The Journey Begins.. Many questions. Please Help!

[kimball00]

As I continue the road to credit repair, I have already begun sending goodwill letters to get baddies of my record- for going at it 2 days I have had no success, but have sent out numerous letters, emails, and faxes... We will see where this gets me.

But as I continue this process I have a few questions, I just downloaded and printed my credit report...

Do I ask creditors to remove accounts that were closed in good standing? Will this help my score?

What should my total accounts vs. open accounts, vs closed accounts be?

TU 50, 13, 37

EX 52, 13, 39

EQ 30, 13, 17

I have almost 20 accounts through CitiBank Student loans on my report that were sold/bought by other student loan companies, should I get them removed? Will this help my score?

What are some other tried and true methods (besides letting time do its work) to get this score moving up in the right direction?

Thank you for the help, I am grateful to have joined this site!

[Asailorshort]

I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than me will come along soon with a more detailed explanation, but NO you don't want to have accounts that were closed in good standing off your report. They 1. Show creditors your responsible use of credit in the past (which is a good indicator for future responsible use) and 2. Having those accounts removed could bring down your AAoA (average age of accts). Even though these accts are closed they are still included in this calculation and you want your AAoA to be high, as it's easier to manage credit over a short amount of time vs. a longer period of time. Interesting question as to what's the best mix of open vs. closed accts. hopefully someone can answer that more specifically. I do know that a couple credit simulators use 20+ as their highest level of accts but I believe that includes both open and closed accts. however if a lot of your 13 open accts carry a significant balance, you may run the risk of having too high of a debt to income ratio. (debt to income ratio is surprisingly NOT a factor in your Fico score but it is a factor many lenders use when deciding whether or not to extend credit) I'm not sure, but 13 open accts (all in good standing?) seems like a good number and i wouldn't be anxious to add to that. Speaking of, if a lot of those 13 accts are credit cards with a high utilization %, paying those down to less than 50%, and ideally less than 10%, WILL boost your scores pretty decently. Also, I'll ask now before someone else does, where did you get those scores in your signature from? True FICO scores can only be obtained from a few sources and many online commercial products sell a score based on a different formula than fair isaacs/fico. One of the most common 'other' scores (often ref'd to as FAKO) is traNs risk which I believe goes up to 900 vs. the 850 max for Fico. I know when I first got my reports and scores I was so happy to see a 700+ score but later was disappointed when I found out it was a FAKO score.

[kimball00]

I go the scores from freescore.com.... Not a good place to start?

So the issue is this there are 5 derogatory accounts on my CR that I have sent good will letters to get removed. I basically stopped paying my cards, used a DMP and have settled 4 out of 5 accounts. So this is the route of the poor credit scores. As I read the material on this site, Im not sure what the correct procedure is/should have been. I have sent numerous goodwill letters out to get the derogatory accounts removed.

What about the consolidated/sold student loan accounts. I know the amount of money doesn't change cause it's just going from one lender to another, but do all the accounts that are "closed" affect my CRs? Should I attempt to get them removed?

What are some Remarks on my CR I should be looking for to get removed?

So, I guess my overriding question is where should I begin? I need someone to explain to me what they've done after going through the DMP method, settling accounts, and then trying to fix credit.

Thanks

[MarineVietVet]

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@kimball00 wrote:

I go the scores from freescore.com.... Not a good place to start?

So the issue is this there are 5 derogatory accounts on my CR that I have sent good will letters to get removed. I basically stopped paying my cards, used a DMP and have settled 4 out of 5 accounts. So this is the route of the poor credit scores. As I read the material on this site, Im not sure what the correct procedure is/should have been. I have sent numerous goodwill letters out to get the derogatory accounts removed.

What about the consolidated/sold student loan accounts. I know the amount of money doesn't change cause it's just going from one lender to another, but do all the accounts that are "closed" affect my CRs? Should I attempt to get them removed?

What are some Remarks on my CR I should be looking for to get removed?

So, I guess my overriding question is where should I begin? I need someone to explain to me what they've done after going through the DMP method, settling accounts, and then trying to fix credit.

Thanks

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Unfortunately no. None of those scores are FICO scores. They are called "PLUS" scores and no lender uses them so you really don't have a good idea where you stand unless you have at least one true FICO score.

No one has been able to buy their own Experian FICO score since February of 2009. Creditors can pull Experian and also there is a CU (PSECU) in Pennsylvania that supplies that information to it's members only. You can only buy true FICO scores at a few places. One place is here at myFICO.

At one time you could also purchase your Transunion score at transunioncs.com but no more. Wal Mart now offers a TU08 score to those who have their store card and the Discover version.

Equifax recently stopped selling the 4 FICO reports/yr product but it's still available as an affiliate link:
https://www.econsumer.equifax.com/otc/landing.ehtml?^start=&companyName=mtbk_esn3r

Also I will add this from longtime member llecs: 

"Virtually everyone sells scores, but they are not all FICO scores. If you got scores from the big 3, then very likely 2 or all 3 of them are not FICO scores. Experian and TransUnion do not sell FICO scores on their website. We call these non-FICO scores, FAKOs, and can easily be as much as a few points to 100+ points off your real FICO when pulled the same day. If it didn't say "FICO" next to the score, then it isn't.

Other companies (e.g. freecreditreport.com, freescore.com, truecredit, creditkarma, Equifax Credit Complete, Quizzle, and dozens of others out there) sell scores, but they are nothing more than gimmicks and lenders don't use them. They do this because they want to avoid paying any fees to FICO and when they say "credit score" people buy it anyway on the assumption that it is a FICO. The scores are off because the formula is different, factors in different things as compared to FICO, and score ranges are different than FICO's (e.g. FICO is 300-850, Vantage is 501-990, PLUS is 330-830, TransRisk is 350-850, and so on)."

[rckstrscott]

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@kimball00 wrote:

As I continue the road to credit repair, I have already begun sending goodwill letters to get baddies of my record- for going at it 2 days I have had no success, but have sent out numerous letters, emails, and faxes... We will see where this gets me.

But as I continue this process I have a few questions, I just downloaded and printed my credit report...

Do I ask creditors to remove accounts that were closed in good standing? Will this help my score?

What should my total accounts vs. open accounts, vs closed accounts be?

TU 50, 13, 37

EX 52, 13, 39

EQ 30, 13, 17

I have almost 20 accounts through CitiBank Student loans on my report that were sold/bought by other student loan companies, should I get them removed? Will this help my score?

What are some other tried and true methods (besides letting time do its work) to get this score moving up in the right direction?

Thank you for the help, I am grateful to have joined this site!

---

2 days?!?!?! Some of us have been on this rebuilding journey for YEARS! it takes time but you will learn what ya need here... We all were first time posters once...

What kind of positive accounts do you have?

The number one way, and fastest way to increase your FICO score is to pay down revolving debt.  If you have high balances, these are score killers. Sometimes, more so than negative accounts...

Do you have any active credit cards? How many accounts? What kinds of balances? And lates?

How is your credit mix? Do you have auto loans? Mortgages? Anything aside from those stydent loans?

Give us the bigger picture; and we might have more suggestions...

What kind of negatives? How old? Collections? Charge offs? Judgment? ect ect

-scott

[marty56]

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@kimball00 wrote:

I go the scores from freescore.com.... Not a good place to start?

So the issue is this there are 5 derogatory accounts on my CR that I have sent good will letters to get removed. I basically stopped paying my cards, used a DMP and have settled 4 out of 5 accounts. So this is the route of the poor credit scores. As I read the material on this site, Im not sure what the correct procedure is/should have been. I have sent numerous goodwill letters out to get the derogatory accounts removed.

What about the consolidated/sold student loan accounts. I know the amount of money doesn't change cause it's just going from one lender to another, but do all the accounts that are "closed" affect my CRs? Should I attempt to get them removed?

What are some Remarks on my CR I should be looking for to get removed?

So, I guess my overriding question is where should I begin? I need someone to explain to me what they've done after going through the DMP method, settling accounts, and then trying to fix credit.

Thanks

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If you settled your accounts for less than owed, you were not in a DMP program but a debt settlement program.  I would be surprised that you would have any luck here with GW and I would be mindful f the account that wasn't settled yet since they could seek a judgment against you.  You need to start paying that account again,

For those thinking about using a debt settlement company, you better think again. 

You have nothing to loose in using the GW process and I would not do anything else that could have a negative effect on your credit.

[kimball00]

Ok so the bigger picture and some more questions to follow.

My account make up:

Credit Cards/"Baddie"/Closed-5

Collections accounts/"Baddie"/Open- 1

Credit Cards/Closed- 14

Credit Cards/Open-2

Student Loans/Closed (Sold)- 17

Student Loans/Open- 9

Auto/Closed- 1

Auto/Open-1

Judgments- 1

That is the makeup of my credit report. Most of the closed student loan accounts were opened in 2001/2002 and closed/sold in 2005. Most of the closed credit cards were open in 2004/2005 and closed in 2008/2009. The two open cards, one was open in 07/2011 and the other 05/2007. Should I try to get another card or two to get my available credit limit up reducing my utilization rate?

What comments are good remarks in the remarks section? Ie. Paid, closed, never late. Does a "dispute" or "transferred" in the remarks have any effect? How much do student loans play an effect on my score? Were talking it is about 85% of my debt.

All these closed credit cards and closed student loan accounts- how are they effecting my score? Should I try to get some of them off?

My credit card utilization rate is about 60%, which Im working on bringing down.

So far with GW letters I have sent a bunch out and have slowly started getting some reports. I have found that one will not report to the credit bureaus and I have even been playing phone tag with a credit card company's office of the CEO. So things are moving..

Thanks for all the help! This site is great!

Ryan

[kimball00]

Another question:

My partner and I are in the process of buying a house- hence the importance of getting my score higher. Although we are not going to put me on the mortgage application as it will probably increase the interest rate, would it benefit my credit to add me as an authorized user on the account? I have heard this helps, but I have also heard that there are new laws/rules that don't allow this to be reported to credit bureaus. What's the truth here?

[rckstrscott]

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@kimball00 wrote:

Another question:

My partner and I are in the process of buying a house- hence the importance of getting my score higher. Although we are not going to put me on the mortgage application as it will probably increase the interest rate, would it benefit my credit to add me as an authorized user on the account? I have heard this helps, but I have also heard that there are new laws/rules that don't allow this to be reported to credit bureaus. What's the truth here?

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I don't think there is such a thing as an AU on a mortgage account.

60 percent util is pretty high, if you get it down to under 10 percent you will see a good point boost. I went from 620 to 680 when I went from 79 percent to 9 percent.

-scott

[kimball00]

Well there has been no progress so far, but I will continue to keep trying.

I got a letter back from Bank of America after emailing the CEO basically telling me that if they remove the account from my credit report it would be unfair to other consumers. That the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires them to report the correct information including the delinquency to the credit bureaus. Any ideas on a creative rebuttal to ask again?

Thanks!