Year long journey

[Anonymous]

I started 1 year ago today with a 552 transunion CK score. I found I had medical collection accounts I didn't know existed. I have way too many late payments and zero credit.

First I tackled the collections. I tried the pay for delete. Every response I got was "We don't do that." After multiple failed attempts, I paid them off. One had my correct address and an address that was totally wrong. I tried disputing that one. I got no love from anyone. I finally paid it too.

I found my house payment was running just over 30 days late every month. I got it all up to date and then tried to work on getting the lates removed. No dice. Everything I have tried to date I get the same response as above. "We don't do that."

One vehicle payment was getting tagged with lates also. It was setup on auto pay, so I just knew that one was wrong. Come to find out, the month I set it up on auto pay it didn't auto pay and I didn't pay manually. I never looked at it for 3 years because i knew the auto pay was working. It was paying on the due date every month which happens to be 31 to 33 days late every month except for March. I tried everything to get those taken care of. My mistake, but still... No dice. They told me "We can't do that unless your bank writes a letter saying it is their fault." It's been paid before due date and in excess of amount due for a year now. 3 payments to go.

I have never had a credit card. I cringed at the thought, but I bit the bullet and applied. Capitol One Venture with a 250 limit. I waited about 3 months and applied for Chase Unlimited 500 limit. Then on to AMEX 250 limit. Through the last year I have been bumped up on limits. Now at about 3500 total limit with about 3% usage. I also applied for Discover about 3 months ago and was turned down. I appealed and they told me the only thing that stopped it was too many new accounts. I told them I was trying to rebuild my credit. They said that made sense of my report and to reapply at a later date.

As it stands now, I am at 701 transunion CK after a long year.

I have one question. After these last 3 car payments, will the lates from that account have less of an impact or am I in for another 6 long years?

[Adkins]

The older the latest, the less of an impact they have although 90 & 120 day latest tend to hurt more. 

[Anonymous]

The payment history remains, even when the account is paid/closed, so you'll still feel the sting regardless.

Normally, the hit from a 30 day late is close to nil after 2 years. Since you have a string of 30 day lates on your mortgage & auto loans, it may still be a factor for a while, just not nearly as much as they did when they were fresh (<2yrs).  It shouldn't keep you from getting Good scores inside a couple years if you get other areas optimized (util, etc) and keep your payments on-time from here out.  The collection will probably affect things more, depending on the scoring model.