On July 16, 2026, community advocate JJ Smith recorded a disheveled woman handing a rock of crack cocaine to a man in a wheelchair. Moments later, she unlocked the gate to a storefront office at 457 Hyde Street.
Smith asked the man who received the drugs what operated inside.
“It helps rebuild your credit … for people that are on the streets that are all fucked up,” the man replied.
The combination of crack and credit for homeless individuals was unusual enough that I decided to see for myself. A few days later, I visited 457 Hyde Street. The gate was locked. After I knocked on the window, the same woman (later referred to as “Angie”) stood in the doorway. She said she wasn’t sure what the business did and pointed to a man working on a laptop in a loft.
This is Up My Buying Power, he said. I asked for a business card, which the woman retrieved and handed to me. It identified him as Etop Udo, who goes by the moniker “Sir X.”
A flyer taped to the window provided some insight:
UP MY BUYING POWER
buyingpower.us
“Up My Buying Power” is a nonprofit organization helping our community.
• We will help you start a company.
• We’ll help you open business bank accounts and build business credit.
• We’ll also help you raise up to $50,000 for your new company within the first six months to a year.
• All services are 100% free and no experience is required.
The website was inactive, and the listed phone number went to voicemail. A search of the number (628-219-3735) led not to a lending or credit-repair business but to RubRankings.com, a website advertising on-call sex workers.
A few days later, I returned to Up My Business Power. Although it was midafternoon during posted business hours, the gate was again locked. Several people were openly using drugs outside. From across the street, I watched for about 45 minutes. No one entered or left the storefront.
Angie was socializing with a group of drug users. When I approached her, she recognized me. We talked for several minutes. She said she was from Oregon, that Udo had helped her obtain her lost identification documents, and that she would tell him I was there.
A few minutes later, Udo invited me inside. The room was shabby and sparse, with one laptop downstairs and another in the loft.
Why Up My Buying Power is in the Tenderloin
Udo said he deliberately chose the Tenderloin because homeless people, especially those struggling with addiction, often have damaged credit. He improves their credit so they can start their own businesses and borrow money.
You turn the people outside your door — folded over in a fentanyl-induced stupor, unconscious on the sidewalk, and in highly altered mental states — into business owners? I asked. He said yes.
Udo said he recruits the locals with flyers, but also credits Angie with bringing people into the office. When he opened, he said people lined up outside to join. Today he has a database of about 190 clients.
What goes down in Up My Buying Power
Once people become clients, Udo says he pulls their credit reports and disputes negative information. Then he boosts their credit scores by adding other peoples’ credit card information to their reports, making them authorized users. Udo says he as a network of cardholders who share their credit cards this way. “We work as a family to help each other out,” he said.
Udo creates a business identity and develops their business plans, then helps them obtain credit cards and loans. He said he focuses on business products because the available credit is much larger than with consumer products, mentioning amounts of $50,0000, $100,000, and a million dollars.
Are they borrowing from major banks, such as Chase and Wells Fargo? I asked. Udo said yes. Does he receive a portion of the loan proceeds from clients as payment? He didn’t answer.
I requested examples of these enterprises. Apparently Angie (the crack supplier) had started a dog apparel business. Another client planned to distribute food to homeless people.
You turn the people outside your door — folded over in a fentanyl-induced stupor, unconscious on the sidewalk, and in highly altered mental states — into business owners? I asked. He said yes.
Udo then climbed to the loft and returned with a large stack of client files. Inside each were credit reports, loan and credit card applications and bank correspondence containing clients’ personal and financial information.
When I asked how those loans were repaid, he initially explained that some carried 0 percent APR, but I noted that that’s an interest rate, not a repayment plan. I wasn’t aware of any interest-free business loans.
He then clarified that he meant business credit cards with introductory rates. When I again asked how clients repaid the debt, Udo changed the subject.
As for the network of credit card holders willing to add strangers as authorized users, he didn’t elaborate.
However, Eva Velasquez, CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center, has an idea.
“I’d expect one of two things to be happening,” says Velasquez. “The account holders are being paid to allow it, and/or their identities were obtained illegally and are being used without their knowledge. Given the scale described here, it could be a combination of both.”
Just who is Etop Udo?
Udo, AKA Sir X, says he hails from Nigeria. Despite being associated with several companies, he is virtually invisible online.
Public records list at least six organizations registered at 457 Hyde Street, with Udo as the registered agent. These include Up My Buying Power (as well as several variations on the UMBP name), Homeless Heaven, and EU YNT 1 LLC. Each is a registered nonprofit public benefit corporation. None have an active or traceable presence.
I asked how he manages his own business’s finances if clients are charged nothing. He said city-issued grants allowed him to lease the storefront.
According to Kate Patterson, San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development director of external affairs, Udo did receive three city grants, but none of were for Up My Business Power.
Instead the grants were for another of Udo’s operations, Youth-N-Tech Incorporated, also located at 457 Hyde Street. For that venture. Udo received $8,000 from SF Shines, a $10,000 Accessible Barrier Removal Grant, and a $2,000 Vandalism Relief Grant; $20,000 in total.
There is no website for Youth-N-Tech and the phone number is out of service.
In an email, Patterson explained that OEWD verifies that nonprofit applicants are in good standing with the California Attorney General’s Office as part of the application process. When the funding was awarded, the organization was in compliance. However, the California Attorney General’s Office issued the organization a notice of delinquency in April 2025.
“During the SF Shines 2025 application process, five applications were submitted using 457 Hyde Street as the business address,” said Patterson. “OEWD was unable to verify the legitimacy of the storefront and identified irregularities in the applications. As a result, all five applications were determined to be ineligible and were disqualified before any grant funds were awarded.”
OEWD has referred those findings to the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office for further review. Since the investigation is ongoing, they cannot comment further at this time.
Udo’s personal history with credit cards is complex. In July 2022, he said he left a briefcase containing bank cards from Wells Fargo, Bank of America, BMO Harris, and U.S. Bank unattended in a parking garage. He later reported unauthorized activity on his accounts and alleged that fraudulent transactions left him facing approximately $790,000 in losses or liabilities.
In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Udo argued that the banks should have prevented the unauthorized transactions and should be held responsible for the resulting losses. However, the judge found that Udo’s own bank records did not substantiate his allegations and dismissed the case with prejudice.
Serious questions remain
Credit reporting and repair is tightly regulated, governed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, and state attorneys general. There are serious concerns regarding Udo’s practices with Up My Buying Power.
“This has the fingerprints of the same tactics we see in scams and in what’s known in the financial-abuse field as ‘coerced debt,’” says Velasquez. “Coerced debt occurs when someone is manipulated or pressured into taking on debt or exposing their financial identity for someone else’s benefit … the endgame for the bad actor is harvesting and/or controlling the identity data for purposes of misuse.”
The files Udo showed me contained highly sensitive personal and financial information, too. It is important that such data is confidential and not used in nefarious ways.
If Udo’s clients do incur substantial amounts of debt and don’t repay on time or at all, their credit will be worse than what it was before they started. Their legal troubles can intensify with collection action and judgments.
Velasquez says this case is particularly unconscionable because it targets a population that may not fully understand the value of their own identity credentials. It dangles two forms of leverage: false promises of rebuilt credit and extra income, or drugs to feed addiction. “Either way, these are vulnerable people being preyed upon, not served,” she says.
As for why a credit and lending nonprofit organization has a listed phone number linked to a website advertising sex workers, that question remains unanswered.
