I have gained an immense amount of knowledge by reading online forums and I am very thankful that people take time to post it, so I want to try to give back or pay it forward by sharing what I know thus far about the process of rebuilding. If you are looking to rebuild your credit I hope the following will help you.
First of all, before you do anything, get your finances in order. Find ways to cut your spending and find ways to make some extra income. You may be unable to suddenly find ways to make additional money, but there are usually always ways that you can cut down on your outgoing money. Instead of going out on the town and spending money, spend time reading about credit. It may not be as fun, but all it costs is an internet connection and your time. It will be time well spent as you learn about ways to increase your credit score and it will save you money as it will occupy your time for no cost. I personally spent countless hours searching the internet to learn more about credit.
My story: I became determined to improve my credit and my finances after years of not really caring about it. When I was younger I made mistakes with credit cards, I was irresponsible and didn't pay them. First thing I did, was found ways to cut down on my spending and ways to make some extra income. Then I started paying down installment loans that I have. Not only did paying down the loans feel good, it gave my score a little boost. During this time I spent a lot of my time reading all that I could find on credit rebuilding. I then got a Credit Karma account (free and will show you what is on your Equifax and Transunion reports, DO NOT believe that their scores are accurate, they are pretty much irrelevant to the real world, so ignore their scores). I then got an account on here and on Transunion, Equifax and Experian. Of course that adds up to a lot of money every month, but it was worth the cost to me to really see what was going on with my credit. I am now in the process of cancelling some subscriptions, not sure which ones I will keep yet.
Once I was able to view my reports it gave me a clearer picture as to where I was. I found that most of my derogatories were facing the 7 year mark. First thing I did was dispute some information with each bureau that I did not believe was accurate information. I will admit that this was a confusing process as the account were old and information about them on my end was pretty much non-existent. Anyway I disputed what I believed to be inaccurate and to my surprise several charge off accounts were removed, some remained but updated to being paid and closed (which they were never paid). So I am not really sure how the disputes that I had worked so well in my favor but they did. Also during the dispute process one of the two collections I had on Transunion was deleted. After disputing what I felt was incorrect information I then contacted the credit bureaus to ask for early exclusions on a few charge offs that were pushing the 7 year mark. I had some success after a few requests with each bureau and got some more derogatory accounts deleted, not all gone, but most of them. As far as 1 remaining collection on my reports, I hired a consumer law attorney to deal with the debt collector and within a few days of acquiring the attorney, the collection accounts disappeared from all three bureaus. I still do have a couple negative accounts on my report which I will have to wait a little longer before I ask for an early exclusion on them. That is my cleanup story.
Then after getting my reports cleaned up a bit, I got a secured Capital One card. Then I got a regular Capital One card. I cannot say enough good about Capital One as they are one of the remaining charge offs on my credit report. Capital One definitely does second chances, at least in my case they did. The secure card just reported last month and gave my score a significant boost, I am still waiting for the second one to report, which I expect a slight increase to my scores once that happens. I am going to go for a third card soon to maximize my potential for growth and then take a break from applying for credit for a while.
Long story short, my advice is for anyone trying to rebuild: 1)Get your finances together 2)Read, read and read some more about credit 3) make sure you know what is on your credit reports. Get them!! 4) Work on paying down any open accounts that you have 5) If you feel that there is inaccurate information on your reports, dispute it 5) if you are close to the 7 year mark on negatives, ask for early exclusions, don't give up if you are told no, keep asking and keep asking and eventually you may get a rep that will grant you the early exclusion 6) make sure you get some credit lines, start out with secured cards if you have to, but get some positive information reporting 7) don't delay your rebuilding efforts because it takes time, be patient but be persistent
These are just some of the things I have to offer now and I really hope that it can help someone. All of our situations are different, so make sure you do thorough research about your own situation, be armed with as much knowledge as you can be. I used to be under the impression that there is nothing you can do about your credit score, I thought you had to let time run its course, I was very wrong. There are many things that you can do, but as I said earlier do not procrastinate because it does take some time.
Starting Score: 472