of what we, uh, why we founded Doley. We navigate that entire process for you. So when you enroll in Doley, we soft clear credit and we. Show you the items that are hurting your credit score, and you tell us which ones you want us to dispute. And then we've developed an algorithm that will determine what to dispute, when to dispute, how to dispute the right frequency cadence, and then we electronically communicate with the credit bureaus on your behalf.

And so our, our turnaround rate is, is fairly quickly even though the. In by law I have 45 days. We typically see results for people within a couple weeks, uh, and usually within just a few months of being on our platform, people see their score improved by over 50 points. So, You're definitely not screwed forever.

Uh, there, there is a way to fix it, but it can [00:05:00] be a very frustrating way, and that's part of the problem with the system, right? You have college students, you have people going off to college that were never taught about credit. All of a sudden, all these credit card companies are trying to get them, Do you wanna open a new account?

Do you wanna open a new account? Get this incentive, this bonus, this. They open the accounts. They don't realize. Importance of, of the accounts. They forget to set it up on auto pay. They accidentally miss the payment, and then it's on their account. Then 10 years later, seven years later, they go to buy a house cuz they're married, they're making money, and, and they, they can't because they have bad credit.

And so the irony is, even if you have cash in the bank, if you want a mortgage, you need good credit. So in some way, like we have an investor who has. A lot of money and couldn't get a mortgage because he had bad. Even though he has like millions of dollars fitting in the bank,

Laura Moreno: were you able to fix their [00:06:00] credit for them?

We were, we were that. Okay. So tell me more about, uh, the industry, because whenever I'm thinking about about credit repair, I'm thinking about imagining this Facebook groups, these places where they just sell you, you know, this person that is going to help you fix your credit for a hundred dollars a month forever, like, There's a, I think this industry has attracted a lot of people that are looking for cash that may not be the best professionals, and I don't want to generalize for everyone.

Nirit Rubenstein: No, you can easily generalize. It's a, it's a horrible industry with a lot of bad actors that, that really take advantage of consumers that are already kind of, you know, not doing well. That's again, another reason why we founded Doley and, and our mission at Doley has always been to be consumer first. The.

The problem with credit repair, and this is why we're not credit repair, [00:07:00] we're really a credit solution to fix all your, to help you with all your credit needs. But the primary issue with credit repair is that if you do it on a regional scale, there's very low barriers to entry. In other words, anybody can set up a credit repair shop right now, charge a ton of money, and, and they'll go under the radar of regulations when you do it on a nation.

Scale, it becomes a, the bears to entry are, are much, much harder. And so there's fewer companies that do it nationwide. They're all call center based, which means they buy millions of leads. They pu put 'em in a dialer. You've got call center reps that have no business giving you credit advice. They're, they were selling like widgets the day before and they're the ones that are on the phone with you trying to sell you this ridiculous hundred.

Dollars a month's plan. And so for us with Doley, we wanted a, we always wanted a solution that was gonna be very cost effective. We [00:08:00] started our, when we very first started, we were. A third of what anyone else was charging in the marketplace. We've been gradually reducing our prices and we now are, I'm happy to say, have a free offering for people who just can't even afford to pay anything and want to start.

Their process takes longer than our paid plans, obviously, but it's, it's so great if you, if you wanna try the solution and, and or if you don't have any money. Um, for people looking to buy a home, we do recommend the the paid plan. Which for most people is still $30 a month, or we have an annual plan for a hundred dollars a year, which is like the best deal you'll find in the space.

That's

Laura Moreno: amazing. I mean, I, I love that because, um, it's funny, when I came to this country, I didn't want, I didn't have any credit, which was like 10 years ago. And my husband said, You need to have a credit card. And I was like, Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm allergic to credit cards. I will spend it all and get in trouble.

I don't want any, anything [00:09:00] to do like that. But in America you need to have credit. Um, the same thing happens. Hispanics and a lot of pop like immigrants like me, we don't want to have credit because we cats consider cats. We like cats. Yeah. I dunno. Israelis also. Yeah, yeah. Big time. We just want to pay debit.

Nirit Rubenstein: They, Yeah. Yeah. They pay debit. Israelis get, they get, they get into, To debt on their debit cards. But it's, but they don't, they don't spend, they don't rack up tons of money on, on credit card bills. And that's why I'm saying like the system is counterintuitive. If you're the type of person like you just described, which I am as well, I don't want 10 credit cards open, just sitting there with nothing cuz that's responsibility.

But if I close those, It'll bring down my credit score. Why? Because I'm reducing my overall credit utilization, which is what all of these uh, institutions give me as a line of credit. So let's say I have [00:10:00] three credit cards. Each one is giving me $5,000. My line of credit total is $15,000. The higher that is, the better off my credit score will be.

The lower my percentage of youth, the higher my credit score will be. So ideally you want a big maximum that you can use, but you wanna use below 10%. There's thresholds, so below 30%, uh, below 50%, 30%, and 10%, it's the third. It's the 10 30 50 rule. So each one of those gives you a bump in your, in your credit score, and that's add another, another problem with credit, if you pull your credit score.

Even though I like, I pay my credit card bill in full every single month, but if I pull my credit score right before my bill is due, even though I pay it off every month and two days later it'll be zero, my credit utilization will be up and my score will actually be lower. So [00:11:00] very counterintuitive, like lots of.

Kind of things that don't make sense in, in the world of credit.

Laura Moreno: I feel like, I feel like, you know, they give you credit cards and they give you like 10,000, $15,000 to spend and, but they tell you, they don't tell you this because obviously they're making money. If you spend all the money and then you don't pay back.

That's when they make like those 25% interest rates. Right, Right, right. So you are supposed to know that this is a temptation, but you're not supposed to touch it . But you still have to have the temptation in front of you not to buy this handbag that you want to buy because it's on credit and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Right. Which is crazy to me. It's like, ah, no. Yeah. So tell me about your most impressive accomplishment

Nirit Rubenstein: in my life. Um, well, Uh, that's, that's tough. Um, I mean, as the mother, obviously having children is, is I think, the, the best, uh, accomplishment. But, um, but in my [00:12:00] professional career, I actually think joining the, the Army was, was the very big, uh, character builder for me.

Um, I think for the first time in my life, I, they put you in the, you know, when you join your, when you're in, uh, boot. You, you're all together in this big room, you're all wearing the same clothes, and it doesn't matter if you're black, white, brown, rich, or you know, background. It's like all of a sudden the whole playing field is the same.

Everybody's on the same playing field. And uh, and it's very humbling. It's a very humbling experience and, and I learned a lot in terms of a good leader. Um, Being a teammate, the, the important camaraderie and collaboration, uh, teamwork. And I just, I think that that helped me significantly throughout my, my career.

Laura Moreno: That's amazing. I mean, I thought you were going to say, Well, [00:13:00] I'm a three times mom. I'm a wife, I'm also a founder. M and then you said you surprised me with also the. The Army. I was like, Whoa, you're a superwoman. .

Nirit Rubenstein: Yeah. No, I, I really enjoyed the army. I think it, it, it build, it helped me be who I am today for sure.

Um, but I've been very fortunate. I mean, I have a lot of accomplishments that I'm proud of and a lot of, you know, when I think about companies that I've worked for, I worked for Salesforce before they went public and. That was Wow. Like, talk about career experiences once in a lifetime. You know, It, it was an amazing company to, to be part of.

And so I've been, I've been fortunate to work for some really good companies and with some really good people.

Laura Moreno: Wow. And, uh, you, you share with me like, um, on the most impressive accomplishment you share with me a very nice video of a woman going through how she changed her life around. Could you tell us more about that?

Nirit Rubenstein: I'm [00:14:00] trying to remember which, which video

Laura Moreno: you're, you're, It's like an Instagram reels from this woman that

Nirit Rubenstein: Oh, from that Carney who bought, Who bought a home. Yeah.

Laura Moreno: And you can see the two kids before, like the, the kid and her, and. . Yeah. That

Nirit Rubenstein: was, that was, uh, one story. I mean, we've, we've many stories like that.

Um, but McCartney is, is someone who found out about Doley, um, had quite a few items on her, on her credit. She was trying to buy a home for a very long time. Uh, her mortgage broker told her there was no way she was gonna get into home at least for another 10 years, given her credit. What was

Laura Moreno: the credit?

Was it like really horrible?

Nirit Rubenstein: It was like in the five hundreds. Yeah. Um, and, uh, you know, we, we worked methodically. She was a member, uh, I think within less than nine months we cleaned up her credit and. [00:15:00] Uh, she, she was able to get a home and her mortgage broker said, I can't. What did you do? Like, did you wave a magic wand?

How did this happen? Um, and, and she was so passionate about our product. She actually reached out to us and asked us, Hey, can I do a testimonial? I wanna get this product out to as many people as possible. You guys really helped me. Um, so, you know, she had. She had the American dream of buying a home. And, uh, we were able to help her make that, I mean, I, I always say help cuz I don't, we we don't buy the home for you, right?

You have to want to do it yourself. Like you can only lead a horse to water. You can't make them drink. Right? We are there to help you and make things easy. Um, but the, our, our success stories are always people who are committed themselves to making it happen and to put in the.

Laura Moreno: Awesome. Well now Need it.

Need it? Need it. Sorry. Let's take a quick second to thank our sponsors. [00:16:00] Sure. Welcome back. Now I'm going to ask you a series of shared questions to help our audience even farther. Are you ready? I'm ready. Please share with us your biggest piece of piece of advice you can give to someone trying to buy their first home.

Now, regarding their credit.

Nirit Rubenstein: Well, first of all, know what's on your. Uh, enroll in a service like ideally Doley. Uh, understand what's on your credit. Start the process earlier than you think because it's not an overnight process. So understand how to get your credit score up either by removing items, getting your credit u utilization down, adding additional, uh, items that can help you improve.

Becoming an authorized user on somebody's card could really help. So we have a lot of blogs on the topic. You can just go and get the education for free, but really understand how you can maximize your credit. Because the difference in a credit score of just [00:17:00] five at like just 20, 30 points can be significant interest difference, uh, when you're looking to buy a home.

Laura Moreno: Got it. And what have you seen are the top mistakes people make regarding their credit and especially, you know, first time home buyers?

Nirit Rubenstein: Uh, the. Very easiest mistake people make is they forget to pay their bills so they don't set up autopay. So set up autopay on everything. As soon as you open up a new account or line of credit, immediately set it up on autopay so that you, you don't forget.

Um, and in general, don't go opening up a million lines of credit. Because you, you can also get dinged by having too many hard inquiries. And so be super thoughtful about additional accounts. You're gonna, you're gonna add to your credit history. I, I

Laura Moreno: remember actually going to Century 21, uh, one month after having arrived for America, or maybe [00:18:00] a few months later.

And I, you know, those offers, like you get 10% off if you sign up for a credit card. So I did sign up for their credit card because I had bought like $400 and I was like, Oh, this is $40, right? And I came back and I told my husband and he said, What do you do? No. Mm-hmm. . And then like a couple of weeks later, my credit was like a hundred points down.

Mm-hmm. . I was like, What? But I, I had paid like the thing, it was like the reputation of that credit card. How does that even happen? ? . Yeah.

Nirit Rubenstein: Yeah. It's crazy. It's really crazy. It's, it's very, it's a very punitive system. It's like, trust. I always say it's like trust. You can be perfect for, for many years. You make one mistake and you're, you're shot back down to, you know, very

Laura Moreno: low score.

Now, every time I look at those credit cards, I'm like, Nope. Never again.

Nirit Rubenstein: Nope. No. Thank you, .

Laura Moreno: No, thank you, . [00:19:00] Yeah. We needed, You've shared with us amazing information today. What can we, our audience do for you today?

Nirit Rubenstein: I mean, look, we really are on a mission to help as many Americans as we can get ahead financially.

Um, the, the best thing you can do is download doley, start using it, and refer it. As many people as possible, just get the word out there that we exist. Cause we really do want to help as many people as we can. We're extremely passionate about it. We're a very, very mission driven company.

Laura Moreno: I can, I can hear that in your voice and I love that so much.

How many users you have now? I mean, you're a massive company today.

Nirit Rubenstein: We're, we're getting there. Um, we have a couple, We've had, uh, about a hundred, 150,000 users on our platform.

Laura Moreno: Yay. Congrats. I love that you being a female founder also. I mean, yay. Yes,

Nirit Rubenstein: Yes. Thank you.

Laura Moreno: Well needed. Thank you so much for being in [00:20:00] the first Time Home Buyer podcast, and let us know again if there's something else we can do.

Thank you again. Thanks,

Nirit Rubenstein: Laura. I really appreciate it. Again, encourage everyone to enroll in in Doley, D O V L y.com. Fantastic. Thanks for the podcast. Appreciate it. Thank you.