Rebuild after stupid mistake

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much for all your insight.  I have a couple 30 days late - one in March 2008 (divorce), one 30 days in June 2008 (total oversite on my part), one 30 days late Aug 2005 and a medical bill that went to collections July 2008 (this was due to insurance arguements).   Mortgage has always been ontime and current, same with all car payments, student loans and all other cards.  How does that rank overall?

My report has the following breakdown.

1 mortgage - current

28 revolving - balance 4,851 all current

6 installment - balance 50,000 all current

1 Collection - $0.00 balance

[Anonymous]

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cocoa2009 wrote:

Thank you very much for all your insight.  I have a couple 30 days late - one in March 2008 (divorce), one 30 days in June 2008 (total oversite on my part), one 30 days late Aug 2005 and a medical bill that went to collections July 2008 (this was due to insurance arguements).   Mortgage has always been ontime and current, same with all car payments, student loans and all other cards.  How does that rank overall?

My report has the following breakdown.

1 mortgage - current

28 revolving - balance 4,851 all current

6 installment - balance 50,000 all current

1 Collection - $0.00 balance

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For the medical, follow the HIPAA process and check out our new board "Recovering from Medical Debt".

For lates, send GW letters.

For paid collections, send GW letters.

28 open revolving? What is your current util being reported? To calculate total balances/total CL. Don't include accounts that are closed, unless they have a balance. Then only include the balance, not the CL.

[Anonymous]

Thanks.  Just cause I'm new - "GW" refers to Good Will letters?  The 28 is the high level summary all but 4 are closed.  What's "util"?

[Anonymous]

Yes, GW means Good Will.

Util - Utilization....how much of your revolving credit are you utilizing? This is important in the FICO formula. You want no more than 9% on each card and no more than 9% total reporting.

Add up all balances and divide by total CL...this equals util.

[upinflagstaff]

Write GW letters on the lates. It can't hurt and they might even remove the lates (they are pretty recent). I would write,

Dear creditor,

I am writing to ask for a goodwill adjustment to the late payments reported to the CRAs for March 2008, June 2008, and Aug 2005. I was going through a divorce in 2008 which caused me to get behind. I mention this not as an excuse, but to explain that this is not my normal behavior (something like that) as you can plainly see by my recent history.

You want to tell them you are "better now" and you will never be late again. 

Of course if these are closed you might not have as good luck. Also, search out the GW letters, they give a pretty good guideline. 

[llecs]

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cocoa2009 wrote:

Thank you very much for all your insight.  I have a couple 30 days late - one in March 2008 (divorce), one 30 days in June 2008 (total oversite on my part), one 30 days late Aug 2005 and a medical bill that went to collections July 2008 (this was due to insurance arguements).   Mortgage has always been ontime and current, same with all car payments, student loans and all other cards.  How does that rank overall?

My report has the following breakdown.

1 mortgage - current

28 revolving - balance 4,851 all current

6 installment - balance 50,000 all current

1 Collection - $0.00 balance

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Did you pull your FICO score before the CA appeared? That could be a big source there.

You would want to send a GW to the CA asking them to remove it. A CA with a $0 balance is just as damaging as a CA with a $10,000 balance.

Keep up with the installment loans as scheduled.

Pay your CC balances down below 9% utilization per card. For a rough calculation, for every 10% of your overall utilization you pay down, you roughly gain 10 points. So, if you pay down 50% down to 6%, for example, then expect over a 40 point jump. But individual util matters too.

Send GWs for the lates.

ETA...everyone types faster than I do.

Message Edited by llecs on 03-25-2009 11:47 AM

[llecs]

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Donks3369 wrote:

llecs,

You are too fast for me.  And you wrote all that in one mintue?

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Ever see the movie, The Matrix? One of our super-mod abilities is to plug ourselves into the FICO Matrix and get instant knowledge and type with superhuman speed. j/k

Actually I was responding to a message that was posted over 20 min. earlier. Typing lessons would apply well here.

[Anonymous]

Many thanks to all!  I'll calculate my UTIL.  I need to pull a more recent report. 

[upinflagstaff]

I've used the free typing program, Bruce's Unusual Typing Tutor. But since I don't use Windows any more than I have to I have tracked down one to keep using... (Way off topic)

[tullz85]

Llecs - I'm still learning after spending numerous hours on here, but seeing the 10 point increase for every 10% util (theoretically ) you pay down was amazing!!! Now I know how I can bump up my score super quick!