topic Re: Is there anything I can do to change this??? in General Credit Topics

Is there anything I can do to change this???

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 20:46:14 GMT

I am just curious..Is there anything I can do to better My score? It looks like a lot of people on here have raised their scores a lot! What can I do? I also heard that the things do not leave your credit report after 7 years..Is that true? Like for instance, I have a 2 late payments on my car loan...My car is paid off and I made 58 on time....Will it ever be fixed? Also I have little bills in collection, should I pay them off? Can you make a deal? Like to pay it and they take it off the credit report? I really want to buy a house, so I am trying to get my score up to 660 and it is at 575 and 601 at the credit places....

Re: Is there anything I can do to change this???

llecs — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 03:03:46 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I am just curious..Is there anything I can do to better My score? It looks like a lot of people on here have raised their scores a lot! What can I do? I also heard that the things do not leave your credit report after 7 years..Is that true? Like for instance, I have a 2 late payments on my car loan...My car is paid off and I made 58 on time....Will it ever be fixed? Also I have little bills in collection, should I pay them off? Can you make a deal? Like to pay it and they take it off the credit report? I really want to buy a house, so I am trying to get my score up to 660 and it is at 575 and 601 at the credit places....

I recommend looking at your FICO reports and tackle the items, in order, that hurt your score the most. This is found on page 2 of your report and ranks the items that hurt the most in order (1-4 items depending on your credit). Based on what those items are you can zero in and boost your score much quicker.

Per federal law (the FCRA), lates must disappear by 7 years. COs and CAs have to go away by 7.5 years from the DOFD of the debt. BKs have to go away by 7 or 10 years depending on the BK type, and judgments must go away by 7 years.

I would ignore the lates on the car note. The loan is closed and paid and there's a risk of them deleting the entire accounts rather than just the lates. At 7 years the lates will have disappeared. Per FICO, damage from 30-day lates generally disappear by 2 years. Not sure how bad those lates are on the car note.

You'd want to take care of the collections. The balance doesn't matter. In fact, whether you owe $0 or $10,000 the damage is equal per FICO. Send a DV. If they verify and you agree, then send a PFD.

Check your score source. If you pulled from sites other than myFICO then it's highly likely you don't have a FICO score, but a FAKO instead.

Welcome to the forums!

I'd suggest reading the following:

Common Abbreviations

Credit Scoring 101 - great for knowing what is in your credit score and to see how your score is impacted.

What Steps Do I Take - great for learning the repair process.

and Example letters - PFDs, GWs, DVs, etc.

Re: Is there anything I can do to change this???

dabrian — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 10:30:24 GMT

Wow awesome advice! Alot of great info in your post.

Re: Is there anything I can do to change this???

Cageym — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 11:30:22 GMT

+1 to what llecs said. Also spend some time in the Rebuilding area of the forum, there is a lot of advice and examples of how people fixed their credit.

Re: Is there anything I can do to change this???

Anonymous — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 21:43:59 GMT

Thank you!!!! Great advice!

Re: Is there anything I can do to change this???

Anonymous — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 21:45:05 GMT

What is DVD and PDF?

Re: Is there anything I can do to change this???

Walt_K — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 05:42:03 GMT

You mistyped the abbreviations. It is DV and PFD. Check out the Common Abbreviations link llecs posted. DV is debt validation. A timely DV letter will require a debt collector to cease collection activity until they provide the required response (which really isn't that much). Run a search for DV or debt validation and you'll get all the details.

PFD is pay for delete. It's basically a contractual agreement that the creditor/collection agency (CA) will delete negative information in exchange for payment of the debt. There are issues in negotiating a PFD. For example, if the debt is still inside the statute of limitations, you want to be careful sending a PFD unless you are able to pay the full amount as you could be sued on the debt. Again, if you run a search for PFD, you should find lots of threads. You can also run searches in the rebuilding forum for PFD and [name of CA] to see which CAs are more likely to agree to PFD. If you can't find anything, post about the specific CA and people will share their experiences, if any.