Hello!
I have been reading several threads on the community forum for several weeks looking for guidance on my own credit repair journey. I have definitely learned a lot from reading this forum. This is my first post.
My situation is that I have four credit card TL reporting multiple lates. Three of the accounts were closed by creditor/grantor years ago. These credit cards were opened in my name, by a close relative, while I was in college. Fortunately, none of these cards were sent to collections as payments were being made but not always on time, obviously. I found out about the cards in 2005. At the time, the accounts were current, even though, there had already been previous lates. In addition, I couldn't have afford to pay down or payoff the balances at that time. I guess I was naive in thinking that a close relative would fail to make payments, again, on cards that were in my name. A hard lesson learned indeed.
Given the high APRs, I thought it best to pay off the balances on each of these accounts. I could not risk any more lates and the length of time that the outstanding balances would be hanging over my head. Over the past two years, I have paid out a little over $11K to get these balances to $0. All four TLs now show as paid as agreed.
Here is the damage as it stands today.
Sears: 23 lates ranging from 30 to 120 days (most recent late occurred on 10/07)
Bank of America: 12 lates ranging from 30 to 90 days (most recent late occurred 1/08)
The other two accounts are with Capital One and Citibank. The 30 day lates on both accounts should drop off this year.
Other than the lates on the four cards that I have listed, I have 7 accounts in good standing - no lates. I have no credit card debt. No auto loan - car was paid off in 2005. I have $25K in student loans, undergrad and grad. I rent an apartment.
Last week, I mailed out GW letters to both companies requesting a removal of the lates, but I was wondering if there was something else that I can do? I know that these late payments are hurting my scores and I don't expect much of a credit score change until these lates start to drop off.
AAoA: 10 Years
Oldest TL: 16+ years
Dec 09 FICO scores: TU 687/EQ 707 (courtesy of the 30 day SW trial)
Credit Util: 8% (will be down to about 1-2% in January)
No inquiries
