Have lots of questions. Please help thanks.

[Anonymous]

myFico Scores 09/13/14:

EQ: 658 TU: 669 EX: 641

I only have 2 accounts:

• Capital One Platinum MasterCard: $500 CL (raised recently from $300 CL).  Only had for about 8 months.
• Capital One Auto Loan: 60MO loan, Original Bal: $22k, Current Bal: $13k, no missed payments for 2.5 years, 12.35% interest, Total Paid over 60MO is around $31k

My Story:

I became ill about 6 years ago, was unable to work, and pretty much everything went up in flames.  Car repo, 8 collection charge offs, 3-4 student loan chargeoffs, etc.  I did not manage this well at all.  Credit score was at lowest point a flat 500ish 6 years ago.  About 2 years ago it was around 600.  Within the last 1.5 years, I landed a great job w/ benefits & I was able to pay off around $15k of debt.  I settled my old car REPO for only $1500 i/o $6500, paid off all my student loans in full, and still only have 2 small collection accounts that recently popped up again on my CR from debt buyers for $200.00 each & I'm trying a delete for payment letter for them both.  The car repo and CO student loans are paid in full but still show as negative accounts.  They're still a good 6 months or more away from 7 years to fall off.  I'm thinking about a good will letter to get rid of them.My Story:  

From what I've seen on these forums, Capital One Platinum MasterCard is not good at increasing your CL.  I am wondering if I should apply now for a new credit card to help start building my credit by having an additional credit account (I only have 2).  But I wonder if I should wait another 6-8 months for all the negative items on my credit report to fall off & then after that apply for an "Excellent" credit card b/c my score & report would look much better w/o a single negative item or late payment.

Questions:

• Because my car loan is 12.5%, if I continue with monthly scheduled pmts for next 29 months, I will lose thousands of dollars to interest.  I will be able to pay this loan off within the next 6 months, but then I worry that might hurt my credit, because then I would only have 1 open credit account, the $500CL capital one card.  So should I still pay it off in 6 months?  Or should I try refinancing it for 36 months so that I get a lower interest rate and still have that credit account open to build credit?
• I'm starting night school in 3 weeks.  I am able to take out student loans to pay for school, but should I?  I could pay cash for school, but would taking out the student loans build my credit b/c then I would have an additional credit account in good standing?  I am worried b/c I only have 2 credit accounts.
• Should I try applying for a new credit card b/c my scores have gone up recently?  EQ: 658 TU: 669 EX: 641 ?
• Should I wait 6-8 months for my old car repo and student loans to expire SOL before doing anything such as applying for a auto loan refi / new credit card?  I don't need the credit card but just want more credit accounts for building, etc..
• I'm worried that Capital One MasterCard Platinum will not raise my CL b/c I've seen other members on the forums say that CO never raised theirs either and they had it for a long time 2 years etc. with similar credit scores as mine.  Not sure what to do about this situation?
• My car repossession occured in AZ.  I read online that the statue of limitations for debt in AZ is 6 years.  My repo is over 6 years old since it occured.  From the articles that I read, that meant that I could no longer be sued for that.  However does this statue of limitations also mean that I can dispute the SOL with the 3 CBs and ask them to delete the negative account b/c it's beyond 6 years SOL in AZ?  Or do the CRAs get to keep it for a full 7 years?  Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Send GW letters to the companies that you were late on and for the Car Repo and see if you can get them to take it off.

It could never hurt to add another card. Have you looked at the Barclays Rewards card for people with Average Credit? Also, my advice would be to look at the pre-qualifying sites and see if you can get approved that way before applying and wasting a hard time. The pre-qualify will only soft pull and will not ding your score at all.

You could get approved for better financing rate through DCU Credit Union. They approve at 620 usually. That would be my suggestion. On the collection agents you should do a Debt validation letter before paying it and make sure that they can validate the debt before offering to do a Pay for Delete.  If they don't validate then you don't even have to worry about paying it cause it will fall off. DCU will pull Equifax. So, make sure your Equifax is in good shape.. Collections aren't a big deal to them. 

The remaining balance on your installment loan is high cause it's a car. It's a high balance.. Nothing to worry about there.  I would get another 2-3 credit cards and then go into the garden for awhile. 

[Anonymous]

Open a NFCU account if you can, Apply for there current rewards card promotion, you won't be sorry, I have worse scores than you and got approved for 7500.  Next I would try refinancing thru dcu that auto loan for the longest term/lowest interest rate possible and you will probably get a credit card out of the application/hard pull also.  Also if you don't want anymore hard pulls you could look into getting a secured card that doesn't hard pull, but you will lose some money in fees.  Other that that just like the above suggested GW letters, and keep your utilization low, while waiting for the rest of baddies to fall off, good luck.