02-19-2012 03:40 PM
i stupidly co-signed a loan 4 my best friend who made appx. 6 late car payments but did eventually pay off car bout 3 yrs ago and made same mistake 1 year ago with god daughter who was late appx 6 times w/ city furniture and still has balance of a little over 1000 dollars. is there anything i can do to improve my score? other than these i should hav a pretty good score. thanks 4 any help in advance, thats what i get 4 trying to help people out.
02-19-2012 07:13 PM
thepeghhh wrote:i stupidly co-signed a loan 4 my best friend who made appx. 6 late car payments but did eventually pay off car bout 3 yrs ago and made same mistake 1 year ago with god daughter who was late appx 6 times w/ city furniture and still has balance of a little over 1000 dollars. is there anything i can do to improve my score? other than these i should hav a pretty good score. thanks 4 any help in advance, thats what i get 4 trying to help people out.
Hello and welcome.
I would guess many of us have made the same mistake you made; that is being burned after agreeing to co-sign for someone. I know it's happened to me.
All you can do is write GW (GoodWill) letters to the creditors and explain your situation and ask them to remove the lates early. They are under no legal obligation to do so but GW's can and do work.
How severe are these lates? (30 days, 60, 90?) And how old exactly are each of them? And how many are there for each loan?
02-20-2012 06:45 AM
the car was 5 times 30 days late, 3 times 60 days late thoughout 2008. the furniture was late 30, 60 and 90 days 2 times for each (6 total) thoughout 2011. thanks for the advice, i was gonna call the car company as that is paid off and i also had loan with them and paid off w/o prob so i was hoping they would help me on this.
02-20-2012 09:24 AM
thepeghhh wrote:the car was 5 times 30 days late, 3 times 60 days late thoughout 2008. the furniture was late 30, 60 and 90 days 2 times for each (6 total) thoughout 2011. thanks for the advice, i was gonna call the car company as that is paid off and i also had loan with them and paid off w/o prob so i was hoping they would help me on this.
The 30 day lates from 2008 have lost much of their sting and the 60 day lates are now probably being scored as 30 day lates after all this time but those lates from last year are absolute score killers especially the 90 day late which is considered a major derogatory.
I would work on the most recent lates the hardest but of course try and get all of them removed.
02-21-2012 09:16 AM
im sure yur rite, but you think they will help, she was late, late last year and still has a balance, would it be best 4 me 2 write a good will letter or my god daughter? oh and related, i always pay off my credit cards every month, would i want 2 carry a balance on them and make payments? ive heard this will improve credit scores, is that true?
02-21-2012 10:57 AM - edited 02-21-2012 10:58 AM
thepeghhh wrote:im sure yur rite, but you think they will help, she was late, late last year and still has a balance, would it be best 4 me 2 write a good will letter or my god daughter? It never hurts to try. All they can do is say no. You certainly won't get anything removed without that first step.
If it's her debt she should write it but you can certainly offer suggestions on what to say.
oh and related, i always pay off my credit cards every month, would i want 2 carry a balance on them and make payments? ive heard this will improve credit scores, is that true? You never have to carry a balance forward for any reason. This doesn't help your score but makes the companies happy because you pay them interest when you do that.
Everyone's situation is different and there is no one size fits all approach to this but what seems to work well for most people is to have only one of their cards report a small (<9% of it's credit limit) balance each month and then pay in full before the due date. You can use it as much as you want during the month but what's important is the reported balance because for most cards whatever is reported on the monthly statement is what is used to calculate utilization for the month.
You might have to play around with the percentages for a few months to see what works best for you. Some people say that 1-3% utilization helps the most. For others it might be 5-9%. As I said it's not one size fits all.
On any other cards always try and have them report a zero balance each month. That doesn't mean you can't use them just make sure that the desired zero balance on these accounts is achieved several days before their statements post.
Along with individual and overall utilization, FICO also scores the number of all types of accounts reporting a balance.at any one time Making sure less than half of all your accounts report a balance helps most people.
Now this approach really isn't necessary if you're not looking to apply for any credit in the near future or unless you are trying to tweak your score for maximum effect but some folks do this as a hobby just to see how high they can get their score.
02-21-2012 01:16 PM
ty for yur response, very helpful, accually i wanted to refinance my house, thats what precipitated this as i was trying to get a 15 year home loan with wells fargo @ 3 percent cause rite now i hav 1 with GMAC @ 30 years for 6.375, i hop i can get this as it would save me aa ton of money, thanks again.

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