I'm depressed: Bad news from credit repair company

[Anonymous]

I've been a little frustrated with Lexington Law. The progress has been slow going. Thinking I could use some help, I had a credit repair specialist review my CR today. She said that because my bk is fairly recent-Aug.2014, she can probably delete my 13 inquiries and 2 federal liens. She said it is virtually impossible to delete California State Tax liens. That's just great. I have several California tax liens.
She went on to say I need to get several credit cards to report. (I recently got two new credit cards that haven't reported yet and one Wells Fargo secured card I obtained in December 2015). I'm a little depressed over this. My score is TU 583, EQ 616, EX 590.

[RonM21]

Sorry for the troubles you have. While it may bother you, you can come out of this. Once those cards start reporting, use them the right way (I suggest reading posts on here about utilization, how to pay credit cards, etc). In no time your scores will rise at least to a point where you aren't crippled by a negative report. You can do this.

[AutoBot]

Wondering how Lexington Law plans on deleteing those 13 inquiries.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I've been a little frustrated with Lexington Law. The progress has been slow going. Thinking I could use some help, I had a credit repair specialist review my CR today. She said that because my bk is fairly recent-Aug.2014, she can probably delete my 13 inquiries and 2 federal liens. She said it is virtually impossible to delete California State Tax liens. That's just great. I have several California tax liens.
She went on to say I need to get several credit cards to report. (I recently got two new credit cards that haven't reported yet and one Wells Fargo secured card I obtained in December 2015). I'm a little depressed over this. My score is TU 583, EQ 616, EX 590.

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For Fico scoring purposes, you need 3 positive tradelines and 1 installment loan.  You have the 3 tradelines, but do you have a mortgage, school loans, or personal loan reporting?  As for the inquiries, if you got them from applying for credit, then they will remain on your report, but after a year, it won't factor into scoring or applying for new credit.  You didn't mention if you have completely paid off or settled the tax liens?  I've never applied for BK, but I suggest you read on the forum about bankruptcy and recovering from it.  There are many members in the community that have rebounded from it and have strong credit profiles.  You can do!  Rebuidling can sometimes be a slow process.  I've been working on it a little over a year now, probably about 16 months, and while I'm seeing progress, I'm still not where I need to be, but I'm getting there--and you will too. 

[elim]

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Bankruptcy/HOW-TO-From-BK7-discharge-to-700-in-24-months-or-less/td-...

many have gone through this process here,  best of luck.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure how anyone can make 13 inquiries disappear unless it was fraud. If you applied for something 13 times, then you're stuck. The rebuilding forum is the best bet. It's a longer and more arduous road, but there is knowledge to be gained and that knowledge will do more than just raise your score, it can create healthy credit habits for the future.

[JustinA]

Hey we can be depressed together! Lexington Law may do a few things but I wouldn't hold a lot of weight on them. Keep in mind they are a business...and so they can say a lot of things to ensure your monthly subscription continues to roll in.

[Anonymous]

Lexington Law is little more than a scam company.  Stop their services as soon as you can.  Go on the BBB website and read their complaints.  

[redbeard]

How old are the Tax Liens? Are they paid? Once paid, they start aging and the affect they have on you ages pretty quickly as well. If they are unpaid, they have a huge impact on qualifying for a lot of credit opportunities. Unpaid tax liens (over a certain dollar threshold) can be an automatic denial, regardless of your credit score.

Don't worry about the 13 inquiries. They don't impact much. The real issue here is some creditors will not approve someone with this many inquiries, but there aren't many of those. The impact to your score isn't that big and will fade pretty quickly anyway. Don't spend money worrying about these.

Fixing credit is mostly about time. Stop Lexington Law. Use that money to pay anything you legitimately owe. Do your own disputes on other items. It used to be easy to get stuff off of your report, now, it takes either time or a lot of persistence or usually, both.

We all want to fix our credit pretty much overnight. Truth is, it is like running a marathon, not a sprint. In most cases, we didn't 'break' it overnight, so it won't fix overnight.

If your tax liens are significant, get someone to help you do a settlement on them. If they are smaller, call the tax bureau and set up a payment plan and get them paid. Once that is done, you'll be amazed at how fast your credit scores start climbing.

Dan

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the encouragement! I'm canceling Lexington Law today and starting the journey to rebuild. For clarification, it was a different credit repair company that said they could delete the inquiries. I'm passing on using them too. I'll do it with the help of all of you.