Hi,
First, I would like to thank MyFico forums and the many users up here who have openly and honestly shared their experiences with having bad or no credit and restoring it or building it. The advice up here has helped me bounce back with the highest score I've probably ever had...at least within the last 6 years of my life.
I got my first credit card while in college, back in 2007 from Citi Bank. It was a classic Platinum card with a thousand dollar limit. I quickly depleted the funds within a couple of months and from there, I got a Capital One, then 2 Chase cards. I made a couple of on-time payments but stopped within 6 months. Fast foward, 2 years later I lost my job, couldn't keep up with my payments, wanted to buy a house and couldn't because of bad credit. I had no idea what credit was but soon after, realized the effects of having bad credit could have on ones life. After not paying a couple of electric bills and finally leaving the state to relocate and start over, I had my credit report pulled while trying to get financed for a new car. I was told my credit score was 560 and that I would have to put down a much higher deposit than people with average or better credit. I didn't get the car. I wanted to get electricity turned on for our new apartment, had to pay a $200 deposit of a sudden. Wanted cable and internet. Another $200 deposit. Wanted a cellphone. A $400 deposit was needed. Wanted an iPhone with AT&T. A $1000 was needed. I couldn't even open a freaking back account because I was in Checksys. My dreams of owning a home, getting a new credit card to re-establish my credit and start a good payment history quickly diminished. I had lost all hope in my future, literally. Got married and wanted to live a good, decent life with no bad debt. It was hard.
Fast forward to 2010. In December last year I pulled my free credit report and saw about 3 things that had fallen off my report. I checked the internet on ways to quickly raise your credit score over-night, in 1 week, in 1 month and most of the information I read told me to dispute the info in your reports for inaccuracies. I pulled my scores from all 3 bureaus and saw my scores went up from 560 to 590 somehow, had no idea how, but I'm thinking it was because of the 3 items that had fallen off. June this year I started disputing all of the info on my report except those that I knew I was responsible for and some I felt should have been taken off because of the statute of limitations. I did all of this online. Within 1 week I had 3 things taken off of my Exquifax report, 4 from Transunion and 4 from Experian. I pulled my score after a month and saw I was at 600! I was like "Hell yea!". So I did a couple more disputes from old utility charge-offs, and credit cards that I did not apply for but was in my name and listed in my credit reports and cellphones that I did not open. I asked each bureau to verify and provide proof that these accounts belonged to me and all within 2 weeks those items, too, were taken off of my reports.
Fast forward to July 2011. I went from 7 negatives down to 1 negative on my report. A charge-off from a local bank. I wanted to wait another month before applying for credit and I did. I first went to CreditOne.com. I applied for a credit card on their site via the Pre-Approval link and was immediately approved! You have no idea how happy and shocked I was. I thought it was an accident, a glitch in the system or something. I was so happy I applied for another one, at Capital One. They approved me, too. I applied for the Secured card intentionally incase I failed an unsecured application and took a hard inquiry. I was approved with a $49 deposit and 200 credit limit.
TIMEFRAME. I applied for the Capital One card August 13 and paid my deposit online. I got the card in the mail on August 24th. Not sure why it took so long.
I just checked my credit reports right now and they actually started reporting so I am SOOO happy that I chose to get my credit back on track and started being responsible. Thinking before acting as far as spending was concerned. Anyone can improve their credit scores if they follow the advice in these forums. Disputing may sound like a complicated issue but it actually isn't. Go to each bureau(Equifax.com, Experian.com and Transunion.com), create a free account, get your report and verify that all accounts listed, past or present, are accurate. If not, they have links right next to them that will allow you to dispute them right there and it's as simple as you just typing in, "Please verify this account belongs to me. I had no knowledge of this account and/or I have never lived at this address". They will get back to you within a few days or weeks and you'll see your report get better.
