Just wanted to post quickly regarding some progress I've made over the past few months. Certainly hasn't been easy, and most definitely not possible without all the advice and encourage from the members of the community. I started my journey towards the end of 2016. I've been used to hovering in the low 500's and had pretty much given up on ever having good credit. We got hit with a few unexpected expenses and didn't quite have the cash to cover all of it. I pulled my FICO's and saw I was in the 440's for both EQ and TU with my EX being in the 450's. High util's of the card I did have combined with baddies on my record had dragged me to an all time low. I don't know what made me do it, but something changed mentality wise and I was determined to break the habit, the jorney of a 1000 miles begins with the first step right? The first thing I did was bring my util down as quickly as possible. At the time, I had a Cap1 secured and Cap1 QS1 with limits of $500 each. Paying those down got me a pretty good boost to the 480's. Then I heard about collectionshield360 and figured why the hell not, couldn't hurt me any more. When signed up, I had 7 accounts in collection. After the dust settled, they ended successfully deleting two collections which gave me a boost of 72, 75, and 76 points on EQ, EX, and TU and putting me 550-560's range accross the board. At this point, I was on the moon about how much progress I had made in effectively less than 6 months. I was even able to get pre-approved by Cap1 for an auto loan at 9% APR (not the greatest, clearly).
Fast forward another month to where we are now, and I was able to successfully negotiate a PFD for 3 additional collections which will bring my total down to 2 collections. Based on research on the forum, there has been an overwhelming amount of success with the remaining two CA's for getting PFD's. These last 2 are relatively small (about $300 each) so hopeflly I can get these taken care of in the next month. My Cap1 cards have gotten CLI's to $1000 each and are PIF before statements are cut.
As of right now, my FICO's are EQ 592, TU 607, and EX 601 but those 3 collections are set to fall off any day now. Hopefully those boost my scores enough for me to get out of the garden and start to apply for the cards I really want (Amex delta, marriot rewards). A huge thank you to those who have helped me along the way. I've been inspired by so many of your journeys and success stories, I can only hope that my story does the same for someone else out there. Cheers!
