Cleaning up credit - current score 444

[Anonymous]

---

newmom24 wrote:

Yes, I called World Financial -- they agreed to the settlement of 190.16. I asked about the deletion and she said they would not do it since I was settling. It won't boost my score either way.

...

Please give advice on what I can do to improve credit. I would LOVE to buy a house and ignorance in the financial world  hurt m score.

What's the DOFD (Date Of First Delinquency) on the $380 Victoria Secrets CO? DOFD is usually the date it went 120 days late. If you're not sure, what's your best guess?

On all of your accounts that are showing adverse, write it all down. Take your best guess on the DOFD. If anything is really old, like 7 years since DOFD, it cannot be reported on your CRs. Those you can simply dispute off your CRs.

If you do have anything that's really old, but you're not sure, call the CRAs and ask what the DOFD is.

Message Edited by Noah_Bodie on 07-06-2007 11:25 AM

[chartley3]

Ok that helps alot more. First off dont worry about buying a house yet. You will need a mid score of 500 just to get it approved and its getting alot harder to approve subprime mortgages. Get all your credit card util down to between 1-9% and keep it there over the next 6-12 months. Try to PFD any unpaid collections you have and try to GW the settlements to at least remove the late payments. Time will heal alot of this but your going to need to show 2 years of perfect payment history to even get a loan for a house. You this time also to save up for a downpayment.

[newmom24]

wow! what did you do to get the score up like that?

[newmom24]

ok.

DOFD:

victoria secret 5/05

spiegal: 7/05

drivetime 4/06

[Anonymous]

OK, those are all fairly recent. None are going to drop for several years.

For the Victoria Secret $380 collection, I would send a PFD letter. Don't talk to them on the phone. Don't call, and don't answer. Caller ID is your friend. If you pick up, whatever they say, just say, "Can you send that to me in writing?"

They will settle, and they seemed to imply they would delete the collection if you PIF. However, they might delete if you paid less than the full amount. I would start out offering $220, in writing. Just send it regular mail. Give 'em about 6 weeks to respond. If they don't, send another letter, same offer. $220.

Worst case, if you have to pay the full $380 in exchange for a delete, that's a very good deal. However, don't offer the full $380. There's no room to negotiate. These folks are all about head games and petty tricks.

Stand firm on a delete, but relent and offer more to get a delete. If you press them on the delete, you can push them to relent and perhaps say, OK, fine, $300 and we'll delete.

Tuscani's PFD letter is very good. Use that as a base template. Feel free to post your letter for a critique before you send it.

[Anonymous]

For future reference, always get the settlements in writing, like Noah suggests.  Keep them forever as you never know when the old debt will get sold to another collector who wants more money.   Whoever buys the debt later will be legally bound to abide by any written agreements you had before. 

They won't sue you for $190, but that doesn't mean they will quit threatning or trying to collect. 

Keep up the hard work in cleaning these debts up 1 by 1. 

[Anonymous]

One thing to keep in mind is to continue using this forum.  I am an example of how your score can go from low to better.  My score was close to your score about 6 months ago.  I started disputing and paying off everything.  Then I joined this forum and increased my score even more.  In six months my average score went up to almost 600.  I am not finished yet.  I am currently using some more techniques from this forum in order to reach my (attainable) goal 750.  I have told many people about this forum.  They all said it had useful information to them.  Blah Blah Blah Blah  I could keep going all day.  Let me go.