Credit was never really a factor in my life, so I had never paid particular attention to it. Besides I KNEW that it was bad.
Here's the quick story...
I finished my degree in Jan 2008. Just in time for the economy to go to hell. I defaulted on 48k of student loans on 10/09.
I had no money, and minimal income, so I really didn't have a solution, so stupidly - I let it lie.
By 2010 I had found a job and had an acceptable salary - but the student loans were so far gone that I had a wage garnishment arleady.
The interesting thing is that they were split between two guarantee agencies.
28k went to Sallie Mae, and in turn to Account control, and eventually FAMS.
The other 20k was either paid or guaranteed by the NJ Higher Education Student Assistance authority. - These are the ppl that had the wage garnisment on me.
For the next 5 years I worked and the garnishment continued. I just considered my take home pay to be the amount I made less the garnishment.
I had no other personal credit, except some stuff from years ago. (some good some bad).
I was an authorized user on two of my family's cards. - a Chase Freedom MC $5k limit (which was basically setup for my exclusive use - I charged I paid) and a BOA World Points MC $5k limit (this was a use in case of emergency card - I have NEVER used my card).
Fast forward to June 2014 - I saw a posting about a job in law enforcement that I had the degree and the skills for. It was paying 30k more than I made, AND it came with a govt pension, govt hours, and govt health benefits etc. I signed up to take the test, knowing the hiring process would be long. I knew once I passed the testing stage there would be an extensive background investigation. I had no criminal issues to speak of, but I knew there was no way with defaulted student loans, so I finally answered the phone when the FAMS ppl called and setup a rehab plan. That would take 9 months to accomplish, but they played a bit of a game splitting the 1st payment into 2 payments 15 days apart to expedite the process. I completed S/L rehab in late April of 2015
At the same time (May 15) the balance on the loans held by the NJ Student assistance authority had dropped to $7100. I called them asking what we could do to resolve the matter and they offered me 10% off if I paid in full. I had the money so I walked in there and wrote them a check. They issued me a letter on the spot saying my debt was satisfied and a letter to my employer to stop garnishing my wages. The letter also said they would notify the credit bureaus within 30 days.
End of May 2015 - I get a package of papers in the mail - Navient has now picked up my student loans. They claim that all record of default will be erased, and my new payment will be XXX.xx Starting July 2015. (more on the default erasure later)
June 2015 - Judgement day - I had to pull my credit history file as part of the hiring process ( I had made it through all the other required steps - and this was part of the 45 page background check pakage). I signed up for TU credit monitoring and pulled my 3 bureau report. It was UGLY. This was the first time I had ever seen the entire credit profile nor really cared about my credit.
ALL my SL's were still showing as defaulted by Sallie Mae
New Jersey Student Assistance Authority still showed my loans as defaulted.
I had a judgement for $702 on my report (This was paid years ago) but it was still showing as open.
I had an open collection for $333 from Enhanced Recovery over a sprint bill from YEARS ago. (this was entered on my CR in 2012)
So my starting scores were as follows:
(6/15) TU 587 EQ 564 EX 563.
I Included ALL my SL documentation with my credit file and wrote my background investigator a long letter explaining I had worked long and hard to resolve all these issues and that my loans were now half paid in full half rehabbed. Other than that I had the highest test score in the state and was ranked #1 on the list. Somehow it worked and I got the job! I started my new career 7/06/15.
So.... Right around the time I was sending off my backround package. Something strange happened. I got a "pre approved" credit card offer from Capital One in the mail. I googled and figured ok, it's going to be one of those 300-500 limit cards, but hey everyone has to start at the bottom, and I suddenly now cared about my credit. So I went online and responded to the offer. I was shocked to see that I was approved for 3k CL with no annual fee etc. I finally had my first credit card.
I got the card in the Mail at the end of June.
Around this time I started to get alerts from TransUnion Credit monitoring. Navient had added my SL's accounts that they were now servicing to my credit report. However at the same time the Sallie Mae loans were still showing as defaulted. So I have duplicate entires (6 in total) for each of my 6 SL's one in good standing with Navient - and one 180 late with a default with Sallie Mae. I went on the TU Dispute site and it claims that all my Sallie Mae Entries are scheduled to drop off of my report on 11/2015.
Fast forward to August 2015. I now had made 2 SL payments on time, and had made 2 on time payments on my Capital One card. - it started reporting in July.
Suddenly my TU score showed to be a 684! I have yet to pull another 3 bureau report (waiting until December - hoping sallie mae will have dropped off all 3 by then)
I got another pre-approved credit card offer in the mail - from the USAA Wounded Warrior Project (I'm ex military) and I figured why not. I went online and was approved for a $5k limit. I got the card about 3 weeks ago.
Then the unbelievable happened. At this point I had now become semi credit obcessed. So I started reading this forum and others. And I learned about the pre-qualifier sites etc.
Last week I went on chase - i was pre qualed for freedom and slate. And then I went on AMEX and did a pre qual, and there it was. - AMEX platimum Prequal with 100k point bonus offer with a 3k spend in 3 months. I have some purchases coming up anyway so that shouldn't be a big deal. I applied thinking it was too good to be true and bam - Approved.
I don't plan on applying for much else for a few months. - My next card will be the british airways Visa signature - that will give me 50k bonus BA Avios - that and the 100k amex points (which transfer to BA 1:1, sometimes more than 1:1) will give me over 150k miles with BA.
So I have a few questions:
Will I see a substantial score increase once the Sallie Mae negatives are removed from my CR?
Is there anything I can do with the enhanced Recovery sprint account. First I believe that the original Sprint account is OLD - like post statute of limitations old. But the collection account was placed in 2012. Will paying it have any affect? Has anyone done a pay for delete?
Thanks in advance for all the advise. I know I have a long way to go to get to the level of "good" credit, but I think the turnaround so far is remarkable.
