Looking to buy a home... need help

[whoathere]

OK so I'm looking into buying my first home.  I've been a longtime user of Freecreditscore.com and it's always said my score was between 690-710, at least for the past 7 months.  Before that it was above 740.

I pulled my EQ today and found that it was 629.  Wasn't expecting that at all.  In looking through my report, I see that I have 3 baddies, 2 are 30 day late payments on a capital one card from the fall of 2010.  Both of those accounts have 0 balances now.  I have 4 other CC's with a total of about $2800 in balances on $7,500 total credit available.  (My report does show that I have 50% util, but they must not have report since feb because I have paid a grand on the debt in March, to get down to 2800)

The real baddie that I have is from Credit Protection Association.  I used to live with some guys and comcast was in my name because of my credit.  I left the house, they continued paying for the last month and then told me everything was returned.  Well it wasn't, Comcast never tried to contact me and 3 months later I get a ding on my credit.  I took care of it immediately, and now the report shows the balance as being paid.  I've just today found out about sending a GW, but I have no clue where to send, or how to go about it.  I've tried looking around these forums a bit to find info, and will continue.

I guess my question is, if I send these GW to try and get the dings removed, will that make a substantial change to my report?  I'm 27, and my oldest credit line is 8yrs 4mo. and it says my credit history is hurting because my oldest/average aren't long enough.  Nothing I can do about that though, and I'm not really sure what else is tying my score down.  I know the cc util could go down to 0-10% and that would probably help, but it's not like its TERRIBLE right now.

Not sure really what to do from here.

BTW I have 14 student loans all in repayment with current and never late status.  I make enough money to afford all kinds of things, but this credit score is killing me.

Also, about how long does it take if I get it removed, before it is removed from the report?

Thanks alot guys/gals and I look forward to learning a lot here!

[annielorie]

30 -60 days to have deletions reported. Utility is 30% of your score so that would make huge difference and what is your AAOA if its not that long maybe yyou have a parent who could put you on their cc as an auth user just make sure no negatives on that card and low utiluiz.  but this account wont help scores when going for mortgage. Once you get all derogs and lates off you will be rebucketed and your score should jump considerably bu t  YMMV if you dont have any negatives and utiliztion is 9% or lower other then mix of credit (only a few points) and getting loans paid off  that is about all you can do in the short term.  Other ways to improve would be to add more tradelines and allow them to mature.  Hope that helps.

[RobertEG]

The killer is the collection.

After being paid, your recourse is to ask the debt collector for a good-will deletion.

You most likley wont find much in the way of letters for GW deletion on the net, as they are not based on statute or rule.

They are letters of personal request to the credtior/debt collector.

Try to come up with some reasons that, if you were sitting at their desk, would persuade you to grant a deletion.  It is contrary to their normal credit reporting agreement to delete based on payment of a debt, and most debt collectors have a general policy not to grant such deletions, so the best bet is usually to try to get your request to a management official who has the authority to make exceptions.  Just sending it to their first line personnel usually just gets a parroting of their normal "no-deletion" policy.

[whoathere]

Ya, the collection shows as paid in full, but still shows there.  I handled this directly through Comcast and not CPA.  What about a PFD to CPA even though I don't owe them anything, and have never paid them anything in the past.  I guess I'm just trying to find out what I can do that will get action the quickest.  

I will also work on GW for the 2 late-30's on the cap1 and kohls card(which is cap1 as well) and see if those will help.

I can get the cc util down to 15-20% this month, maybe even lower.  My AAOA is around 5 years.

Also, I had a personal loan through a credit union that I paid off about a year ahead of time.  My score went down when I paid that off because the report showed that as a line of credit, and once I paid it, it was closed and looked as tho I had less credit available.  I thought paying that off would help me!  (this was about 6 months ago)

THanks for the help, I appreciate it.

[annielorie]

GW comcast as it is already paid.

[FrugalRican]

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@whoathere wrote:

OK so I'm looking into buying my first home.  I've been a longtime user of Freecreditscore.com and it's always said my score was between 690-710, at least for the past 7 months.  Before that it was above 740.

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For future reference, that score from freecreditscore.com is what we call a FAKO.

That's why it blindsided you like that.

Just make sure that if you want your real FICO Equifax or TU (albeit the older version), you can do those from myFICO.

Get that utilization down, but as others haev said, the collection is the one that's killing you.

[whoathere]

GW sent to Kohls and to Capital One as well as sent a few emails thanks tithe friendly people on this site!

I will GW Comcast today as well and see what they say. Should I even bother with CPA or just dispute it since I have had no contact with them.

[annielorie]

Who reported the serious late CPA or comcast?

[whoathere]

CPA reported it. I dealt with Comcast in the following order:

Called and they told me there was equipment never returned and that a bill of $178 was outstanding. I paid comcast immediately for the bill leaving a couple hundred left for equipment. CPA updated the delinquent account to reflect new balance on my report. I got ahold of my old room mates and the equipment and returned it. Comcast gave me a receipt showing $0 balance. CPA then updated the report to show paid in full.

I've heard you can have some luck with CPA if you make it seem like something in their reporting was wrong. Well I never dealt with them, but on my report it would seem as tho I paid them the debt, which I never did.

[FrugalRican]

Please tell me your old roommates at least apologized and offered to pay you for the equipment....