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I can't believe it!!! I have a lot of credit, which was all good until 4 yrs ago when te real estate market started falling apart. My business relied upon real estate, so down I went to. I had to quit paying all of my credit cards. 9 in total, with balances totalling about $60,000. Ugh. But, as a single mom, I went from making $140,000 to $8,000. I did what I could.
All is charged off now. I also voluntary repo-ed a car in January of 2009. Everything seemed hopeless. But, last year Westlake FInancial gave me a chance on a car loan. My credit score went from the low 400's to like 550! COuldn't believe it!!! I started getting credit card offers. Were they stupid? lol... Meanwhile, American Express sent me a couple of offers, reducing my debt to 30%. I do like AMX a lot, becuse they only charge you one late fee, then stop the interest, unlike the other CCC's. Also, the settlement offers that they gave me were not lump sums that I could only dream about. THey gave me payment plans. So, I took them up on it! It felt good to start paying again. I don't believe in BK and really didn't want to go that route. Now, one is done and gone off of my credit. THe other will be done next year (original balance was $11,000). I settled on a collection with Verizon too. THey let me make payments and I'm paying about 40% of the original debt. Wells Fargo/Wachovia is who I had the repo with. THey settled with me at $2500 on a $11,500 balance a few month's ago with my tax refund. All of that wiped out $25,000 of my total debt. What a relief. But still, my credit score lingered at 570, 582,592 as of the beginning of the month.
So, I've been reading a lot on this website the last few weeks. My dream is to by a house again once I get my license to be an RN next year. I don't have a lot of free money to spend on credit repair, but I can use a little bit monthly($200 - $300) and utilize my tax refunds to the fullest, making negotiations with the CCC's. BUT, I wanted to share with you after reading the forums here, I paid my maxed out Capital One card that I got a few months ago down to less than 10% of the available balance and my credit scores shot WAY UP!!!! I'm now at 620 (EXP FICO), 638 (TU), 606 (EQ). I can't believe it was that simple!!
I have also calculated the SOL dates for my credit cards that I have not been able to pay, and most of them are up this August/September/October. So, should I send out DV letters then? I will try to settle for deletions as much as possible with my tax refund next year too. I have 2 with Asset Acceptance, one with LVNV Funding, one with Midland, and a few small collections. The collectios are not worth paying though unless they are willing to delete, right? They will only update and make it look worse. Is that true? They are all at least 3 years old anyway.
Well thank you, Community, for giving me hope again!!!
Congrats! You've done a lot of work and that is no small thing!
If one of those CAs sends your debt to another CA and the new CA starts reporting, that could drop your score. Apparently paying them off shouldn't, though.
I'm wondering where you got an EX FICO or if it's maybe a typo and you meant EQ FICO