Hello there forum! This is my first post, so my apologies if I am asking a question that's been answered (I have been searching the forum for a little bit and can't find anything, but I may just not be particularly good at searches.) In any event, advice is welcomed.
I've finally gotten a fire lit under my, er, nose to get my credit together. I got myself into this mess, by george I'll get myself out of it.
The bad: I'm at 576 on CreditKarma (I haven't gotten my FICO, but I did pull all 3 credit reports today.) Aside from a couple of doozies (student loans and a tax lein, which are discussions for another day) I also have 2 accounts in collections, one paid auto loan with a late payment history, and one charge-off.
My short-term plan: I'm not going to bother with the paid-off auto loan - it was paid off in Dec of 2007 so it should be falling off soon. I feel like trying to GW them to report favorably will be a waste of time at this point. I am mostly concerned with getting the low-hanging fruit of the collections/charge off accounts, since I think it will provide the biggest boost in the short-term, with an additional end-of-year boost when the auto loan falls off.
Tomorrow, I'll be sending PFD letters to the two collection accounts (less than $200 total between the two of them; one for the final payment of some dental work I had performed, and one for an auto insurance policy I cancelled after switching to a new insurer for better rates.) They are so small that I am fine with paying the full amounts instead of negotiating lesser amounts, which I hope will encourage them to agree.
Where I'm stumped is with my charged-off account. It is for Mid America bank, which I didn't recognize, but a forum search tells me they bought out First Plains, which I do. It was CO in 2011, so I would like to get it removed via PFD if possible since it will reflect for another 4 years. But, the notes state "closed due to transfer," I assume to a CA. But no CAs are reporting the debt. I'm assuming that trying to resolve with Mid America will be pointless since they no longer own the debt, and my fear is that they might refer me to a CA which might then start reporting the debt, especially if I contact them.
Has anyone dealth with a Mid America bank CO before? What was their experience?Am I misinterpreting this, and Mid America bank still owns the debt since there is no other CA reporting it?
Additionally, just a general question: in the event you have 2 dings on your report for the same debt (ie, the OC and a CA) and you come to an agreement with the CA and pay the debt (hopefully with a PFD) does this impact the reporting by the OC in any way? Has anyone been successful in getting the OC to remove the reporting if they have been able to get a PFD in place with the CA? I'm concerned about possibly resetting the SoL, especially if I work with an unreporting CA - what's the point if I can't get the OC to update their reporting (other than the obvious point of doing the right thing, of course.)
Sorry it's so long. Hopefully you haven't fallen asleep. Thanks for reading, and for any advice given!
