Rebuilding Your Credit

[T50]

Would it be possible for me to raise my score by about 100 points in only 3 months? Anyone have any suggestion of how to do it? I just paid off all of my credit cards and I am trying to GW my recent late payment from my 2 credit cards to get them removed.  Please I NEED HELP!!!!

[ehertsch]

Hi  T50,

    This would be difficult, but not necessarily impossible.  Without more information on what's dragging you down, it's hard to say.  Some suggestion.

Reduce your balance on all revolving account to 5% or less.

If you have any collections open, send PFD letters.  Do not, I repeat, do not, call any of the collection agencies or original creditors and pay them with a promise of delete.  Get it in writing.

Any lates ou there, send GW letters.  If they don't work, try again.

Avoid any inquiries on your accounts.

Do not open any additional lines of credit.

Now here's the thing.  If you have collections and lates, you're essentially at the mercy of the people who placed those on your account.  And some of them may simply be unwilling to play ball.

Your timing, three months is also kind of interesting.  If I were to speculate, I would say you're trying to get your score high enough to get a home loan in time for the 8K tax break.  If this is the case, you may run into some additional problems.  Your lender is not going to just look at your score, but they're also going to look at your history.  If you've been sent to collections, or had late payments in the past 6 months, you're going to have problems regardless of your score.

Good luck.

[T50]

Hello ehertsch,

I have reduced my balance on all my credit cards to less than 8 %. I am currently sending the PFD letters to my collections. Thanks for the advice about not calling the collection agencies. Senging out GW letters and praying that they will work. My timeline of 3 months is sort of a catch 22. Yes, I would like to get pre-approved for a mortgage. But the main reason is because my current landlord told me that my lease is up in 3 months and that they intend on selling the property rather than renting it again to me. So I have to try and get my scores up ASAP because I don't want to move to another place and sign another lease and just throw my money away. I've done that for the past 3 years..... I have 12 months of no lates or bad marks on my credit report up until 3 months ago. That's what I am sending out the GW letters for. Hoping that if they remove those late payments I could get approved for a standard FHA loan. Any other information that anyone might have would greatly be appreciated!!!

Thanks for reading

[ehertsch]

T50,

   Sounds like you're well on your way then.  If you do some searches on your various creditors, you can probably find addresses that people have had success with sending GW ;etters to.

   Personally, I've had success with Chase Auto Finance, but no such luck with BofA.

   One other thing to note, which I mentioned in a previous post....  I had 4 lates with Chase Auto Finance.  After I GWd them, they sent me a letter back indicating they'd remove one of the four.  Since it was from an individual within the company, I went ahead and sent him a thank you letter.  A few weeks later, I find out that they deleted three of my four lates.  Was this because of the thank you note?  I will never know.  Couldn't have hurt though.

   Good luck!