4 months into my rebuild and could use some advice...

Anonymous · ‎07-15-2015

Hi all, I've been lurking on this forum for awhile and thought I'd tell my story and seek some advice.

First the good news, I just finished paying 14 years of child support (what a relief!), and I'm now in the process of rebuilding my credit. I haven't pulled my FICO scores, but a recent denial letter put me at 610 with Transunion. Anyway, I have financed two cars with Ford Motor Credit, one in February and one in April and have been perfect on payments thus far. I have a Capital One Platinum Mastercard and a Capital One Quicksilver Mastercard, both of which I received in February as well and have perfect payment history on, they both have $800 limits and my fifth statement on each cuts this month. I also have a VS, Express, Loft, and HSN cards through the SCT with Comenity (I'm done with the shopping cart thing after reading these forums, I know it can be addicting and I'm done!)

The bad news...I have two accounts in collections with Progressive Insurance: one for $600 that closed 3/11 and stopped reporting in April 2014, second closed 9/13 for $477 and stopped reporting December 2014.

I also have a First Premier card that closed 4/12 and stopped reporting 11/14 (ironically, they sent me a pre-approval letter last week for another card with them. :-/

Last, I have two auto loans that are closed, one with Consumer Portfolio that closed when I traded the vehicle in for the new one I bought in Feb (I had one 30 day late in August last year, but closed in good standing.) The other is a loan for a lemon that broke down on me through Santander, I paid most of the balance on that loan (thanks to my father loaning me the money) but they held out for a few hundred dollars in interest back then and I told them to get bent! Bad move now that I look back on it! It shows closed/derogatory and they are still reporting showing a $1 (just to spite me I'm sure).

My question is regarding the negatives, they are quite aged, but some of my denial letters list payment history/collections as a reason. Should I just continue on with the cards I have and let the negatives age and fall off? I was thinking of going to my Credit Union and asking for a loan to pay the collections off (I have closed a secured loan with them in the past, and I'm perfect since November on a $750 holiday loan they gave me.) Coincidentally, I ran a soft pull through Avant just to see what my rate would be, and they denied me due to inquiries (9 since February, mostly due to the cars.)

Thanks!

Anonymous · ‎07-15-2015

@Anonymous wrote:
Hi all, I've been lurking on this forum for awhile and thought I'd tell my story and seek some advice.

First the good news, I just finished paying 14 years of child support (what a relief!), and I'm now in the process of rebuilding my credit. I haven't pulled my FICO scores, but a recent denial letter put me at 610 with Transunion. Anyway, I have financed two cars with Ford Motor Credit, one in February and one in April and have been perfect on payments thus far. I have a Capital One Platinum Mastercard and a Capital One Quicksilver Mastercard, both of which I received in February as well and have perfect payment history on, they both have $800 limits and my fifth statement on each cuts this month. Request a CLI now, before the credit steps auto increase hits. I also have a VS, Express, Loft, and HSN cards through the SCT with Comenity (I'm done with the shopping cart thing after reading these forums, I know it can be addicting and I'm done!)

The bad news...I have two accounts in collections with Progressive Insurance: one for $600 that closed 3/11 and stopped reporting in April 2014, second closed 9/13 for $477 and stopped reporting December 2014.

I also have a First Premier card that closed 4/12 and stopped reporting 11/14 If this is reporting a balance, settle it to keep it from hosing your UTI portion of your scores. (ironically, they sent me a pre-approval letter last week for another card with them. :-/

Last, I have two auto loans that are closed, one with Consumer Portfolio that closed when I traded the vehicle in for the new one I bought in Feb (I had one 30 day late in August last year, but closed in good standing.) The other is a loan for a lemon that broke down on me through Santander, I paid most of the balance on that loan (thanks to my father loaning me the money) but they held out for a few hundred dollars in interest back then and I told them to get bent! Bad move now that I look back on it! It shows closed/derogatory and they are still reporting showing a $1 (just to spite me I'm sure).

My question is regarding the negatives, they are quite aged, but some of my denial letters list payment history/collections as a reason. Should I just continue on with the cards I have and let the negatives age and fall off? I was thinking of going to my Credit Union and asking for a loan to pay the collections off (I have closed a secured loan with them in the past, and I'm perfect since November on a $750 holiday loan they gave me.) Coincidentally, I ran a soft pull through Avant just to see what my rate would be, and they denied me due to inquiries (9 since February, mostly due to the cars.) I would not considered borrowing just to pay them, but paid collections and charge off ALWAYS look better than unpaid, even if scoring is no better.

Thanks!

Try to negotiate PFDs for old collections that you can afford to pay. Work from newest to oldest.

Anonymous · ‎07-15-2015

Thanks for the quick reply! I did hit the Luv button last month to go from $300 to $800 on the Capital One cards. (Sorry, forgot to mention that.)

I thought the same thing about borrowing to pay the collection accounts, but I can afford the payment and I thought a new TL might look good. Coming up with the $2,000 up front for a PFD is what is causing my struggle. My AAoA is extremely weak right now due to so many new accounts, so I guess I'm basically starting from scratch. I also hesitate to wake a sleeping giant ;-)

My utilization will improve when the credit steps hit.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I received a Credit One Platinum Visa pre-approval for a $1500 line with them. I think that'll just go in the shredder when I get home tonight. Lol

Anonymous · ‎07-16-2015

Ok, I pulled my FICO scores from Credit Check Total and while they are low, they aren't as bad as I expected.

610 Transunion

618 Equifax

635 Experian

Does anyone know how accurate the score predictor is? I ran a 6 month goal of ontime payments and it's telling me my score could jump to 670 by then. Can it really happen that quickly?

Well, either way, I'm very encouraged. I thought my scores would be much lower.