Personal Credit Status

Anonymous · ‎02-28-2017

Hello people of myFICO!

I've been reading around on the forum for a couple of days now because I've decided it's my time to get in gear. I am a young adult that will be graduating college in about a year so I want to make a year plan to get my personal finances in order.

I wasn't very smart with my money, my credit, or anything related to my credit reports throughout my young adult life. I never really cared about my credit score or anything like that because I never had to. Now, I have to. I want to be able to get the credit cards, car loans, and mortgages that I wish once I am out of college and on my own.

I don't know a lot about credit, but I've been learning over the past few days what it really means. According to CreditKarma, I currently have a 517 TU score and a 486 EQ score. I know, these scores are awful.

Starting with credit cards:

I had a Discover It card with a balance of $1,000 to which I let get out of hand and it got charged off. I paid the debt in full yesterday.

I had a Capital One QS card with a $300 balance. Got out of hand with it and they said close it or it'll get charged off. I paid the debt in full yesterday.

I am an authorized user on a Chase Mileage Plus Explorer card with a balance of $22,300. It has satisfactory payment history and was paid down from $16,000 to $0 yesterday.

On to collections:

I have 4 collections in total.

1. Paid in full and closed

2. Paid in full and closed

3. Paid in full yesterday $789

4. Paid in full yesterday $221

Late Payments:

I have numerous late payments on both my Discover It card and my Capital One card. Other than that I have 0 late payments on anything.

Auto Loan:

I have an auto loan of $3,500 or so with perfect payment history.

School:

I have approximetely $18,000 worth of student loans which are currently differed due to being in school still.

For the most part that sums up what I know of my credit report. My goal for right now is to get all 3 of my credit scores to 650+ (In 1 year if possible). I have been reading a lot about goodwill letters and things of that matter, but it is certainly confusing. I'd like to try to get the collection accounts removed and the late payments removed if at all possible. At this point I no longer have a credit card other than the card I am authorized on, do I apply for another credit card?

Any other advice from anyone as to how to proceed in rebuilding my credit would be much appreciated. If you have any questions or comments, reply or message me, thank you!

Anonymous · ‎02-28-2017

Hi,

Congrats on paying all of your collections off!

Curious, did you try to ask for a Pay for Delete? I was in a very similar situation and every collection agency I called I negotiated at pay for delete - full or settled. That being said, a lot of collection agencies will say that they do not offer any of type of pay for delete but the reality of it is they do. You just need to twist some arms and get the right person. I was able to get 5 collections removed from my credit report with that after all of that was done, I did a direct dispute through Creditkarma. Credit karma saved my credit with those directdispute service they have.

Definitely give all of that a shot and call those collection agencies and ask for a removal letter. They will do it, you just need to be persistent with them and keep calling till you find the right rep.

Goodluck!

Chris679 · ‎03-01-2017

It sounds like you have everything paid off. That is a major first step and as time goes on those old negatives will have less of an impact on your credit score. Keep writing letters to try to get negatives removed and as your scores creep up toward 600 you should be able to get your hands on at least a secured card.

Anonymous · ‎03-01-2017

Unfortunetely, I did not know about the pay to delete option before I had already paid my collections. I only learned soon after that I could have done this so it'll be strictly goodwill letters from this point forward. Still trying to figure that process out.

If I were to get a securd card at some point, is that something that I would have to keep forever or could it be converted from a secured card to an unsecured card?

Anonymous · ‎03-01-2017

@Anonymous wrote:
Unfortunetely, I did not know about the pay to delete option before I had already paid my collections. I only learned soon after that I could have done this so it'll be strictly goodwill letters from this point forward. Still trying to figure that process out.

If I were to get a securd card at some point, is that something that I would have to keep forever or could it be converted from a secured card to an unsecured card?

You wouldn't have to keep it forever, but you want to keep it open and active (and paid on time!) for six months at least, a year would be better.

There are varying degrees of "converting" secured to unsecured. Some cards do, some don't, some have a kind of gray area. Cap One has been rumored to be graduating people from secured to unsecured, but I'm not sure that's happened. Discover does unsecure, but it depends on your score improvement. Not sure you'll be able to get in with either of them at this point, since they were charge offs, even though you did pay them. You may have to wait six months or so.

Your late payments are killing your score ... the only way to change that is to goodwill them if possible, but that's tough, and you'll have to spend time working on it.

Anonymous · ‎03-21-2017

Update:

Capital One Secured is in the mail.
Discover Secured is in the mail.
Denied BoA Secured due to collections reporting.
Talked to my mom about the balance on her Chase card. I can't afford for it to be heavily utilized all of the time so I am going to remove myself from that card and have her add me to a different Chase card and a USAA card that she keeps $0 balances on. Both have nearly 15 years of age.

Working on getting my collections cleaned up and removed if possible. They are all paid and there is a couple that are being investigated, hoping that they're cleaned up by the time my new report generates. My scores have came up a little bit since I started, but I'd like them to all be in the 600's very soon. With the deletion of the AU Chase account, my utilization will drop from 90% to 0% and I'll be able to keep it under control with my new cards. I am not sure what the new cards are going to do when they reflect themselves upon my reports, but we'll see.

- Currently working on coming up with $500 that I can use for the Shared Secured loan method through Alliant as my current installment loan isn't reporting to EQ.