Helping Friend Dig out of Credit Mess- Any Help Appreciated

[ddemari]

So if for exaple Macys reports like this; Balance $542 current Status- Charge off as bad debt. Past Due amount $542

This account is still owned by Macys and has not been sold off yet? She has a mixture of charged off as bad debts reporting a balance and some with 0 balance. 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I am learning here too and recently started rebuilding.  I have a question.  Would it be better for her to pay to delete on some of these instead of just paying? 

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PFD is always the preferred result, but don't get hung up on it. You get it if you can but getting them closed and no longer updating is important as well.

[Anonymous]

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@ddemari wrote:

So if for exaple Macys reports like this; Balance $542 current Status- Charge off as bad debt. Past Due amount $542

This account is still owned by Macys and has not been sold off yet? She has a mixture of charged off as bad debts reporting a balance and some with 0 balance. 

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The CO's that show a balnce have not been sold off, though they could get (or already be) assigned to a collection agency. Its critical to settle these because those balances go against UTI% as well as being a major derog against payment history - thats 65% of scoring... 

[ddemari]

Thanks! It shows her utilization at 128%. Should she drop the authorized user on the citi card opened in 2011. Limit 10k balance 9300.

[ddemari]

The catch 22 is its her only positive account payment reporting even though it's not really her account

[Anonymous]

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@ddemari wrote:
The catch 22 is its her only positive account payment reporting even though it's not really her account

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Get an open sky account open first, then drop the AU. The CO's with balances are killing her UTI as well.

[ddemari]

ok, thank you very much! 

[Anonymous]

This may be a shot in the dark, but has she considered something like finger hut? They do report to the credit bureaus and they gave me credit when I had a very low score. Bought something, paid. Every four months or so they raised my limit. Be careful and don't carry a balance. Interest is very high. The reason I suggest finger hut is because after months of this my score was high enough that I received a pre approved offer for the Wal-Mart store card and have been rebuilding since. As others have stated, try a secured card until scores are much higher. Good luck.