moving on up, I think :)

[Anonymous]

Hi, little background on myself. Im 27 and make a fair living but back when I was in my ealry 20s, times were rough and my sense of responsibilty was too. I ended up with a charged off capitol one credit card and over a couple years accumulated random stupid collections accounts. One was an unpaid parking ticket, another a storage unit with an outstanding balance (long story) and a couple more were medical bills from a broken collarbone. I have and had health insurance but do to out of network area copays and garbage, ended up with a decent bill. A large chunk of this bill was put in a loan that Ive been paying on time for almost 3 years now, the rest were sent to collections.

So I finally decided to shape up as Im looking to recover my credit so I can enjoy things like home ownership a few years down the road. I was able to borrow the money needed to settle everything from a relative (who I have been very punctually paying off) and I paid everything off back in July. My experian scores (just them because I subscribe and dont want to pay for all 3) ranged from 545 to 565 before things were paid off, jumped to 591 right after and has sat there for 4 months (which has been frustrating). And yes, I pulled all 3 when I went to do the big payoff of everything, I wasnt able to negotiate and delete if payed stuff so I still reflect closed collections accounts.

So today I was reading up everything I could about rebuilding and I was about to post here for some advice. I don't consider a secured card a good idea because Im being responsible with money, not spending $500 so I can spend 30% of $500 so I can pay it off 30% of $500, seems like a waste of $500. So while registering on here, I went back to Orchard banks website (as Ive been there before as its brought up a lot when you research rebuilding) and did another pre approval check thing. I expected exactly what Id gotten before, secured pre approval. This time was different, I got gold mastercard pre approval with no mention of a secured.

I was very skeptical at first and I still am but I went through the process, submitted an app and now when I check the app, it says "Your application has been approved. We are in the process of validating your funds." (funds being a $19 app fee).

So yeah, Im uncertain (naturally, Ive had bad credit/no new credit outside of a medical loan for almost 9 years) and excited, it doesnt feel right to be approved but I think it may actually be happening. I can't help but be afraid I will get a letter saying "haha youre you, youll never get approved for anything, we were just messing with you when we said approved".  I will actually have a card to establish good credit on and hopefully actually see progress on my score!! Pretty exciting. Once (and if, lol) I get my card, then it's on to charging up no more than 30% of it and always paying it off.

Thanks for reading, Ill be checking back here to update how its actually going. Dealing with bad credit and the long hard process of recovery has and had been very difficult but if I can pull through it, anyone can .

[1comingback]

Kudos Jason!

Your right, it is a long hard road but a necessary one.  I have been in the same boat less the medical bills.  Mine at your age were just stupid bills.  And not only did it take that lesson but another that Im just recovering from at a later stage in life.  Fortunately I make good money so I was able to manuver around my BS. But sure wish I had it to do over.  

Good Luck!  Maturity isn't so bad after all! 

[moondog7324]

$500 in a secured card vs. paying $19 for an unk amount of credit is not a waste of money, first of all most secured accounts accumulate interest. So at the end of year one when the card goes unsecured you have your $500 back plus interest. With the Orchard card you get another bill for $19.

Congratulations on taking hold of your credit issues. Are there any of those collection accounts still on your report after you paid them? You might want to work on try to get some of those removed too.

[Anonymous]

Hmm, had some log in troubles and had to create a new account, oh well.

Quick question, is the address that emails from here come from @myfico.com? My block list is pretty extensive and though I couldnt find that on there, Id prefer to safe sender list it.

Anyway moving on...I guess when I said a secured is a waste of money, what I meant is I had a hard time dealing with the $300 in limbo type of thing. I would have eventually done it had nothing unsecured been approved. Id much rather spend my $300 elsewhere, get an unsecured card to charge a regular bill on (like $100 in groceries) and pay it off with the money that was alloted to that bill anyway, make sense? I may be taking more of an overall loss with the unsecured card at this time but not taking the initial hit was important.

I do still have most of the closed/paid accounts sitting on my report, I would like to get those off. What is the best way to go about that? When I paid them, I always sarted out with something like "Ill pay this but you have to remove it from reporting" usually followed by a "we cant do that but we do report it as paid". I guess I could have tried to be really assertive about it but it's just not something Im good at over the phone.

Thanks for the comments so far. When I initially paid it all off, the relief was so tremendous and now it's like Im slowly driving to where the grass keeps getting a little more green.

[Anonymous]

I received my Orchard Card 2 years ago when I first started credit re-building and thought the same as you but it is a real card.  Crappy CL but it's something. 

Just an FYI, Orchard reports your balance to the CRA's on the very last day of the month and it's always the balance as of that day (not the statement balance) so if you ever go over the utilization that you find appropriate, make sure you pay it down BEFORE the end of the month. 

Take your time and read through the Forums...I didn't at first because I didn't know what I didn't know and my improvement process was delayed as a result. 

Best of luck on your path to recovery...don't ever get discouraged, it takes time

[llecs]

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Jason-mou2 wrote:

Hmm, had some log in troubles and had to create a new account, oh well.

Quick question, is the address that emails from here come from @myfico.com?

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If you want your org. account back, or at least account info for logging in, let me know. I don't have it but can put you in touch with an admin.

I receive several different types of e-mails for subscriptions to forum messages, for myFICO newsletters, order confirmations and for SW and TUQM alerts. The forum messages (when subscribed) come from a @lithium.com address. This includes any PM notifications. MyFICO newsletters, including any promo codes (there's one going on right now) come from a @email.myfico.com or recently a @myfico.p0.com address. Product alerts have come from @myfico.com.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I received my Orchard Card 2 years ago when I first started credit re-building and thought the same as you but it is a real card.  Crappy CL but it's something. 

Just an FYI, Orchard reports your balance to the CRA's on the very last day of the month and it's always the balance as of that day (not the statement balance) so if you ever go over the utilization that you find appropriate, make sure you pay it down BEFORE the end of the month. 

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Good to know. I had found somebody complaining about something odd with their reporting but I didnt see much more information on it. Thanks .

[Anonymous]

No problem.....Good luck with everything!