@happyus wrote:Okay, over the past month or so I have spent countless hours scouring these forums trying to prepare my husband and I to buy a new house by Summer 2009. I personally am unemployed and have bizillion's of dollars in student loan debt, along with a 2005 BK, so I have focused on repairing my hubbys credit.
That's what I did, too. With success (see my siggie) and we were able to buy a home just last month! So, if **I** can do it, YOU can do it!!
Just don't forget to work on YOUR credit once you're done with his! You deserve good credit, too, yannow!!
My hubby was a single bachelor that worked way too much for way too long to be concerned with timely bill paying. So these are the issues we are facing. The major ding on hubbys credit is a forclosure in Feb 2006 with Ameriquest mortgage, this particular account is being reported twice on the report stating that one of them was transferred to recovery?????
Let me do a wee bit of legwork on that one. It's possible that you could dispute the one as a "duplicate" and have it deleted from his CRs.
For clarification, when you say "transferred to recovery" do you mean "Recovery" as in a collection agency name? Or do you *think* it's an internal collection department or possibly a guarantor (which depends on what kind of mortgage it was -- government backed or conventional)?
Second of all he has 6 collections on his account. Of these 6 collections 4 of them are medical.
Are the medicals paid? If so, start the HIPAA process (by HIPAA law, *PAID* medical collections must be deleted from your CRs due to healthcare privacy laws). If not, read the HIPAA thread on the steps to take to pay the debt and start the HIPAA prcoess.
The other 2 are old cell phone bills over 2 years old.
Well, good news and bad news on that: Good news, Fed regulations are such that you've passed the SoL on the debts -- that means they can't sue you (legally) for the debt.
Bad news, they are REALLY hard to remove. Are they paid? If so, send GW letters (letters asking for mercy and pity -- basically, asking them to find goodness in their hearts and remove the entry from your CRs). If they're NOT paid, negotiate an agreement to pay in exchange for their removal from your CRs (AKA, PFD).
Like GWs, PFDs don't always get accepted. But you have to be persistent. That's the key!!
The medical collections I plan on just paying the the original creditors and then following up with the hippa process.
Spot on!!
My problem that frustrates me is that my hubbys score was around 628, and one of the cell phone bills that I KNOW is over 2 years old, just showed up yesterday and shows a begining date of Feb 2009.
That's because the CRAs share information (ummm .... actually, they SELL that information) to CAs. Once a CA knows you've been working on your credit, they show up in DROVES. It's leverage in getting you to pay the debt. They know that if you're working on your credit, you have a REASON to and know that they have a damned good chance of forcing you to pay.
To mitigate the chances of this happening to you AGAIN, "opt out" with the CRAs. This tells them that they can no longer sell or share your information with ANYONE other than *current* creditors.
I did this with hubby's CRs (with his permission, of course) and so far, so good!
There was also an old credit card account that my hubby paid off in april 2005 when he refinanced his house, but the credit card was showing as charged off, and carrying a balance. I disputed the credit card and EXP did an investigation and updated the report stating that the account was charged off then sold with a balance of $340, and they updated that date to Feb 2009. Well.... to make a long story short, these 2 issues have hit his credit bringing down his score to 571..... ouch. That literally happened overnight. Can anyone please advise, the best way to get credit up to 620 at least by summer 2009. Thanks.
P.S. Also hubbys mom stated that she would add him to one of her high limit credit cards that she does not carry a balance on as an authorized user. Supposedly this will help improve his score, does anyone know anything about this???????? Does this really work??
Yes, it works. It works because your DH inherits the card's GOOD history. So to FICO and lenders, he's had a GOOD account, with GOOD history, with a GOOD credit limit for a GOOD amount of time!
But, remember this: He'll also inherit any BAD history there is, too. So if she has lates on the account dating back 6 years, he'll have them, too. If she maxes out the card, he'll have maxed it out, too, in the eyes of FICO and lenders.
I actually disagree with Robert's post (sorry, Robert). We had a string of lates on DH's student loans (totalling 41, including somewhere like 20 120+ days -- and a few 180+ days in there, too), 5 30 day lates on our car loan, 5 collections, charge-offs as recent as 2005, and no positive credit. I was able to pull his scores up to the high 600s within only a few months.
Like I said, if **I** can do it for my DH's credit, **YOU** can, too!!
There's ALWAYS hope!! ALWAYS!!
happyus wrote:
Okay, over the past month or so I have spent countless hours scouring these forums trying to prepare my husband and I to buy a new house by Summer 2009. I personally am unemployed and have bizillion's of dollars in student loan debt, along with a 2005 BK, so I have focused on repairing my hubbys credit.
That's what I did, too. With success (see my siggie) and we were able to buy a home just last month! So, if **I** can do it, YOU can do it!!
Just don't forget to work on YOUR credit once you're done with his! You deserve good credit, too, yannow!!
I will definately work on my credit but since I dont have any income, i figured hubbys income was first priority!!
My hubby was a single bachelor that worked way too much for way too long to be concerned with timely bill paying. So these are the issues we are facing. The major ding on hubbys credit is a forclosure in Feb 2006 with Ameriquest mortgage, this particular account is being reported twice on the report stating that one of them was transferred to recovery?????
Let me do a wee bit of legwork on that one. It's possible that you could dispute the one as a "duplicate" and have it deleted from his CRs.
For clarification, when you say "transferred to recovery" do you mean "Recovery" as in a collection agency name? Or do you *think* it's an internal collection department or possibly a guarantor (which depends on what kind of mortgage it was -- government backed or conventional)?
It shows as another account within Ameriquest mortgage, so I assume that it is just another department, and not an actual collection agency. I am sure it was a coventional loan, my hubby did it on his own before we go married and it was a refi of his orginal FHA.
Second of all he has 6 collections on his account. Of these 6 collections 4 of them are medical.
Are the medicals paid? If so, start the HIPAA process (by HIPAA law, *PAID* medical collections must be deleted from your CRs due to healthcare privacy laws). If not, read the HIPAA thread on the steps to take to pay the debt and start the HIPAA prcoess.
The other 2 are old cell phone bills over 2 years old.
Well, good news and bad news on that: Good news, Fed regulations are such that you've passed the SoL on the debts -- that means they can't sue you (legally) for the debt.
Bad news, they are REALLY hard to remove. Are they paid? If so, send GW letters (letters asking for mercy and pity -- basically, asking them to find goodness in their hearts and remove the entry from your CRs). If they're NOT paid, negotiate an agreement to pay in exchange for their removal from your CRs (AKA, PFD).
Like GWs, PFDs don't always get accepted. But you have to be persistent. That's the key!!
Im just really ticked off because one of these collections wasnt even showing on all 3 reports, and it is over 3 years old, and I just dont know how it popped up out of no where it really sucks. I will try to PFD them. I guess when dealing with these old Cell phone collections I should actually PFD the CA instead of the OC?
The medical collections I plan on just paying the the original creditors and then following up with the hippa process.
Spot on!! 
My problem that frustrates me is that my hubbys score was around 628, and one of the cell phone bills that I KNOW is over 2 years old, just showed up yesterday and shows a begining date of Feb 2009.
That's because the CRAs share information (ummm .... actually, they SELL that information) to CAs. Once a CA knows you've been working on your credit, they show up in DROVES. It's leverage in getting you to pay the debt. They know that if you're working on your credit, you have a REASON to and know that they have a damned good chance of forcing you to pay.
To mitigate the chances of this happening to you AGAIN, "opt out" with the CRAs. This tells them that they can no longer sell or share your information with ANYONE other than *current* creditors.
I did this with hubby's CRs (with his permission, of course) and so far, so good!
I definately plan on opting out now that I understand fully what it exactly means.
There was also an old credit card account that my hubby paid off in april 2005 when he refinanced his house, but the credit card was showing as charged off, and carrying a balance. I disputed the credit card and EXP did an investigation and updated the report stating that the account was charged off then sold with a balance of $340, and they updated that date to Feb 2009. Well.... to make a long story short, these 2 issues have hit his credit bringing down his score to 571..... ouch. That literally happened overnight. Can anyone please advise, the best way to get credit up to 620 at least by summer 2009. Thanks.
P.S. Also hubbys mom stated that she would add him to one of her high limit credit cards that she does not carry a balance on as an authorized user. Supposedly this will help improve his score, does anyone know anything about this???????? Does this really work??
Yes, it works. It works because your DH inherits the card's GOOD history. So to FICO and lenders, he's had a GOOD account, with GOOD history, with a GOOD credit limit for a GOOD amount of time!
But, remember this: He'll also inherit any BAD history there is, too. So if she has lates on the account dating back 6 years, he'll have them, too. If she maxes out the card, he'll have maxed it out, too, in the eyes of FICO and lenders.
I will check with her to make sure that this card has great history before she offically adds him, I am sure it does, he credit is pretty impeccable.
I actually disagree with Robert's post (sorry, Robert). We had a string of lates on DH's student loans (totalling 41, including somewhere like 20 120+ days -- and a few 180+ days in there, too), 5 30 day lates on our car loan, 5 collections, charge-offs as recent as 2005, and no positive credit. I was able to pull his scores up to the high 600s within only a few months.
Like I said, if **I** can do it for my DH's credit, **YOU** can, too!!
There's ALWAYS hope!! ALWAYS!!
Well THANK YOU so much for your help and encouragement, I swear it sounds like you really know what and how to do it. You are my new best friend 
I hope your ready I will have a million questions for you over this process. I just hope I dont get too discouraged. MY hubby has built some positive credit in the past 2 years, and he has a great income when qualifying for a house, it is just resolving these stupid "little" things. I am not trying to remove the legit things ex: The forclosure, I am just trying to keep old stuff from being RE-reported. Thanks again for your advice, and please please please GIVE ME MORE. I have developed a bit of a plan. Next week I am paying off all the medical collections, to get that process on the roll. The brand new cell phone collection that has just popped up, should I DV? or should I just offer PFD? I already sent PFD for CO but I have not heard anything as of yet. I sent it away about a month ago.
@happyus wrote:
@happyus wrote:Okay, over the past month or so I have spent countless hours scouring these forums trying to prepare my husband and I to buy a new house by Summer 2009. I personally am unemployed and have bizillion's of dollars in student loan debt, along with a 2005 BK, so I have focused on repairing my hubbys credit.
That's what I did, too. With success (see my siggie) and we were able to buy a home just last month! So, if **I** can do it, YOU can do it!!
Just don't forget to work on YOUR credit once you're done with his! You deserve good credit, too, yannow!!
I will definately work on my credit but since I dont have any income, i figured hubbys income was first priority!!
That was our case, too. Just remember, though, that YOU'RE just as important!!!
My hubby was a single bachelor that worked way too much for way too long to be concerned with timely bill paying. So these are the issues we are facing. The major ding on hubbys credit is a forclosure in Feb 2006 with Ameriquest mortgage, this particular account is being reported twice on the report stating that one of them was transferred to recovery?????
Let me do a wee bit of legwork on that one. It's possible that you could dispute the one as a "duplicate" and have it deleted from his CRs.
For clarification, when you say "transferred to recovery" do you mean "Recovery" as in a collection agency name? Or do you *think* it's an internal collection department or possibly a guarantor (which depends on what kind of mortgage it was -- government backed or conventional)?
It shows as another account within Ameriquest mortgage, so I assume that it is just another department, and not an actual collection agency. I am sure it was a coventional loan, my hubby did it on his own before we go married and it was a refi of his orginal FHA.
Okay, I still can't reconcile that (might be too early in the AM for me, LOL). So can you post the info here? Exactly how it shows (without the uber personal stuff like account numbers).
Second of all he has 6 collections on his account. Of these 6 collections 4 of them are medical.
Are the medicals paid? If so, start the HIPAA process (by HIPAA law, *PAID* medical collections must be deleted from your CRs due to healthcare privacy laws). If not, read the HIPAA thread on the steps to take to pay the debt and start the HIPAA prcoess.
The other 2 are old cell phone bills over 2 years old.
Well, good news and bad news on that: Good news, Fed regulations are such that you've passed the SoL on the debts -- that means they can't sue you (legally) for the debt.
Bad news, they are REALLY hard to remove. Are they paid? If so, send GW letters (letters asking for mercy and pity -- basically, asking them to find goodness in their hearts and remove the entry from your CRs). If they're NOT paid, negotiate an agreement to pay in exchange for their removal from your CRs (AKA, PFD).
Like GWs, PFDs don't always get accepted. But you have to be persistent. That's the key!!
Im just really ticked off because one of these collections wasnt even showing on all 3 reports, and it is over 3 years old, and I just dont know how it popped up out of no where it really sucks. I will try to PFD them. I guess when dealing with these old Cell phone collections I should actually PFD the CA instead of the OC?
Is there a CA reporting on those debts? Or is it the OC? Rule of thumb is that PFD whoever's reporting on your CRs.
If it's the CA reporting, DV them first. If you're going to offer a PFD, you want to make sure that they CAN accept it (legally).
The medical collections I plan on just paying the the original creditors and then following up with the hippa process.
Spot on!!
My problem that frustrates me is that my hubbys score was around 628, and one of the cell phone bills that I KNOW is over 2 years old, just showed up yesterday and shows a begining date of Feb 2009.
That's because the CRAs share information (ummm .... actually, they SELL that information) to CAs. Once a CA knows you've been working on your credit, they show up in DROVES. It's leverage in getting you to pay the debt. They know that if you're working on your credit, you have a REASON to and know that they have a damned good chance of forcing you to pay.
To mitigate the chances of this happening to you AGAIN, "opt out" with the CRAs. This tells them that they can no longer sell or share your information with ANYONE other than *current* creditors.
I did this with hubby's CRs (with his permission, of course) and so far, so good!
I definately plan on opting out now that I understand fully what it exactly means.
And yup, like I said before, the CRAs tip off
those scum-suckers that you're fixing your credit. THAT'S why they popped up out of nowhere.
Opting out is the
ONLY way to make a pre-emptive strike against that happening. Bastiges.
There was also an old credit card account that my hubby paid off in april 2005 when he refinanced his house, but the credit card was showing as charged off, and carrying a balance. I disputed the credit card and EXP did an investigation and updated the report stating that the account was charged off then sold with a balance of $340, and they updated that date to Feb 2009. Well.... to make a long story short, these 2 issues have hit his credit bringing down his score to 571..... ouch. That literally happened overnight. Can anyone please advise, the best way to get credit up to 620 at least by summer 2009. Thanks.
P.S. Also hubbys mom stated that she would add him to one of her high limit credit cards that she does not carry a balance on as an authorized user. Supposedly this will help improve his score, does anyone know anything about this???????? Does this really work??
Yes, it works. It works because your DH inherits the card's GOOD history. So to FICO and lenders, he's had a GOOD account, with GOOD history, with a GOOD credit limit for a GOOD amount of time!
But, remember this: He'll also inherit any BAD history there is, too. So if she has lates on the account dating back 6 years, he'll have them, too. If she maxes out the card, he'll have maxed it out, too, in the eyes of FICO and lenders.
I will check with her to make sure that this card has great history before she offically adds him, I am sure it does, he credit is pretty impeccable.
Does he have any current, good-standing loans? Credit cards? If not, he should see an AWESOME boost when that account gets reported. Just remember to keep an eye on it should Mom make a mistake with the account!!!
I actually disagree with Robert's post (sorry, Robert). We had a string of lates on DH's student loans (totalling 41, including somewhere like 20 120+ days -- and a few 180+ days in there, too), 5 30 day lates on our car loan, 5 collections, charge-offs as recent as 2005, and no positive credit. I was able to pull his scores up to the high 600s within only a few months.
Like I said, if **I** can do it for my DH's credit, **YOU** can, too!!
There's ALWAYS hope!! ALWAYS!!
Well THANK YOU so much for your help and encouragement, I swear it sounds like you really know what and how to do it.
Darlin' I'm only telling you what the wonderful people HERE taught me! They're how I was able to pull up DH's FICOs by 200 points in about 6 months (is that a testimonial for the FICO Forums or what?! LOL!).
You are my new best friend
Shoot, Darlin'!
And BTW, we're not friends. We're FICO FAMILY.
I just hope I dont get too discouraged.
Well, a lot of people do ... but most times, it's just a bit of venting and then it's back to the grindstone. Credit repair ain't easy. It's not s'posed to be. But you've got people here to ground you and lift you up when you need it!
MY hubby has built some positive credit in the past 2 years, and he has a great income when qualifying for a house, it is just resolving these stupid "little" things. I am not trying to remove the legit things ex: The forclosure, I am just trying to keep old stuff from being RE-reported.
Okay, there's NOTHING wrong with removing legit things. Consider it mitigating the damage. As long as you don't do anything unethical or illegal, it's all good. So don't you DARE feel like it isn't!!
Thanks again for your advice, and please please please GIVE ME MORE.
Start asking questions, Darlin! Anything! And if there's anything that you need, just click on my name (you'll be taken to my "profile" page -- from there, in the middle right hand of the page, you'll see "Send this User a Private Message") and send me a PM!
We're here for you, Darlin'!!
I have developed a bit of a plan. Next week I am paying off all the medical collections, to get that process on the roll. The brand new cell phone collection that has just popped up, should I DV? or should I just offer PFD?
That depends on who's reporting. You always deal with who's reporting (except in the case of medical collections -- the OC RARELY ever reports and you ONLY want to deal with the OCs on those).
So if the CA's reporting, send them a DV. If the OC's reporting, you can send an OC Investigation Letter (you can't DV OCs). Though, me, if it's the OC, I'd just send them a PFD (paper their offices with them) and keep sending them until they accept.
I already sent PFD for CO but I have not heard anything as of yet. I sent it away about a month ago.
That's normal. You might not hear anything back at all. That's why you should just keep sending them PFDs until they get sick of you and accept (just to get you off their back -- the poor, poor babies! LOL!).
CC OCs rarely do PFDs, but it doesn't hurt to try!!! All it costs is a bit o'paper, an envelope, and a stamp. And the potential for a clean CR, to me, is worth at least that!!
It will ALL work out, Darlin'! It really will.
Holler back, Darlin'!