ETHICS
Credit Consultants Association Ethical Principles and Standards
INTRODUCTION
Credit Consultants Association is dedicated to providing credentials and creating a professional environment in the field of credit services. As we establish ourselves as a profession, we must attend to both the privileges and responsibilities of a profession. Privileges derive from society’s agreement to accept our designation as a group of trained individuals possessing specialized knowledge and, therefore, the power implicit in this knowledge. Our responsibilities, in turn, result from the society’s trust that the profession will regulate itself to do no harm, and to govern itself to ensure the dignity and welfare of individuals we serve and the public. To maintain this status, professional organizations must develop and enforce guidelines that regulate their members™ professional conduct. A code of ethical principles and standards is one such set of self-regulatory guidelines. This code guides professionals to act responsibly as they employ the privileges granted by society. A professional’s inability to regulate itself violates the public trust and undermines the professional potential to be of service to society.
Ethical codes of conduct that professions adopt are based in the values of the society. Consequently, these values include the balance between the rights and privacy of the individual and the general welfare of society. Each profession must determine its values and social function. The profession must then develop and adopt an ethics code which guides professional conduct. While no set of guidelines can anticipate all situations, a useful code should provide guidance when problems or dilemmas arise. This code should also proactively direct the actions of its members in work-related settings. If this is accomplished, the code will ensure society’s trust in the profession.
Credit Consultants Association Ethical Principles and Standards (hereinafter referred to as the Ethics Code) is presented here and consists of this Introduction, a Preamble, six general Principles, and 19 Standards. The Introduction discusses the intent and organizational considerations of the Ethics Code. The Preamble and General Principles are intended to guide Credit Consultants Association members toward the highest ideals of the profession. The Standards more precisely specify the boundaries of ethical conduct. Although the Preamble and the General Principles are not themselves enforceable rules, they should be considered by Credit Consultants Association members in arriving at an ethical course of action. Ethical Standards are enforceable rules that mandate behavioral choices.
Membership in the Credit Consultants Association commits members to adhere to the Credit Consultants Association Ethics Code. Credit Consultants Association members should be aware that, in many situations, additional ethical and legal codes may be applied to them by other professional organizations or public bodies. In the process of making decisions regarding their professional behavior, Credit Consultants Association members must consider this Ethics Code, in addition to other ethical guidelines or legal codes. If the Ethics Code suggests a higher standard of conduct than is required by legal codes or other ethical guidelines, Credit Consultants Association members should meet the higher ethical standard. If the Ethics Code standard appears to conflict with the requirements of law, then Credit Consultants Association members must make known their commitment to the Ethics Code and take steps to resolve the conflict in a responsible manner. If neither law nor the Ethics Code resolves an issue, Credit Consultants Association members should consider other professional materials (e.g., guidelines and standards that have been adopted or endorsed by other professional in the credit industry.
Ethical codes of conduct that professions adopt are based in the values of the society. Consequently, these values include the balance between the rights and privacy of the individual and the general welfare of society. Each profession must determine its values and social function. The profession must then develop and adopt an ethics code which guides professional conduct. While no set of guidelines can anticipate all situations, a useful code should provide guidance when problems or dilemmas arise. This code should also proactively direct the actions of its members in work-related settings. If this is accomplished, the code will ensure society’s trust in the profession.
Credit Consultants Association Ethical Principles and Standards (hereinafter referred to as the Ethics Code) is presented here and consists of this Introduction, a Preamble, six general Principles, and 19 Standards. The Introduction discusses the intent and organizational considerations of the Ethics Code. The Preamble and General Principles are intended to guide Credit Consultants Association members toward the highest ideals of the profession. The Standards more precisely specify the boundaries of ethical conduct. Although the Preamble and the General Principles are not themselves enforceable rules, they should be considered by Credit Consultants Association members in arriving at an ethical course of action. Ethical Standards are enforceable rules that mandate behavioral choices.
Membership in the Credit Consultants Association commits members to adhere to the Credit Consultants Association Ethics Code. Credit Consultants Association members should be aware that, in many situations, additional ethical and legal codes may be applied to them by other professional organizations or public bodies. In the process of making decisions regarding their professional behavior, Credit Consultants Association members must consider this Ethics Code, in addition to other ethical guidelines or legal codes. If the Ethics Code suggests a higher standard of conduct than is required by legal codes or other ethical guidelines, Credit Consultants Association members should meet the higher ethical standard. If the Ethics Code standard appears to conflict with the requirements of law, then Credit Consultants Association members must make known their commitment to the Ethics Code and take steps to resolve the conflict in a responsible manner. If neither law nor the Ethics Code resolves an issue, Credit Consultants Association members should consider other professional materials (e.g., guidelines and standards that have been adopted or endorsed by other professional in the credit industry.
PREAMBLE
Credit Consultants Association members may fulfill many roles based on their professional training and competence. In these roles they may work to develop a valid and reliable body of knowledge based on research; they may apply that knowledge to legally restore their client credit and credit score via education and legal applications. They will not advise clients to lie or take money in advanced. Their goals are to broaden the credit knowledge of their client to reduce the cost of credit. This will improve the condition of both the individual and society. Credit Consultants Association members respect the central importance of freedom of inquiry and expression in research, teaching, and consulting. They also strive to help the public to develop informed judgments and choices concerning consumer credit, and personal financial behavior. This Ethics Code provides a common set of values upon which Credit Consultants Association members build their professional work.
This Code is intended to provide the general principles and specific ethical standards for managing many situations encountered by Credit Consultants Association members. It has as its primary goal the welfare and protection of the individuals and groups with whom Credit Consultants Association members work. It is the individual responsibility of each Credit Consultants Association member to aspire to the highest possible standards of conduct. Credit Consultants Association members respect and protect human and civil rights, and do not knowingly participate in or condone unfair discriminatory practices.
The development of a dynamic ethical code for an Credit Consultants Association member’s work-related conduct requires a personal commitment to a lifelong effort to act ethically; to encourage ethical behavior by students, supervisees, employees, and colleagues, as appropriate; and to consult with others, as needed, concerning ethical problems, Each Credit Consultants Association member supplements, but does not violate, the Ethics Codes values, on the basis of guidance drawn from personal values, culture, and experience.
This Code is intended to provide the general principles and specific ethical standards for managing many situations encountered by Credit Consultants Association members. It has as its primary goal the welfare and protection of the individuals and groups with whom Credit Consultants Association members work. It is the individual responsibility of each Credit Consultants Association member to aspire to the highest possible standards of conduct. Credit Consultants Association members respect and protect human and civil rights, and do not knowingly participate in or condone unfair discriminatory practices.
The development of a dynamic ethical code for an Credit Consultants Association member’s work-related conduct requires a personal commitment to a lifelong effort to act ethically; to encourage ethical behavior by students, supervisees, employees, and colleagues, as appropriate; and to consult with others, as needed, concerning ethical problems, Each Credit Consultants Association member supplements, but does not violate, the Ethics Codes values, on the basis of guidance drawn from personal values, culture, and experience.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
Principle A: Competence
Credit Consultants Association members maintain the highest standards of competence in their work. They recognize the boundaries of their professional competencies and the limitations of their expertise. They maintain knowledge related to the services they render, and they recognize the need for ongoing education. Credit Consultants Association members make appropriate use of professional, technical, and administrative resources. They provide only those services and use only those techniques for which they are qualified by education, training, or experience. In those areas in which recognized professional standards do not yet exist. Credit Consultants Association members exercise careful judgment and take appropriate precautions to protect the welfare of those with whom they work.
Principle B: Integrity
Credit Consultants Association members promote integrity in the practice of credit repair. In these activities Credit Consultants Association members are honest and fair. You plea to do NO harm to the public and perform a tangible service for any funds received. This means if you collect a setup fee, services must be received for that fee. This can eliminate any discrepancies about the service rendered for that fee. You will do NO harm When describing or reporting their credit repair services, products, fees, or teaching, they do not make statements that are false, misleading, or deceptive. Each customer credit profiles are properly analyzed for items that will lower their credit score and the appropriate action taken. Consultants will clarify for relevant parties the roles they are performing and the obligations they adopt. They function appropriately in accordance with those roles and obligations. Credit Consultants Association should alert their clients that they CAN perform credit restoration on their own –you provide specialize knowledge that will improve their outcome faster.
CUSTOMER CONTACT
As a member, your clients should NOT wonder or guess what is going on with their services or your company. If you are a one person shop and unable to answer your phone live, return phone calls the same day or immediately the next day, out for a while because of unforeseen circumstances; as a member of CCA and providing standards of excellence, you will provide each client a separate contact number or URL that is either answered live, provides a recording, or have an typed online statement to explain any owner absences or company updates and how a client can receive updates on the progress of the services provided. If your phone are answered live at all times, you will alert clients of any unforeseen circumstances that will NOT allow you to return phone calls at least the next business day.
Principle C: Professional Responsibility
Credit Consultants Association members are responsible for safeguarding the public and Credit Consultants Association from members who are deficient in ethical conduct. They uphold professional standards of conduct and accept appropriate responsibility for their behavior. Credit Consultants Association members consult with, refer to, or cooperate with other professionals and institutions to the extent needed to serve the best interests of the recipients of their services. Credit Consultants Association members are concerned about the ethical compliance of their colleagues’ professional conduct. When appropriate, they consult with colleagues in order to prevent, avoid, or terminate unethical conduct.
Principle D: Respect for Peoples Rights and Dignity
Credit Consultants Association members’ accord appropriate respect to the fundamental rights, dignity, and worth of all people. They respect the rights of individuals to privacy, confidentiality, self-determination, and autonomy, mindful that legal and other obligations may lead to inconsistency and conflict with the exercise of these rights. Credit Consultants Association members are aware of cultural, individual, and role differences, including those due to age, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, and socioeconomic status. Credit Consultants Association members try to eliminate the effect on their work of biases based on those factors, and they do not knowingly participate in or condone unfair discriminatory practices.
Principle E: Concern for Others' Welfare
Credit Consultants Association members seek to contribute to the welfare of those with whom they interact professionally. When conflicts occur among Credit Consultants Association members’ obligations or concerns, they attempt to resolve those conflicts and to perform those roles in a responsible fashion that avoids or minimizes harm. Credit Consultants Association members are sensitive to real and ascribed differences in power between themselves and others. They do not exploit or mislead other people during or after professional dealings. E.g. make treats to expose credit problems of a well known public figure that is a client of a CCC.
Principle F: Responsibility
Credit Consultants Association members will avoid misusing their work, and will comply with the law in all matter of credit restoration.
GENERAL ETHICAL STANDARDS
These General Standards are applicable to Credit Consultants Association members across all their professional roles and in all their professional interactions and communications.
Credit Consultants Association members provide teaching, research, educational, supervisory, or other consultative services only in the context of credit restoration and the credit industry.
1. Professional Relationshipce
2.Boundaries of Competence
- Credit Consultants Association members represent diverse academic and professional backgrounds. These different training histories provide different competencies. Individuals from different training backgrounds must deliver services, teach, and conduct research only within the boundaries of their competence.
- Credit Consultants Association members provide credit restoration services and guarantee a high level of competence in this area.
- Credit Consultants Association members who engage in credit assessment, consulting, or other professional credit activities maintain a reasonable level of awareness of current professional information in their fields of activity, and undertake ongoing efforts to maintain competence in the skills they use.
- Credit Consultants Association members are aware of the limitations of their work and do not make claims or take actions that exceed these limitations.
3.Human Differences
- Credit Consultants Association members recognize that differences of age, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, or socioeconomic status can significantly affect their work. Credit Consultants Association members working with specific populations have the responsibility to develop the necessary skills to be competent with these populations, or they make appropriate referrals.
- Credit Consultants Association members do not engage in unfair discrimination based on age, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, or any basis proscribed by law.
4.Exploitation
- Credit Consultants Association members do not solicit testimonials from current clients or other persons who because of their particular circumstances are vulnerable to undue influence.
5.Personal Problems and Conflicts
- Credit Consultants Association members recognize that personal problems and personal conflicts may interfere with their effectiveness. Accordingly, they refrain from undertaking an activity when their personal problems may harm others to whom they may owe a professional obligation.
- In their professional roles Credit Consultants Association members may obtain privileged information about clients. Credit Consultants Association members do not use this information for personal gain.
- Credit Consultants Association members take reasonable steps to avoid harming their clients and to minimize harm where it is foreseeable and unavoidable.
6.Avoiding Harm
- Because Credit Consultants Association members’ professional judgments and actions may affect the lives of others, they are alert to and guard against personal, financial, social, organizational, or political factors that might lead to misuse of their influence.
7.Misuse of Credit Consultants Association Members Influence
- Credit Consultants Association members do not participate in activities in which it appears likely that their skills or products will be misused by others. If Credit Consultants Association members learn of misuse or misrepresentation of their work, they take reasonable steps to correct or minimize the misuse or misrepresentation.
8.Misuse of Credit Consultants Association Members Work
- Credit Consultants Association members refrain from accepting goods, services, or other nonmonetary remuneration from clients in return for services, because such arrangements create inherent potential for conflicts, exploitation, and distortion of the professional relationship. In certain circumstances Credit Consultants Association members may receive tokens of appreciation from clients. In these situations it is the Credit Consultants Association member’s responsibility to determine that the gifts are appropriate for the setting, not exploitative, and that the gifts do not serve as payment for services.
9. Barter (with Clients)
10.Consultations and Referrals
- Credit Consultants Association members arrange for appropriate consultations and referrals based principally on the best interests of their clients, with appropriate consent and subject to other relevant considerations, including applicable law and contractual obligations.
- Credit Consultants Association members cooperate with other professionals in order to serve their clients effectively and appropriately.
11.Third-Party Requests for Services
- When a Credit Consultants Association member agrees to provide services to a person or entity at the request of a third party, the Credit Consultants Association member clarifies, at the outset of the service, the nature of the relationship with each party. This clarification includes the role of the Credit Consultants Association member, the probable uses of the services provided or the information obtained, and the fact that there may be limits to confidentiality.
- If there is a foreseeable risk of the Credit Consultants Association member’s being called upon to perform conflicting roles because of the involvement of a third party, the Credit Consultants Association member clarifies the nature and direction of his or her responsibilities, keeps all parties appropriately informed as matters develop, and resolves the situation in accordance with the Ethics Code.
12.Delegation to and Supervision of Subordinates
- Credit Consultants Association members delegate to their employees, supervisees, and research assistants only those responsibilities that such persons can reasonably be expected to perform competently.
- Credit Consultants Association members provide proper training and supervision to their employees or supervisees and take reasonable steps to see that such persons perform services responsibly, competently, and ethically.
- Credit Consultants Association members appropriately document their professional work in order to facilitate provision of services later by them or by other professionals, to ensure accountability, and to meet other requirements of institutions or the law.
13.Documentation of Professional Work
14.Fees and Financial Arrangements
- As early as is feasible in a professional relationship, the Credit Consultants Association member and the client should reach an agreement clearly specifying the compensation and the billing arrangements.
- Credit Consultants Association members do not exploit recipients of services or payers with respect to fees
If limitations to services can be anticipated because of limitations in financing, this is discussed with the client or other appropriate recipient of services as early as is feasible. - Credit Consultants Association members do not deliver services for future remuneration based on the client’s future results nor do they accept testimonials in place of fees for services.
- Credit Consultants Association members are responsible for the clarity and honesty of public statements about their work made to clients or the public, by themselves or others representing them. If Credit Consultants Association members learn of deceptive statements about their work made by others, Credit Consultants Association members make reasonable efforts to correct such statements.
15.Definition of Public Statements
16.Informed Consent to Restore Credit
- Credit Consultants Association members obtain appropriate informed consent to restore their client’s credit, using language that is reasonably understandable to the client. The content of informed consent will vary depending on circumstances. However, informed consent generally implies that the person (1) has the capacity to consent, (2) has been informed of significant information concerning the steps necessary to restore their credit, (3) has freely and without undue influence expressed consent, and (4) consent has been appropriately documented.
- When persons are legally incapable of giving informed consent, Credit Consultants Association members obtain informed permission from a legally authorized person, if such substitute consent is permitted by law.
17.Maintaining Confidentiality
- Credit Consultants Association members have a primary obligation to uphold and take reasonable precautions to respect the confidentiality rights of those with whom they work or consult, recognizing that confidentiality may be established by law, institutional rules, and/or professional relationships.
- Credit Consultants Association members discuss with persons with whom they work (1) the foreseeable uses of the information generated through their services
- Credit Consultants Association members do not disclose in their writings, lectures, or other public media, confidential, personally identifiable information concerning their clients that they obtained during the course of their work, unless the person or organization has consented in writing or unless there is other ethical or legal authorization for doing so.
- If the demands of an organization with which Credit Consultants Association members are affiliated conflict with the Ethics Code, members clarify the nature of the conflict, make known their commitment to the Ethics Code, and to the extent feasible, seek to resolve the conflict in a way that permits the fullest adherence to the Ethics Code.
18.Conflicts between Ethics and Organizational Demands
The successful implementation of an ethics code requires a personal commitment to act ethically, encourage ethical behavior by others, and consult with others concerning ethical problems. When applying the code of ethical conduct, Credit Consultants Association members may encounter problems in identifying unethical conduct or in resolving ethical conflict. When faced with significant ethical concerns, one should consider the following courses of action. Before any action is taken, one may benefit from advice from uninvolved and objective advisors or peers familiar with ethical issues. When members believe that there may have been an ethical violation by another member, they may attempt to clarify and resolve the issue by bringing the matter to the attention of the other involved parties if such an informal resolution appears appropriate and the intervention does not violate any confidentiality rights that may be involved. Discuss ethical problems with your immediate supervisor except when it appears that the supervisor is involved in the ethical issue, in which case the problem should be presented to the next higher administrative level. If satisfactory resolution cannot be achieved when the problem is initially presented, the issue should be submitted to the next higher administrative level. Contact with levels above the immediate administrator should be initiated only with the administrator’s knowledge, assuming that the administrator is not involved. If the ethical problem or conflict still exists after exhausting all levels of internal review, support from appropriate professional organizations should be obtained. It is important for Credit Consultants Association members to understand that unethical conduct is a serious matter. However, the primary aims of these ethical principles are to inform and motivate the highest standards of conduct among Credit Consultants Association members as we serve our clients, our professions, and our community.
19.Resolution of Ethical Conflicts
Although this strategy works or has worked in the past, it is NOT advantages to the customer to use this strategy because all items will come right back. In addition, if you client applies for new credit after such action and they failed to pay, fraud charges could be filed against them for using false information on an application. Providing false information on a credit application that results in a loan from a bank is bank fraud. It is a Federal offense which is punishable by prison. However, it should be noted that practically no one is prosecuted for such actions when it comes to applying for a credit card unless all of the information was categorically false. It could happen if they fail to pay promptly.