Help! I have no idea what I am doing!

[Anonymous]

I am attempting to fix my credit and I have no idea what I am doing. I really don't even no much about credit itself. I just know when I was younger I got a few credit cards and shopped liked I was movie star and didn't realize what I was doing. Now that Im a mommy trying to buy a car and house and things are biting me in the butt. So here we go....

I am starting small with one credit card at a time to get the process down.  I have a capitol one credit card with a balance of 1,500.0o ish. It was opened in 10/2001 ---- Last payment was on 7/2006 ------ Major del. 4/2007 ---------- DOLA as N/A on report ---------- DOFD 8/2006.

This CC debt is still with the OC. So do I send a DV? Or do I just pay in full. I read the " what steps do I take? Do I DV? PFD....." but all did was confuse me.

Please help. I little guidance was be appreciated.

[RobertEG]

I recommend that, for any delinquent account, you first determine the following items:

1.  When was your first date of delinquency on the account, after which you never brought the account back into good standing?  That is called your DOFD, and is relevant for reasons discussed below.

2.  Dig up a copy of your state code regarding the statute of limitations on debt.  Determine what the period is in your state after which you are no longer legally obligated for the debt.

Number two is the biggie.  It tells you whether they can successfully sue you.  If your SOL has expired, any legal action on their part will be dismissed if you can show that the SOL has expired.

As for your DOFD, that is relevant for one and only one purpose as it relates to credit reporting (however, the DOFD might also be the same date as the beginning of the running of the SOL).  If the debt has either been charged-off or placed for collections, the DOFD specifies how long that charge-off or collection can remain in your CR.  It has no other purpose.  It is a single, date-certain, which begins the running of a period of 7 years plus 180 days, after which the CRA is required to cease inclusion of the CO or collection in any credit report they issue.

Do you know those two relevant dates?  Has the debt on any of the accounts been reported as a charge-off, or has a debt collector reported a collection to the CRA?

[LIGHTNIN]

Welcome to the forums,

Congrats to you, on getting your finances in order. It will take some time and you'll have some up's and down's along the way.

Most of us have been where you are right now, so we understand.

DV letters are sent to CA's, not to OC's.

To start...Do you have current CR's?  and if so where did you get them?

How many negative items you have?  and do you have the funds now to pay them or just some of them?

Know your states SOL, If you don't know, just tell us what state you live in.

SOL is a certain time period, a creditor can take you to court and win.

IME, I started with the OC's or the CA's that could possibly take me to court, those are the ones within SOL.

The ones that were passed SOL, could wait until I took care of the other ones first.

I know all of this may sound confusing at first, but after reading stickys,replies to your post and others peoples posts, it will all start to make sense.

[Booner72]

When I first got here I printed out the list of "common abreviations."  There is no way to understand this language without that!  You'll get it.  It just does take some serious time reading here.   Good Luck!