Trends and Insights

When your credit score isn’t your fault

How one credit improvement app can lift the credit scores of millions of Americans
03/08/2023
Mother reading to a book to her daughter in bed. Mother reading to a book to her daughter in bed.

McCartney Hart of Scottsdale, Arizona is a busy entrepreneur and mom of two. When she and her husband received notice that their rental home was going up for sale, they jumped at the chance to buy it. But when Hart looked into her credit score, she saw that it was less than favorable. “I realized it would be next to impossible for me to secure any kind of funding,” Hart recalls. “This was a dream home for me.” Hart needed help raising her credit score.

Good credit scores (above 670) can help individuals secure better loans, save money on everyday needs like auto insurance, and fully participate in the American dream of buying a home. But many Americans don’t have the tools or know-how to build good credit early in their adult life, leading to setbacks down the road.

“[Credit] is a black box for most people,” says Nirit Rubenstein, CEO and co-founder of Dovly, an advanced credit improvement app that tracks, manages, and fixes credit. “It's never taught in schools. You get out into the world and you make decisions without understanding the implications, and then you end up paying for them significantly later in life.”

Hart, who owns a successful play-based preschool, learned about Dovly from a parent at the school. Through Dovly, Hart discovered that an identity theft incident was keeping her credit score low. Errors are surprisingly common and have real, damaging effects on the lives of everyday people. More than 10 million Americans have errors on their credit reports that are serious enough to be denied credit or they are given credit but have to pay higher rates.¹

Using Dovly to help dispute the claims, Hart’s credit score went from 562 to 782.² “I downloaded the app and I started to see results immediately. The entire process was quite easy,” she says. And through it all, she was able to buy her dream home for her family of four. “We’re all standing in the house I never thought I was going to be able to have,” says Hart tearfully.

Learn how others like Hart navigated their way out of bad credit using Dovly.

Side view of a man driving a car.

Fixing credit problems at scale

Ninety percent of Dovly members see a double-digit credit score increase within 6 months.³ “Even for people who have a lot of money, credit is important,” says Rubenstein. “If you're trying to buy a house, rent an apartment, get a job, an education, a student loan, a credit card, whatever it is that you're trying to do, you need good credit to do that. And our connection with Visa has enabled us to make Dovly Uplift,⁴ a premium, no-cost solution available to hundreds of millions of Americans.”

Another one of those Americans, Tonya Walker, traveled the world as an Operations Specialists in the US Navy, earning four degrees along the way. After being stationed at multiple military locations, her credit suffered because all those addresses were reported to the credit bureaus. Veterans like Walker are more likely to report problems managing credit and it’s the top complaint to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for service members and veterans. When Walker was denied a VA loan to buy a new home because of bad credit, she used Dovly to dispute up to 10 claims, including a false address in California, where she never lived.

“Dovly put in the dispute and within 24 hours I received a response that it had been deleted,” she says. “It was super fast.”

Walker, who runs a memorial t-shirt business for family members of fallen service members, increased her credit score by 122 points using Dovly.² By using the credit improvement app, she was able to secure the VA loan and buy a new home as well as expand her business. “I feel like Dovly has given me options, flexibility, and freedom to expand. It means a lot.”


With Dovly Uplift, Visa and Dovly are working together on a mission to uplift individuals and businesses to reach their full potential through financial education and opportunity.