Second Wind
(216) 555-0148Talk to someone

About us

A small practice on Lorain Avenue.

Two people, a room with two armchairs in it, and about four hundred files a year. We are not a call centre and we have no plans to become one — the whole method depends on somebody sitting down with you and reading three documents properly, and that does not scale.

A woman in her late thirties sitting sideways on a worn sofa, arms folded loosely, looking directly at the camera.

Why this exists

Second Wind was started after both of us spent years on the other side of this business, at a firm that charged $99 a month whether or not there was anything to do. Most months there was nothing to do. The clients who most needed help were the ones paying longest for the least.

What we kept noticing was that the useful part — the part people actually thanked us for — was almost never a deletion. It was the hour where somebody sat down with all three reports and explained what each line meant and when it would end. That hour changed how people felt about a document they had been afraid of for years, and it was the part the pricing model treated as overhead.

So this practice is built around that hour, and priced by the piece so that a month with no work in it costs nothing.

Who you will meet

Adaeze Okonkwo does the report reviews and the disputes. Twelve years in consumer finance, four of them at a collection agency, which is where she learned what those files actually contain and how often the paperwork does not travel with the balance.

Tomás Rivera does the coaching and the budgets, in English and Spanish. He came to this after five years as a credit union loan officer, declining applications from people who could plainly afford the loan and had no way to prove it.

One of us will be the person you speak to, and it will be the same one every time. Nobody hands your file to a queue.

How we work

Four things we will not move on.

  • We say the limit first

    The honesty page is the second link in the menu and the first thing on the home page, because a person deciding whether to trust you deserves the bad news before the pitch. If that costs us a client who wanted a nicer story, it is a fair trade.

  • We give the method away

    The whole do-it-yourself guide is on this site with the letters, free, with nothing to fill in. People pay us for time, a second pair of eyes and the follow-up, not for access to a secret. There is not one.

  • We invoice after, never before

    That is the law, and it is also the right shape for the work. An invoice that arrives before the work is finished is an unlawful one, whatever it is called on the paperwork.

  • We say no about a quarter of the time

    When there is nothing to dispute, when you need a lawyer this week, or when the honest answer is a non-profit counsellor or a bankruptcy attorney. We take no referral fee from any of them.

In their own words

What people say changed.

Not one of them mentions a number, and we did not edit that out.

To whoever reads these,

I put off opening the mail for about fourteen months. That is the honest version. After the surgery there were letters from the hospital, then letters from somebody who had bought the letters from the hospital, and I could not tell which was which.

What helped was somebody sitting down and separating them into two piles: the ones that were wrong, and the ones that were mine. The second pile was bigger. Nobody pretended otherwise.

I still owe what I owe. But I know what it is now, and I stopped screening my calls.

RenataOld Brooklyn, Cleveland

Hello,

The divorce closed two cards I did not know were still in my name. They went to collections before I found out. I assumed that meant I had done something wrong.

I had not, and it turned out one of the two was reporting a balance that was not mine. That one came off. The other one did not, because it was real, and they told me straight away it would not.

What I mostly got out of it was that I stopped feeling like a fool for not knowing.

DarnellLakewood, OH

Dear Second Wind,

After the layoff I paid the mortgage and let two cards go. I knew what I was doing. I would do it again.

When I came in I expected to be told off. Instead somebody drew me a picture of what those two accounts would do over the next six years and when they would stop mattering, and we made a plan I could actually stick to on what I earn now.

My daughter starts college in the fall and we are going to be alright.

MaiParma, OH

These letters are illustrative composites written for a demonstration site, not real clients. They deliberately describe what changed in someone’s life rather than what happened to a number, because nobody — here or anywhere — can promise you a number.

Before you sign anything

Three things the law gives you, whoever you use.

  • No fee before the work is done

    A credit repair organisation may not charge or accept payment until the services it promised have been fully performed. Not a deposit, not a setup fee, not a “file activation” charge, not a first month in advance. If anyone asks, that is your answer.

  • A written contract, before any work starts

    It must say what will be done, how long it is expected to take, the total cost, and it must come with a separate written statement of your rights under state and federal law. You get a copy of everything you sign, and you get time to read it at home.

  • Three business days to cancel, no reason needed

    You may cancel without penalty or obligation at any time before midnight of the third business day after signing. The cancellation form comes attached to the contract; you post it or hand it back, and that is the end of it. Nobody will call to talk you out of it.

Nobody here is going to tell you off.

The first conversation is free, it takes about half an hour, and it ends with you knowing what is actually on your file and what can honestly be done about it. If the answer is "nothing we can charge for", we will tell you that, and you will still get the plan.

Book a free conversation(216) 555-0148

Not ready to talk to anyone? Take the guide and do it yourself. It is the same method, it costs nothing, and you never have to tell us you used it.