Embarking on a mission to fix my credit

[Dj4Money]

 Another bump, Happy New Year and a Decision -

 Credit Sesame finally updated, so my FAKO EX score sits at 641, which is 2 points above my peak of 639 before I tried to apply for an auto loan. Quizzle will not updated without me paying them.

 So before I pull my scores from here, my FAKOS are - EX641, EQ548 (not updated for 54 days), TU(CK) 606

 My EQ file is pretty thin, some of the stuff on my other reports are not even on it, so with the credit cards reporting who knows where it is now.  My TU FAKO via CK started at 555, then 564. One collection removed in Nov, it jumped up to 574 and then both my credit cards reported (one, Cap One shows the balance) now it's 606. My SDFCU statement will be out 1/15, so I am going to wait until then and my score is updated again.

 I found a thread about pulling your scores and reports and going to the dealer(s) the same day to prevent hard pulls.

 I am narrowing down where I want to go for an auto loan. 

 A car is needed if I want to possibly make as much as $3,000 in January alone, it's just not possible without one.

 More details to come...

[MarineVietVet]

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@Dj4Money wrote:

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@Dj4Money wrote:

 I signed up to the rest of the free services and while people say FAKO score don't count, they are in the neighborhood. 

 My current FAKO scores -

•  Credit Sesame (Experian) - 639 (Actual 630 as of 11/6 when opening checking account) 
•  Quzzle (Equifax) - 548
•  Credit Karma - 564

 After finding First Premier won't take a PFD, along with Midland. That leaves my paid AT&T (West Asset) (on all three) and Medical Bill only on my TU.  The medical bill will fall off July 2015; West Asset hasn't reported since 2009, so another year before that drops.

 Seems the plan of action now is to get my secured cards of course and start back repaying the school loan. I've hit a snag, I'll know more tomorrow but I will get a secured card bigger than my latest cc balance ($434) that was charged off, thinking $450-$500 should handle that. The other charge-off is the repo from 2009. Again nothing I should bother with.

 I said I will update tomorrow.

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  Only one FAKO has updated -

 Credit Karma (TU) is now 606, that's a 32 point jump since I first posted this! SDFCU card is not reporting a balance yet as there's no statement yet. I expect that after the first of the year, the card was activated about two weeks ago. 

 Quzzle wants me to pay $9 to update my EQ score and the same with Credit Sesame, I ain't biting.

 The plan was to buy my scores from here and then download my free reports after Jan 1st.

 I believe I will just pull my TU and EX scores since EQ is far behind and won't likely catch up until the negatives are removed.

 The charged off First Premier card is likely hurting my UTL despite being closed, I can't confirm that if somebody can let me know.

 If it is, I can try for a PFD if not, then I will get another trade line, either a car (which I need) or unsecured card which I haven't identified yet. It was always a possiblity that it was more worth-while to build up positive trade lines than to try to fix old problems, as many of them are coming up on seven years.

 Thanks to this forum, I am on my way to repairing my credit, some things will still remain as they'll just be marked as paid, but on manual review it will look much better even if my score doesn't reflect it.

 How do I get that FICO Challenge Medal so I can put it in my sig? 

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Copy and paste the following HTML into the Signature box on your Personal Profile page (My Settings=>Personal Profile=>Personal Information), and replace the Starting Score, Current Score, and Goal Score (in red) with your own:

<hr><img align="left" border="0" width="50" height="50" src="http://ficoforums.myfico.com/html/assets/challenge.png"><font size="2"><font size="1">Starting Score:</font> <b>800</b><br><font size="1">Current Score:</font> <b>800</b><br><font size="1">Goal Score:</font> <b>850</b></font><br><br><font size="1"><a href="http://goo.gl/6yCY5s" target="_blank">Take the myFICO Fitness Challenge</a></font></code>

[Dj4Money]

 Thanks! I will add that when I get all my official scores. I am being frugal for the moment as I need to get an auto insurance policy and I don't want to be caught not being able to pay to start the policy.

 I also need to pay down the balance on my cards to keep the momentum going. 

[Dj4Money]

  First the good -

  I got a car, found elsewhere on the forum

  I received a Notice of Cancellation of Debt from Wells Fargo Dealer Services. Meaning they sent me a 1099, which means as soon as my report updates that debt should drop, if not I will send/fax a copy of that to both Experian and Equifax.

 Why not Transunion? 

 The bad  -

  If you go back a few pages you'll see that when I tried to get my credit score from Capital One's website I got an error message. When I called customer service I was told that Transunion has me listed as deceased.

 Now obviously that isn't true but I have ran into other possible problems.

 Two or three different banks when shopping for the car I eventually got resulted in unable to get my credit report from Transunion because of this reason. Capital One Auto even said the reason they couldn't get my report was because TU has me listed as deceased. When I contacted TU the lady said somebody would call me. That never happen.

 I will be contacting them tomorrow. 

 I don't know when Capital One reports to the credit agencies, but my SDFC is reporting my current balance which is 50% of my available credit and dropped my score on Experian's service from 618 down to 601.

 Interesting.... I will pay off that balance soon, I just want to get some more funds into my account because I want to pay off the Capital One as well. 

 Side Note -

 Are my reports of being deceased by TU is what caused WFDS to send me a notice of debt cancellation? So much for credit reporting agencies and banks doing due diligence if that's the case.

 
 There is a history of them doing this however. When my father died (for real) Wells Fargo held the home mortgage. Well upon notification of my father's death, they forgave the rest of the mortgage.

   Whatever the case, I'll take the result.

 Another funny issue, I tried to log onto CK and it reports I have a Thin File and can't access any of my information anymore....

[Dj4Money]

 WDFS is still on my credit file, we'll see next month what happens.

 My Experian FICO score is now 637 from a low of 591 (+46) when an Auto Loan company (Westlake) pulled it in late Jan. I have a total of 22 inquiries and I haven't applied to anything but tried to get one of my credit unions to take over the loan from Gateway One.

 I am going to wait six months (now five months/payments) to try again.  There's no reason to assume my score won't be over 650 across the board by June '15.

 In the meantime I have started another YouTube channel and blog, it's not on-topic but I believe I am solving a problem that currently isn't being solved and it should be profitable in terms of partnering with YouTube and maybe a retail outlet that specializes in the products I will be talking about.

  Unfortunately that also means an investment in HQ audio and HD cameras since that is the standard on You Tube. Not that expensive but none the less a cost that I will have absorb. 

 I hope by June, I will be pulling in quite a bit more income than currently.

 Questions or comments are welcome.

[Anonymous]

Debt cancellation does not mean it goes away entirely. It just means it should be updated to reflect a zero balance. Some OC may actually argue that is not the case, and the courts rulings are all over the place on it.

Don't just assume you have to pay taxes on the 1099-C, there are several exemptions to it. Talk to a tax professional before filing.

[Dj4Money]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Debt cancellation does not mean it goes away entirely. It just means it should be updated to reflect a zero balance. Some OC may actually argue that is not the case, and the courts rulings are all over the place on it.

Don't just assume you have to pay taxes on the 1099-C, there are several exemptions to it. Talk to a tax professional before filing.

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 I won't be filing for 2014 and like I said when I was approved for the car, you never know who reads these things so that's enough on that. I will consult somebody though, thanks for the advice.

[Dj4Money]

  Another update on my progress -

 My FICO score as of March 18th was 637 (Experian). This is based on on-time payments on both credit cards and the car payment which started at the end of Feb 2015. It's dropped to 625 due to both cards being close to their limit. This is sort of on purpose; let me explain. I need to hold onto my cash to pay auto insurance (auto pay), the car payment via online banking and my registration.

 Now a bit of background/news about my registration. I didn't know this but if you purchase a car out of state you must notify DMV within 20 days. No penalty that I know of, it least I didn't get one. I purchased my car back in early Jan 2015. I hadn't gotten enough regular work to even attempt to pay it (registration), I also wasn't sure I would have to pay the sales tax at the same time.

 Turns out I do have to pay both, to the tune of $1,848 almost completely defeating the purpose of buying the car out of state, or did it?

 I will maintain that I might have never gotten this car if $1,800 was tacked onto the price before financing. This is based on the return offers I received from Car Max. The most I could qualify for and still have a reasonable payment was about $15,000 OTD. That means I likely would have had to get a base model Accent Hatchack (GLS) as getting the Ford Fiesta sedan was a no-go to fit it into that narrow window.

 Also my FICO score had been taking a beating with all the inquiries. I was approved on 618 which was down from a peak of 641. I was approved by Hyundai Auto Finance as it turns out, but they couldn't get my TU information and I had already agreed to Gateway One as they called me to confirm my information before sending out payment information.

 No matter, I will save a ton with a re-fi and I am on course to the mid 600's in order to get good to excellent rates on a re-fi. 

 But now I have to come up with $1,848... Not as hard as it sounds but I will have to call in some favors if I can get a signature loan from either credit union I am a member of or I will have to hold out until early May which is about as long as it will take to come up with the money. I don't quite understand why DMV couldn't issue me a temp tag (red square) for 30 days or something.

 I also have to smog the car which is a bit ridiculous as it's brand new with 3,500 miles on it now, about half of that was driving it back from Washington.

 Overall I am in good shape and will reduce the balance on both cards back to less than 9% in the coming weeks.

 I believe I will receive a CLI from Capital One by in May or June as it will be six on-time payments by then. I have been using the card heavily, I paid it down to 9% and then ran it back up to near max, in-fact I am over by $11 and I haven't gotten anything negative from Capital One just asking me to increase my credit line with another deposit.

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 Since I am off a bit early today, I am going to work on Transunion. I am listed as deceased; Capital One's credit monitor didn't work before but now does and reports a 595 FICO score. I used the simulator and the best configuration was paying my balances down on the credit cards would boost me to 620. I logged onto CK and still can't get access to see what's dropped from my credit report.

 Speaking of my report. WFDS is still on there. So I don't know exactly what was the meaning of spending me that letter. I may have to report this directly to the CA's to get any movement. Other good news is that my last payed collection has dropped off and only Midland remains. 

 * Just was on the phone with TU, seems the problem is on Credit Karma's end. My report is available (for free) so I am accessing it now.

 First Premier will be removed around the first of 2017. Ask for early delete?

 WFDS will come off in August of 2016, again ask for early delete? If it's coming off in August, so I wait until then to re-fi if they won't delete early?

[gdale6]

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@Dj4Money wrote:

  Another update on my progress -

 My FICO score as of March 18th was 637 (Experian). This is based on on-time payments on both credit cards and the car payment which started at the end of Feb 2015. It's dropped to 625 due to both cards being close to their limit. This is sort of on purpose; let me explain. I need to hold onto my cash to pay auto insurance (auto pay), the car payment via online banking and my registration.

 Now a bit of background/news about my registration. I didn't know this but if you purchase a car out of state you must notify DMV within 20 days. No pently that I know of, it least I didn't get one. I purchase my car back in early Jan 2015. I hadn't gotten enough regular work to even attempt to pay it, I also wasn't sure I would have to pay the sales tax at the same time.

 Turns out I do have to pay both, to the tune of $1,848 almost completely defeating the purpose of buying the car out of state, or did it?   Sales tax only gets paid to one state and if another state is trying to charge you as well I would be engaging an attorney immediately.

 I will maintane that I might have never gotten this car if $1,800 was tacked onto the price before financing. This is based on the return offers I recivced from Car Max. The most I could qualify for and still have a reasonable payment was about $15,000 OTD. That means I likely would have had to get a base model Accent Hatchack (GLS) as getting the Ford Fiesta sedan was a no-go to fit it into that narrow window.

 Also my FICO score had been taking a beating with all the inquries. I was approved on 618 which was down from a peak of 641. I was approved bt Hyundai Auto Finance as it turns out, but they couldn't get my TU information and I had already agreed to Gateway One as they called me to confirm my information before sending out payment information.

 No matter, I willl save a ton with a re-fi and I am on course to the mid 600's in order to get good to excellent rates on a re-fi. 

 But now I have to come up with $1,848... Not as hard as it sounds but I will have to call in some favors if I can get a signature loan from either credit union I am a member of or I will have to hold out intil early May which is about as long as it will take to come up with the money. I don't quite understand why DMV couldn't issue me a temp tag (red square) for 30 days or something.

 I also have to smog the car which is a big ridiculous as it's brand new with 3,500 miles on it now, about half of that was driving it back from Washington.

 Overall I am in good shape and will reduce the balance on both cards back to less than 9% in the coming weeks.

 I believe I will recivce a CLI from Capital One by in May or June as it will be six on-time payments by then. I have been using the card heavily, I paid it down to 9% and then ran it back up to near max, in-fact I am over by $11 and I haven't gotten anything negative from Capital One just asking me to increase my credilt line with another deposit.

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 Since I am off a bit early today, I am going to work on Transunion. I am listed as deceased; Capital One's credit monitor didn't work before but now does and reports a 595 FICO score. I used the simulator and the best configuration was paying my balances down on the credit cards would boost me to 620. I logged onto CK and still can't get access to see what's dropped from my credit report.

 Speaking of my report. WFDS is still on there. So I don't know exactly what was the meaning of spending me that letter. I may have to report this directly to the CA's to get any movement. Other good news is that my last payed collection has dropped off and only Midland remains. 

 * Just was on the phone with TU, seems the problem is on Credit Karma's end. My report is available (for free) so I am accessing it now.

 First Premier will be removed around the first of 2017. Ask for early delete? 6 months prior with TU and 2-3 months  prior with the other 2

 WFDS will come off in August of 2016, again ask for early delete? If it's coming off in August, so I wait until then to re-fi if they won't delete early? Too early for anything in 2016 to ask for EE

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[Dj4Money]

 Oh I need to clear that up... I didn't pay sales tax or any other tax in Washington State.

 I only owe tax in California. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

 Thanks for the feedback on the EE. Looks like May/June as I original stated would be ideal to ask for WFDS to be deleted. Then around Thanksgiving to ask for the early 2017 negatives to be deleted.

 The only things left after that would be the late payments on the school loan in 2010.