credit repair

[Anonymous]

Hello all,

To make this brief, during my undergraduate college career (2007-2011) I amassed various and significant amounts of debt. I base most of this on the death of my stepfather as well as immaturity. I moved to Europe for an internship following graduation and just recently moved back stateside. Upon review of my credit report, three negative items (all collection accounts) from 2008 have gained my attention: a $395 debt, $997 debt, and a debt for $1217. Last week (after unsuccessful PFD attempts) I paid the debts for $395 and $997 in full and settled the $1217 ($425.00) but now I feel as though I’ve made a terrible decision which could damage my FICO score even more (550 prior to the payoffs). What action do you suggest that I take to accelerate improvement my credit report/score, GW? Thank you all in advance.

[Anonymous]

bump....similar situation. so i am interested as well.

[scmami]

Hi and welcome to MyFico! Do you have any positive accounts on your credit reports? Open credit cards, auto loans, students loans, etc? Paying the collections wasn't going to help your scores anyway and you tried PFDs, so at least you knew that wasn't an option. GW letters would be next. And don't stop trying! Try different addresses or emails until you get the right one! I'm still cleaning up my credit and I've had success with 3 GWs so far! One to remove lates from a student loan account, one to my credit union for an old charged off balance, and one for a paid in full medical bill. So they do work! Search the forum for successes, you will find many. Good luck in your repair journey!

[Anonymous]

Hi scmami, thanks for your response.

The only positive account that I currently have on my credit report is a secured credit card that I opened last month. Do you think it would be wise to open a second secured credit card (I currently have checkin accounts with two separate banks)? Also do you happen to know what kind of information would be best to include in a GW letter?

Thanks again.

[scmami]

In the GW letters that I wrote, I just told the truth. I lost my job a few years ago and it led me to foreclosure and pretty close to bankruptcy. I stopped paying everything and pretty much have lots of charged off accts. I let them know the situation that caused me to get into financial trouble and that I am now trying to clean up my finances. Search the forum and the web for sample goodwill letters....you'll find a good template that applies to you.

[ando35]

I would not pay it if they did not agree to delete it.  Maybe they don;t all do pfd but I was under the impression that they do. Don;t feel too bad though, people have raised scores 50-100 points in a year so...

[RobertEG]

I would advise caution in refusing to pay simply because they refuse to delete.

Is the debt still within SOL?  If not, you may face legal action.

Additionally, while paying might not directly improve your score, it will most likely improve your credit.

Upon a manual review of your CR, the showing of unpaid, delinquent debt tells potentials creditors that you dont pay your debt.

Hardly a favorable factor in granting you additional credit.

That also applies to GW requests.  Even though you have paid the debt to creditor A and are now asking their goodwill, if they see unpaid debt to creditor B, that does not suggest that you now have things under control, and thus might now be a desirable customer to court by granting you a CR deletion.