@Anonymous wrote:I'll try to keep this to the point as I tend to ramble. I set up an IRA with Ameritrade, investing a little at a time. I'm so freaking confused by their.... vehicle sweep?.... I called in and asked them why my contribution was moved and asked them to dumb it down for me. Something about a piggy bank which I still couldn't comprehend so apparently I'm an idiot. I'm pretty scared of investing money into something I thought was like a protected savings account and ends up being a mostly investment deal. So, dumb it down for me guys and help me understand!
Secondly, when I was 17-18, I made stupid decisions. Student loans (drop out), one credit card that tripled in debt when I didn't pay, one eviction (never sign a lease for someone else) and a few charges I could not disprove (rephrase, never give anyone your personal info and ignore how nice/hot they are). I'm now 26, working on rebuilding. Have a new secured credit card with Capital One, first one since 7 years ago (advice taken from this forum, so much good info!). I've had it for six months. I keep checking credit report desperately waiting to see this *one plus* and it's nowhere. I've been paying on time, still haven't seen anything but one ding from their original check. Sigh.
Yes, I'm going to pay my loan debt and that stupid credit card I got when I was 18, that was all me. No, I'm not going to pay something BofA knew was fraud but did not help (checks were given when I got home to prove the fraud in check print outs/signatures... that was 6, 7 years ago and I was told they had a "max" they would pay back), or pay for the apartment my ex didn't pay for while I was in the army but he had 100% direct deposit. I fully intend to wait for the 7 year drop off for that BS. He recently passed, may he rest in peace.
I knew I was going to rant, sorry. I just do not know what to do. I paid Lexington Law Firm $100 a month for a year before I was alerted they were essentially refreshing my debt with their paper mill (fact... 7 year old debt suddenly came back in 2015). $1200 down the drain that could have paid off a large amount of my debt. I can't trust anyone anymore. Even putting money in an IRA scares the crap out of me. I just want to go to Alaska and stick my head in the sand.
For real though, I'm young. My debt isn't *that* bad. I just don't know how to handle it.
1. Well from what I gather, a "sweep vehicle", is simply a place that they will park your cash accumulations where it can make a (tiny) bit of interest while they wait for you to invest it in something. When you are investing in stocks and securities, often you will get cash dividend payments, or other bits of cash here and there like from trades where fractional shares can't be purchased - basically any funds that are not directly invested in anything specific. Such cash is "swept up" and deposited into an interest bearing account or "vehicle" - hence the term "sweep vehicle". If you want your contributions to go somewhere other than a designated sweep vehicle, then you need to tell them what stocks, securities or mutual funds you wish to invest in.
2. If the Cap One account is not showing on your reports, call them and try to find out why - its possible they have some bit of identifying info thats wrong - date of birth, ssn digits transposd somewhere, something mispelled. Something is not letting the CRA's match the reported info to your files.
3. If you were a victim of some form of ID theft in the BoA thing, you can use FCRA 605B to get any derogs associated with it excluded from your reports.
4. You're not going to find much sand in Alaska, just snow and ice. 