Over the last year I've dived head first into the world of credit, fixing, repairing, and even teaching young soldiers how to prevent themselves from digging a hole they can't get out of.
I thought all was going well, my auto loan was posting on time payments every month, and so was my new credit card. I was paying off collections accounts, and most of them were taken off of my record completely. My student loans were being paid on time, and the green on my report was starting to make me feel a lot better.
I jumped up from almost 500 to about 600 over the period of about 6-9 months. I felt for certain things were looking up.
And then things changed...
My auto loan got paid off, and then I checked, and all of the positive history with that was taken off of my report completely, and I had a nice big red box in the month that I paid it off, with a note saying "Loan Paid In Full" ...?
I accidently paid off my credit card in full (usually get the balance at about 5-15$) and then it was completely taken off of my report as well, all of the good marks I had gotten were dropped off.
All of my collections accounts were paid off, and while most of them were taken off my report, there was one still saying not paid. A quick dispute over the phone with a supervisor and explanation of how it was paid off, and it should be taken off of my report in the next month, so that is good.
Problem is, I'm now sitting at 590, having taken a drop of almost 20 points when the positive auto loan and credit card history was dropped off of my credit report. Now I'm sitting here wondering, how did that happen?
To add to this problem, I get back from my deployment overseas in under a month, and need a new vehicle, and I'm worried that the absence of my good vehicle payment history will prevent me from getting any kind of rate that is reasonable.
Has anyone ever seen something like this before? And if so, does anyone have any advice on how to fix this?
It was a pretty decent year for fixing my credit, but this is starting to feel like an uphill battle on ice.
Oh well, the effort is starting to pay off, as I've gone up a little under 300 points in 3 years. I hope to be in the 700's by the end of next year!