Thanks TangMeister, Amex was actually a drop in the bucked compared to the 5 figures I spent taking care of everything. There are things on my CR that shouldn't be there. Trying to get the true inaccuracies off there. No luck but if I could just get Merrick to report correctly there would be a huge jump probably. From searching this forum though it doesn't seem too likely. I definitely plan to get back with them. Made a 'friend' in the executive office when I went to do this, she's was impressed with my tenacy to clear things up (honestly I was hoping to pay that office rather than "internal collections"... they can be a bit of a nuissance...) anyway... she gave me a line to call her any time I had questions so, I'll see what she has to say also and report back. A year really isn't so bad, after all this I guess I have a bit of pride as well but I'm not opposed to optima if that's the best path 
@Anonymous wrote:Thanks TangMeister, Amex was actually a drop in the bucked compared to the 5 figures I spent taking care of everything. There are things on my CR that shouldn't be there. Trying to get the true inaccuracies off there. No luck but if I could just get Merrick to report correctly there would be a huge jump probably. From searching this forum though it doesn't seem too likely. I definitely plan to get back with them. Made a 'friend' in the executive office when I went to do this, she's was impressed with my tenacy to clear things up (honestly I was hoping to pay that office rather than "internal collections"... they can be a bit of a nuissance...) anyway... she gave me a line to call her any time I had questions so, I'll see what she has to say also and report back. A year really isn't so bad, after all this I guess I have a bit of pride as well but I'm not opposed to optima if that's the best path
That sounds fantastic, csol. Will be good to hear how this all turns out for you, and I'm sure it will be good news!
Update, ok so I spoke with the lady at the executive office. I think she might have been having a rough morning but she did give me the lowdown...
She suggested that I get the baddies removed before applying for another card with them. These two things, she strongly implied, would not be as much of an issue under normal circumstances because they're old and paid, but that they weigh previous amex history heavily against the credit report/FICO data and that may cause me to be rejected. She suggested taking the optima, told me it would still be a hard pull (contrary to the info that their collections dept gave) and couldn't give me much advice otherwise except hinting that another green might be a good alternative option if I chose to go that route. Funny she thought green would be easier than zync. The beeping was noticeable so clearly the entire conversation was being recorded. I think I'll just take the optima for a little while and stay under the radar if that's even possible. Really not sure I want to keep it for an entire year though. The thought of the sub-prime recovery thing brings back memories of a difficult chapter in my life... one that I'd rather not have staring me in the face, more psychological than anything.
If I close that out and get declined then I'll just wait for amex to want me back, most creditors do when you close one of their cards in good standing. My experience overall with them this morning was not what it used to be in '01-'02...and that was one of the things that had made them attractive. This was after the rep from their internal collections depertment,when I called to make sure that all the systems were updated with my payment, informed me that they would be re-adding my 9 year old paid amex collection debt back onto my credit report... until after checking with his superiors he learned that they can't do that lol. Being that I'd gone out of my way to correct things, if they were to decide to F/R as a result of today's convos I'll just cancel. All the soft pulls that do on my report (since I paid them as well) I already feel like they're breathing down my back.
Funny how much more polite they are when you owe them money LMAO. The contact at the executive office did try to be helpful though, so kudos for that. All I know is that I pay my bills and while they do have their advantages, they're not the only company out there... So we'll see.
I did also manage to get my EX FICO... don't ask how 
It's 673... that's with several new accounts and 9 inquiries (a few about to fall off) over 12 months, so I figure if I give it 6 months it should be well over 700. Adding a 9 yr old AMEX TL to it should also help.
@Anonymous wrote:Update, ok so I spoke with the lady at the executive office. I think she might have been having a rough morning but she did give me the lowdown...
She suggested that I get the baddies removed before applying for another card with them. These two things, she strongly implied, would not be as much of an issue under normal circumstances because they're old and paid, but that they weigh previous amex history heavily against the credit report/FICO data and that may cause me to be rejected. She suggested taking the optima, told me it would still be a hard pull (contrary to the info that their collections dept gave) and couldn't give me much advice otherwise except hinting that another green might be a good alternative option if I chose to go that route. Funny she thought green would be easier than zync. The beeping was noticeable so clearly the entire conversation was being recorded. I think I'll just take the optima for a little while and stay under the radar if that's even possible. Really not sure I want to keep it for an entire year though. The thought of the sub-prime recovery thing brings back memories of a difficult chapter in my life... one that I'd rather not have staring me in the face, more psychological than anything.
If I close that out and get declined then I'll just wait for amex to want me back, most creditors do when you close one of their cards in good standing. My experience overall with them this morning was not what it used to be in '01-'02...and that was one of the things that had made them attractive. This was after the rep from their internal collections depertment,when I called to make sure that all the systems were updated with my payment, informed me that they would be re-adding my 9 year old paid amex collection debt back onto my credit report... until after checking with his superiors he learned that they can't do that lol. Being that I'd gone out of my way to correct things, if they were to decide to F/R as a result of today's convos I'll just cancel.
Funny how much more polite they are when you owe them money LMAO. The contact at the executive office did try to be helpful though, so kudos for that. All I know is that I pay my bills and while they do have their advantages, they're not the only company out there... So we'll see.
I did also manage to get my EX FICO... don't ask how
Oh, yes, I can totally understand that. There's an emotional/psychological component to rebuilding credit that can be difficult to understand for those who haven't been through it. Good luck to you. I hope that you get back in and have nothing but smooth sailing from here on out.
Current Scores: EQ 775 (03/04/2014), EX 756 (03/01/2014), TU 760 (03/01/2014)
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Oh, yes, I can totally understand that. There's an emotional/psychological component to rebuilding credit that can be difficult to understand for those who haven't been through it. Good luck to you. I hope that you get back in and have nothing but smooth sailing from here on out.
It sure is!! I suffered Summer 2009. After getting all reports cleaned, it took about 6 months to recover from the emotional/psychological side of rebuilding credit.
Thanks for the support guys
I've got two real baddies... a 5 yr old comcast collection through CPA and a 90 day on Merrick bank (some 30's also by merrick is this worst).
I don't believe I was ever 90 days late. In truth I wasn't actually late at all, but at the time I foolishly went with a consolidator who took their time to pay. At the time I was on dialysis and had racked up on large bills taking care of a friend who was homeless. I'd really like to get those off. The comcast was a big mix-up but so far no luck with CPA, even though I had never talked to them back then but PIf to comcast directly. Their reporting also seems to have errors by they deny it and won't budge.