Rebuilding before I hit 30. A millennial's story.

[phico]

I spent a good portion of my late teens messing up my credit straight out of high school. First two cards were from Capital One ($500) and Chase Bank ($1,000). My parents never taught me the value of credit nor did they teach me what to do when your credit goes bad. Not that any of this were their fault I was just never told anything except "NEVER GET CREDIT CARDS. ALWAYS SAVE YOUR MONEY." Two pieces of advice that I wish I had either followed or never heard at all considering the advice was ill given.

After 2 years of having the cards I defaulted. I moved to Arizona and my income went from $9/hour to $5.25 as Arizona did not have a minimum wage law set up at the time. On top of working for pennies and dimes I was also a college student living off of student loans all of which now total $18,000. I managed to be able to get a $300 card From First Premier Bank which after the lovely APR and $75 dollar annual fee I gave way to another defaulted CC. Once I hit my 20s I was already up to $4,000 in debt. But it doesn't stop there. After a few horrible college roomates, losing health insurance coverage I managed to gain $7,700 MORE in debt. Which brings my fabulous total to about $11,500.

Here is my list of baddies:

Collections USA: $1,000 (Falls off Nov. 2014)

Collections USA: $500 (Falls off June 2016)

Diversified Consultants: $1,200 (Falls off Sept. 2017)

LDC Collection Systems: $300 (Falls off May 2016)

Midland Funding: $3,000 (Falls off October 2013 *but OC reports it will fall off SEPT. 2013)

Midland Funding: $1, 200 (Falls off May 2017 *same debt being collected by Diversified Consultants)

Enhanced Recovery: $400 (Falls of April 2015)

*If anyone has had luck with dealing with these listed companies please do share your story!*

First time I ever checked my scores was after I started recieving collection notices years ago and the scores were depressing:

EX: 520

EQ: 545

TU: 515

Here are my current scores:

EX: 543 (FAKO) down 100 points after Midland Judgement was discovered (I'll share more later)

EQ: 638 (FICO) up 40 points after paying down CC Debt (see bottom)

TU: 574 (FAKO) never really kept track with TU as it has always been my lowest score

Over the past two years and help from other people with similar financial troubles I've managed to get somewhat on the right track. I currently have 7 credit cards, 2 of which I may close because of high fees.

Cap 1 Unsecured 2 years old $500 (No CLI)

Cap 1 Secured 2 years old $300 (No CLI)

Best Buy Unsecured 2 years old $500 (No CLI)

Credit One Unsecured 2 years old  $450 (One increase of $150)
Victoria's Secret  Unsecured 1 Year old $300

Express Unsecured 1 Year old  $300 

Wells Fargo Unsecured one month old  $700 

All of these cards are under 20% utlilization. 

My goals are to get my scores to at least 680 on all three by the end of this year and maybe getting approved for a new card that has a $1,500 limit or get one of my cards' limit up to $1,500. I plan to pay the youngest baddies and dispute some too. So far my only regrets are that I should have done this sooner, get on these boards and asked questions, and that I should have waited to appy for cards that were not gonna rape me with annual fees and high APRs. 

Well that's the Cliff Notes version of my story. Hope to see these scores change and baddies dissapear! Good luck to everyone!

[madmann26]

Those collections and that judgement is killing you. Funny thing with the old cards is that the balance is still probably being factored in which causes much more harm to your score.

Enhanced Recovery will delete once paid. Most of the collections will probably settle for pennies on the dollar.

Start with the lower amounts and contact the CA once you can pay one and make an offer to settle. You'll be surprised at what you hear.

[bwaycummins]

Enhanced Recovery was actually very easy to work with. It was my first successful PFD. I was still new to the process and actually asked for a PFD from them over the phone. They sent me an email with their letterhead agreeing to delete when it was paid, and they followed through. Good Luck!

[phico]

*UPDATE* (2 months later)

Here is my list of baddies that I had removed:

Collections USA: $1,000 (Falls off Nov. 2014)

Collections USA: $500 (Falls off June 2016)

Diversified Consultants: $1,200 (Falls off Sept. 2017)

LDC Collection Systems: $300 (Falls off May 2016)

Midland Funding: $3,000 (Falls off October 2013 *but OC reports it will fall off SEPT. 2013)

Enhanced Recovery: $400 (Falls of April 2015)

Updated list of baddies:

CAP ONE: $531.00 (Falls off 1/1/2014) *Forgot to list this in August.

FIRST PREMIER BANK: $333.00 (Falls off 6/1/2014) *Forgot to list this in August.

Midland Funding: $1, 200 (Falls off May 2017 *same debt being collected by Diversified Consultants)
Midland Funding: $3,000 (TURNED INTO A JUDGMENT-Fighting false info in court documents.)

*If anyone has had luck with dealing with these listed companies please do share your story!*

Original Scores 2 years ago:

EX: 520

EQ: 545

TU: 515

Here are my current scores :

EX: 570 +27 (FAKO Via USAA) Up 27 points after baddie removals.

EQ: 656 +18 (FICO) Up 18 points after all the baddie removals.

TU: 569 -5 (FAKO Via USAA) Down 5 points probably because of high Credit Usage.

No change on CLI but I called a few backdoor numbers on all my cards to see if I qualified for CLI or lower interest rates. For the most part I didn't qualify but Capital One Reps were gracious enough to refund me interest charges from up to 6 months ago.

Cap 1 Unsecured 2 years old $500

Cap 1 Secured 2 years old $300 (No CLI)

Best Buy Unsecured 2 years old $500 (No CLI)

Credit One Unsecured 2 years old  $450 (One increase of $150)
Victoria's Secret  Unsecured 1 Year old $300

Express Unsecured 1 Year old  $300 

Wells Fargo Unsecured one month old  $700

I will keep on keepin' on! Till next update!

[coldnmn]

Congrats on turning the corner! Looking forward to your updates.

[phico]

Thanks!

[phico]

Thought I'd start 2014 by doing an update!

As of January 2014 these are my scores:

EX: 581 +11 (FAKO Via USAA) 

EQ: 671 +15 (FICO) Up 18 points after all the baddie removals.

TU: 590 +21 (FAKO Via USAA) Down 5 points probably because of high Credit Usage.

I checked to see if I was eligible for any CLI on all my cards. So far no luck except for Credit One (big surprise) granting me $200 increase in exchange for a loveley $19.95 fee. I will call EO numbers for all to see if they can have UW check out my accounts manually.

I will keep on keepin' on! Till next update!

[bigblue7722]

---

@phico wrote:

Thought I'd start 2014 by doing an update!

As of January 2014 these are my scores:

EX: 581 +11 (FAKO Via USAA) 

EQ: 671 +15 (FICO) Up 18 points after all the baddie removals.

TU: 590 +21 (FAKO Via USAA) Down 5 points probably because of high Credit Usage.

I checked to see if I was eligible for any CLI on all my cards. So far no luck except for Credit One (big surprise) granting me $200 increase in exchange for a loveley $19.95 fee. I will call EO numbers for all to see if they can have UW check out my accounts manually.

I will keep on keepin' on! Till next update!

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good job keep it up

[BlkQueen]

Could you help me with midland and diversified? What contacts and wording did you use?

[phico]

Sorry for the late reply.

What are you sending them?