@Anonymous wrote:
Hi everyone, I've read a lot of success stories on here and finally after 10 years of putting it off I paid off all my debt that I could see on my credit report. The issue is to do this I did mostly settlements not realizing til after it stays on my report as 0 and is still negative. I have been doing a lot of research and read that I should have tried to do pay for deletes but I only read this after I have paid off all the debts. Some of them just got deleted which I was grateful for but others stayed. So now I'm in mid 600s and still can't get a credit card (although I do have a secured through my bank) and I've watched a lot of YouTube videos about a letter I guess you can send to get negative things taken off but I always think those as hoaxs. I'm wondering if any of you guys have any advice for next steps I can take to finally get up to 700, lower my interest rate on my car and maybe finally get a good credit card I can start rebuilding my credit with. Oh also get an apartment/house. Thanks in advance for any help you guys can give I will appreciate anything you guys have to offer.
1. You should send verification letters to the bureaus; that often hastens the process of getting negatives removed. If you don't have the time to do it you can hire a firm like Lexington Law to do it.
2. Make sure that you're looking at your FICO scores, not your Vantage scores. If your FICO scores are really in the 650 neighborhood you should be able to get some unsecured cards.
3. Once you have 3 cards, try to maintain them this way: let one report a small balance; have the other 2 report zero balances.
4. Take out a small share secured loan:
Join Alliant Credit Union, take out a $500+ savings account, take out a $500 share secured loan secured by the savings account with a 48 or 60 month term, decline or cancel autopay, transfer $455 from the savings account towards the loan balance bringing the balance down to $45. Pay that off slowly over the
balance of the term. Once the $45 balance reports the positive effects will be felt.
@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks for the advise. I got a secured card already thru my bank and they said I gotta wait 6 months to upgrade it to non secured so I'm doing that, honestly the only credit report place that is owning me is experian because most of the negatives are already deleted with the other two, I'll try the letter thing though I was already looking into it just didn't know if it was a scam.
It's not a scam. You send letters asking them to verify an item. They send inquiry to creditor. If creditor doesn't respond in 30 days, item is removed. Sometimes removed item is put back if creditor eventually responds. But all in all it speeds up the process a bit.