Equifax reporting wrong!

[flustered]

Good evening! I recently discovered all the smart people here when I started to work on my credit as well as my husbands. I cleaned mine up pretty well last year but took a break when I got flustered and I gave up. I was able to get most collections off by paying and then begging for deletion (then I discovered the pay for delete letter here, cant wait to try that!). I am on my first round of goodwill for late payment letters/emails/faxes. My scores are still pretty dang low though so I am thinking its the BK and all the late payments from a few years ago.

Anyway, I signed up for a 3 bureau montoring service so I can see the accounts we need to  pay or send goodwills to. We filed Chapter 13 in 2004, then converted to chapter 7. Experian and Transunion both report as Chapter 7 dishcharged. But Equifax reports as Chapter 13 filed. The BK is supposed to be off our reports in August/September. Should I dispute Equifax because its filed wrong or should I leave it alone? Thanks in advance!

[ezdriver]

If that was mine, I'd leave it alone. If it is still there at the end of the year, then I'd work on getting it corrected. 

[flustered]

Thank you for responding. I'm not sure why I never noticed it before. I have read here that when BK falls off the scores don't dramatically improve, however mine are so low I really hope they will make a jump. The next worst thing on my report is late payments to student loans but they've been on time since Jan 2012. It's been so hard to repair after BK because we dont want credit cards. The BK was due to medical bills. We were able to finance 2 cars since then but the interest rates are crazy. It seems like we will never get where we need to be.

[ezdriver]

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@flustered wrote:

Thank you for responding. I'm not sure why I never noticed it before. I have read here that when BK falls off the scores don't dramatically improve, however mine are so low I really hope they will make a jump. The next worst thing on my report is late payments to student loans but they've been on time since Jan 2012. It's been so hard to repair after BK because we dont want credit cards. The BK was due to medical bills. We were able to finance 2 cars since then but the interest rates are crazy. It seems like we will never get where we need to be.

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Have you investigated refinancing your auto loans? I've been offered a 5% rate to refi a loan with 21% and I am less than one year past a ch7 discharge.

[flustered]

I haven't thought about that actually. It's like a catch 22. To rebuild credit you have to apply meaning inquiries. But inquiries damage. We really want a mortgage in the next year so I'm trying to hold off on inquiries. Sounds like I want it all I guess.

[ezdriver]

Getting your car payments lowered will help you when you are ready to apply for a mortgage. A couple of inquiries a year from applying for a mortgage won't really matter much. I had talked to my mortgage loan officer before I talked to my credit union about refinancing the auto loan. I told her that I will likely reduce my car payments by a huge amount and she told me to go ahead. As luck would have it, the credit union actually pulled my credit before I got back to them to give them the green light to do it. They actually offered to undo the inquiry [never knew that was possible] if I wanted and I declined. What helped me to see the forest from the trees was that I decided buying a house was a #1 and replacing an aging car a #2 credit priorities. Then I went ahead and got some credit cards, a smal installment loan and have been gardening since.

[flustered]

Ok that makes sense. Sometimes it's so hard to wrap my brain around all of this. Thanks for your advice. I think I'll call the bank about refinancing the car.