Would this help or hurt?

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone! I'm starting this journey in hopes of getting a great house next June. I'm getting ready to pay off some debt and mail some goodwill letters to a few creditors I have current to see if they will remove a 30 day late I had a year ago.

I had a Kohl's act that got charged off back in 2002-2003. I've since paid and it appears on my Exp as a paid account but with lates. Is it going to hurt anything if I send them a goodwill letter asking the lates to be removed? I'd wait for them to fall off, if they do, but 7 years is either 1 or 2 more away. I don't want to hurt my score as my exp is currently the highest.

Penneys has me late 2x in 2002. Is it worth it to send them a letter since it was so long ago? The account is open with a 0 balance. Reported inactive cause I rarely shop there.

Everything else, I can actually handle on my own for the moment I think. I wish there was a cheaper way to get your score from all three bureaus 1x a month though.

Thanks!

Karen

TU 548 7/2

EQ 533 7/2

EXP 588 7/2

[Anonymous]

That's a tough one...the accounts are derogs but one is also currently in good standing, and they may be providing valuable history.

Are either of them your oldest account?

[Anonymous]

Yes, actually they and my Target card are the first 3 cards I got. I opened JCP in 97 and Kohls in 99. I wish I hadn't screwed that relationship up, but live and learn, right? On one of my bureaus, JCP is reporting as closed, which like I said, it's not, but they're all listed under the good column. I just don't wanna do anything else to hurt myself, but I guess I don't have a lot to lose since Kohls is closed anyway, right? I don't know why it's reported closed instead of CO but I'm NOT complaining.

[Anonymous]

As I write my letters, I realized that the Kohls is closed. I only have the portion of the acct number that shows on my report. Is it even worth sending the letter w/o total info? Also, again since the account is listed as closed, will this hurt? I don't think they can reopen the account, but I could be wrong. On the bureau that reports this, when I was young and stupid, I...might have had late/no payments for 6-12 months, so over half the lates etc on my bureau are from here. If lates can be removed w/o opening the account and if lates being taken off even when the account is closed will help, I want to at least try but I don't want to do anything that will hurt me.

Thank you for any more advice you can share!

Karen

[Anonymous]

Gosh, don't do what I did.

I disputed 2-60 day late payments on a $24,000 truck loan; I had paid off the loan (early) in three years, but just wanted to get rid of the lates. TU went ahead and deleted the entire trade line, even though I had only paid the truck off in 2004.... OOPS! Holy smokes, I never imagined they would do such a thing... and then POOF! It was gone. Really hurt my scores too, especially since I haven't used credit cards for 10+ years. Now, according to TU... it almost looks like nobody has given me credit worth mentioning before. Ouch.

[Anonymous]

Ouch, that's horrible. I don't know how much that'd hurt me, other than the fact that this is my 1st or 2nd trade line I think, even though it's closed. When I look at it, it's a sea of bright colors Stupid immature mistakes. Oh well, I can't take it back and 10 years will get here sooner or later. If they do remove it, since it was closed but there are like 60, 90 and 120 or whatever the latest payments they report, reported, might it still not hurt me much? I have 6 department store and 6 or so ccs plus I'm the AU on my dad's CC which he always pays off or way down. My cc's will be paid off or way down as well within the next few months if all goes well. I'm waiting to send that letter until I hear from more of you for sure!

[Anonymous]

Since you do have all those other trade lines... and some of those are really late lates... it might be worth a try to GW the lates, and just see what happens. I'm far from an expert though...(clearly)

In my case, I just never imagined they would ever delete the whole TL! It never even occurred to me. And whoa... what a dummy I was. Since I didn't have CC accounts... when that truck loan went away... EMPTY. I have older loans still reported with perfect payment history... but they aren't having a real major effect, probably because they were for smaller amounts and they aren't recent. Once they start to fall off though... I'm probably going to be burnt toast, with NO credit history on TU.

At least my big truck loan is still reported on EQ and EX... and I sure as heck won't be in a hurry to dispute those lates either.