My credit improvement plan, any feedback?

[Anonymous]

I've made a few posts asking for advice on tackling different items on my reports but I wanted to go ahead with a general post about where I'm sitting right now and see if anyone could offer any more feedback about raising my score from here. I'll list my current scores what the reports look like:

Experian 586

• One student loan listed from Great Lakes that defaulted in 2012 and reports a 0$ balance after my last two tax refunds were offset to pay it. Although it lists the balance at 0$ it also has the payment status listed as "unknown" because it was transferred to other office after it defaulted.
• I have a medical collection from a hospital bill from 2014 for my son that should have been billed to my insurance companies and I'm working on having the hospital send the bill to my insurance.
• Late payments for April, May, and June 2014 for student loans.

Equifax: 592

• 6 medical collections, all but one are very old(5-6 years) and I'm disputing them.
• Same defaulted Great Lakes student loan defaulted in 2012 that has been paid and 0$ balance

Transunion: 531

• Paid collection for Progressive insurance for my coverage lapsing in 2015
• Unpaid collection from my electric company, it was paid off in early 2015 but is still listed as unpaid
• 2 Medical collections, one of which is from 2011 and hoping it comes off with a simple dispute, the other is from a 2014 hospital visit for my son that neither of my insurance was billed for and I am confident I can get off my reports soon.
• A judgement from a previous landlord in 2012. It is listed as filed in my city's circuit court and 154$ but I'm confused on this one because my brother and I met with my (then) landlady and settled everything in her office, I paid her the last month's rent(month to month lease). I never received any notice that they filed anything against me, and had no idea of this judgement until very recently.

All my credit reports have the same defaulted Great Lakes listed, although showing 0$ balance, it shows a horrible payment history up until 2012 when it eventually defaulted.

All 3 credit reports list late payments with Fedloan for the months of April, May, and June 2014. I am on an income-based repayment plan with them right now so it's reporting as paid.

I am starting with the medical collections first because I feel most are they're so old that they should come off with a simple dispute. I tried it out on Experian first and within 2 weeks I had 3 of those collections deleted.

I'm writing a GW/dispute letter to my electric company for the "unpaid" collection that was paid in 1/2015.

Next I will write progressive a GW letter to see if I can get the paid collection removed.

I might eventually try a GW adjustment letter to Fedloan to see if they'd be willing to remove the late payments but I'm not the most optimistic about this one.

In the meantime I am hoping to save enough for a deposit on a secured card in a few weeks to start building positive payment history. I'm stretched very thin financially right now with family obligations so I can only afford a deposit for one card. I also had the idea of just waiting and seeing whether my scores would jump quickly enough with my plan above and then I might be able to just go straight for an unsecured card and save myself the deposit....thoughts?

I have a basic plan on getting started but wanted to hear any feedback if there's anything else I could be doing?

FWIW, my ultimate goal in this is being able to get a mortgage in 6-12 months.

Thanks in advance!

[RonM21]

The efforts you are making are a good start. The concern I do have for you is that the ones you are going to dispute may not come off, and I don't know how much more money is tied to those.

You mentioned being financially strapped, but have a goal for a mortgage within a year. A lot of these can possibly get deleted when you offer a pay for deletion. But if you are unable to pay I don't know how far you would get.

With so much on here to tackle, combined with your financial circumstance, getting a mortgage could be tough. You have the right mindset though, and all you can do is get the ball rolling and see how things progress. I hope they work out for you.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate being able to bounce ideas around with others on here. I'm new to all of this so it can get pretty overwhelming.

Do you mean the medical collections might be the hard ones to get removed? I've been feeling pretty optimistic about them, I already had 3 removed from my experian report after my first knee-jerk online dispute(the knee-jerk that happens after your first look at your credit report in years at 2am with the juicy looking "Dispute button" beckoning to you). One of those was 6-7 years old so I think it was just obsolete at that point, I still don't have a clue what the other two were from. If I can't get all of them removed I will consider a PFD, most of them are under 300$, a couple are in the 20$ range so a PFD shouldn't be too terribly hard if I need to go that route. It's just that most of them are 2011 or older and I've heard that the chances of a simple dispute removing the old ones are better.

Currently I'm making ~24k a year, I'm a single mom of two toddlers and I'm supporting my mother who lives in another state as well right now. Work has been slow and my hours were cut on top of taking care of my mother, that's why I'm stretched very thin for the moment but hopefully that changes soon. I'm still able to pay all my bills on time and my rent is 650$ a month. I was hoping to be able to look into a rural developement loan once my credit looks better because of the criteria being easier to meet and mortgages being half of what I throw away in rent each month.

Do you think it'd be helpful to go ahead and get a secured card while I do the GWs and disputes, etc? Or should I wait to be approved for an unsecured card if/when my credit is finally good enough? Are there any other ways to raise my credit that you can point me towards? Other than what I've listed, that is. I don't have any credit cards and I own my car.

[Anonymous]

Get a secured card as soon as you can without putting yourself in a bind. This will start a good credit history while tackling the baddies. It'll shorten the time before you have good credit. Plus it'll give your scores a bit of a boost

[Anonymous]

Question: I want to dispute some medical collections as well. What is the dispute reason that you put?

[Anonymous]

Brooketrupiano, I just wrote that I had no knowledge of the medical accounts(which was pretty much true since they're so old) and asked the credit bureaus for them to verify the accounts. My first online dispute with experian I don't even remember what I wrote exactly but it was basically the same "I have no knowledge or records of this account". We'll see how far my most recent dispute gets me.

Rmduhon27, thanks that will be my next step in the next few weeks. Of course I'd love to skip the secured card and just get an unsecured instead but I really have no idea when my credit will be fair enough for that and I want to do everything I can for the time being.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Brooketrupiano, I just wrote that I had no knowledge of the medical accounts(which was pretty much true since they're so old) and asked the credit bureaus for them to verify the accounts. My first online dispute with experian I don't even remember what I wrote exactly but it was basically the same "I have no knowledge or records of this account". We'll see how far my most recent dispute gets me.

Rmduhon27, thanks that will be my next step in the next few weeks. Of course I'd love to skip the secured card and just get an unsecured instead but I really have no idea when my credit will be fair enough for that and I want to do everything I can for the time being.

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I would suggest applying for a regular Capital One Platinum card first. If approved, then apply for a seconds QS1 card from them. Then for your third card, consider a secured card from a CU such as SDFCU.

You need three revolving accounts for best scores.

[Anonymous]

Are my scores high enough to get approved for the capital one platinum card, do you think? Id been avoiding capital one because I had an old collection from them from 2009-2010. It just fell off my credit report in the past 2 months I believe since the 7 years has passed but I'm not sure if this would hinder my getting approved by them.