Medical Collections

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I also have a caplital one card with a max $5000 credit limit. of which i owe $4800.

If i pay $3000 of this do you think it would raise my score significantly?

I also have a Home Depot card for $1500, of which i owe $1300. I am paying $700 towards this card this week.

I hope these payments will raise my score enough.

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Yes, you would certainly get some scoring juice from paying those down. Cap One reports within a day or two of the statement close date. I don't know about Home Depot.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. The only good thing right now on my credit is i have no late payments...

Im going to pay those credit cards down to 30%. And just hope my credit will be good enough.

I already have the PFD setup for the one meical collection for $190 which dropped my credit by almost 50 points.

After that i will work on removing the others, but in the meantime what i am doing now is hopefully enough to get the loan.

[Anonymous]

Simply make a trip to the local police department with a copy of your reports. Tell them you have found items on your reports that you know are not yours, you believe it could be the result of ID theft, and you need a police report to get it removed from your reports - show them the text of FCRA 605B if they don't believe you. They should understand that its just an administrative thing and investigation of the incident is not your goal. Then write out a statement that the items in question are not related in any way to any account that you authorized. Thats requirement number 2, third item is a copy of your identification documents, fourth item is a copy of your reports with the items highlighted. Send those four items via certified mail to the bureau reporting it with instructions to exclude the items within four days under FCRA 605B as being potential ID Theft. Its that easy.

It is not a dispute and there is not 'waiting period', as not are they not required to 'investigate'. They are simply required to exclude the item and notify the furnisher (thats the CA reporting it) of the exclusion of the item as potential ID Theft.

If you also send those items to the CA they are required to turn over all account information that they have.

[Anonymous]

That does sound simple enough. Do you know if this will be considered a dispute?

[Anonymous]

It is not considered a dispute. Don't even mention the word dispute in your correspondence with them. Refer to it only as "ID Theft" and reference FCRA 605B and its requirements.

[gdale6]

For info on how to deal with ID Theft issues.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/Victim-of-Identity-Theft-What-To-Do-to-Protect...

[Anonymous]

You are getting great advice!  From my perspective, your utilization is KILLING you probably as much, if not more, than the collections.  Utilization is 30% of your score.  You definitely need to get some of those balances paid down but I don't know how the mortgage lenders are going to see that.  Will it affect the funds they are counting in your assets?  I would ask them to be sure.  If your score dropped 47 points for one collection and they are willing to work with you and delete as soon as your payment clears, I would work on that ASAP.  Easy points gained back.  Then proceed to tackle the tougher issues.

If your goal is just to get a score high enough for a loan, tackling the easy collection will help along with paying the balances down.  Look to see when your credit card statement dates are.  If you are close enough and can pay down some of your balance, do so and let it report quickly.  That will also give you some boost.  If your balances are spread across multiple cards, try and pay all but one card. 

Lots of luck to you!  I will be going through this dreaded process in the next few months.  I will keep plenty of hair dye close by lol

[Imperfectfuture]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Simply make a trip to the local police department with a copy of your reports. Tell them you have found items on your reports that you know are not yours, you believe it could be the result of ID theft, and you need a police report to get it removed from your reports - show them the text of FCRA 605B if they don't believe you. They should understand that its just an administrative thing and investigation of the incident is not your goal. Then write out a statement that the items in question are not related in any way to any account that you authorized. Thats requirement number 2, third item is a copy of your identification documents, fourth item is a copy of your reports with the items highlighted. Send those four items via certified mail to the bureau reporting it with instructions to exclude the items within four days under FCRA 605B as being potential ID Theft. Its that easy.

It is not a dispute and there is not 'waiting period', as not are they not required to 'investigate'. They are simply required to exclude the item and notify the furnisher (thats the CA reporting it) of the exclusion of the item as potential ID Theft.

If you also send those items to the CA they are required to turn over all account information that they have.

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This will put an alert on the files, causing a bit of headache when requesting new reports later down the line.  Just a heads up.