topic Re: Success Stories and Encouragement in General Credit Topics

Success Stories and Encouragement

Tuscani — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:15:58 GMT

Please use this thread to share how the knowledge you have obtained here has helped you turn your credit around! I am going to share the first story which was posted by member Nemblett!

If you are new, welcome! Please start by reading the Scoring 101 thread:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?board.id=ficoscoring&thread.id=2654

After a recent post encouraging a low-scoring forum member to be hopeful, several people have asked me how I got my FICO score from 420 in April to the 600s today. Hard work, patience, and diligence, as well as asking many questions on this forum, have been my salvation. Not to say I haven't slipped – I got so excited a few weeks ago when my FICO hit 668, and applied for a CapitalOne Auto Loan and a Best Buy card (it was my birthday), and my score started slipping downward because of those new inquiries. I need to not beat myself up over those decisions, but oh well, you can't change the past.

To set things up, I have had a contentious relationship with credit for the last few years, barely holding onto some subprime credit cards before their unmentionable fees overwhelmed me and led to the cards' closure. I never really relied much on credit cards because I could never qualify for more than $700 on one, although I did get a $1500 Best Buy card a few years ago, which was closed/charged off after I couldn't keep up with payments. I used to have a Dillards, Marshall Fields, and Sears card, but they all got closed due to delinquent pay patterns as well. These were all reporting well, as long as I made minimum payments each month, but I had too many, and the many minimums maxed me out, and I was never making any progress on the principal. Now the only card I have of any kind of revolving credit is my Target card.

I also have moved four times in five years for employment opportunities, and each one dried up almost as soon as I arrived, usually due to downsizing. This constant moving placed my already tenuous financial status into a constant state of disrepair. It also meant that I was leaving a trail of unpaid utility bills in my wake, which eventually got sold to collection agencies. I even had a "pay to stay" rental situation which shows up as an eviction/public judgment from 2003 on my credit reports.

Last summer (like a lot of people), I found myself having to choose between gas and other payments. Unfortunately, gas prices meant I delayed making my car payments. I started to get behind, and once I did, I never recovered. I tried to trade-in my vehicle for another one, but that just resulted in tons of hard pull inquiries that benefited me nothing. Then I ended up refinancing the car, but even the refinanced amount was too high, with gas prices still in the upper $2s, lower $3s, coupled with the fact that I was commuting 60-70 miles a day, 6 days a week, in an SUV that got 21 mpg tops on the highway (oy). Then I had to move to a new apartment (mine was being turned into condos, so there were all the moving expenses and utility deposits due). So nothing was really working in my favor at the moment.

Ultimately, I had gotten myself into a state of mind a couple of years ago in which I just didn't care about my credit, plain and simple. I figured that my situation was so bad, how could it possibly get any worse? That cavalier attitude led me to ignore important deadlines and settlement offers that would have kept things off of my credit report. It also relegated me to nights where the phone wouldn’t stop ringing for hours as creditors and collectors called over and over again. I resigned myself to always having bad credit and never owning a home, which made me bolder (and somewhat stupider) in my own taunts of the creditors that were calling me. I now know that some of this was due to anxiety and depression, but some was just plain stubbornness.

Then in March, my 2003 Ford Escape was repo'd, and I all of a sudden discovered just how important good credit was, when I couldn't even get into a used car for less than $3000-5000 down, and those were subprime loans in which I was paying the bank $2000-3000 to approve the loan, BEFORE the cost of the car. This became the tipping/turning point for me, and it opened my eyes to the seriousness of my situation.

I began monitoring my credit at that point, and was shocked as what I found. I started out around 457 in late March, and after some more attempts to get into a car loan in April, it dropped to the aforementioned 420. I got my FICO Score through the 30-day free trial of ScoreWatch, and then did the same for TrueCredit. I have since subscribed to both of these services, but it was invaluable to have a parallel comparison of all 3 credit report accounts (TrueCredit), as well as the comparison of a FICO score and a FAKO score. As part of ScoreWatch, I became addicted to the FICO Forum, and learned most of what helped me there.

I had let several of my student loans go without applying for deferrals, so they were reporting past due, but thank God not in default yet. There were several erroneous accounts that were not mine, as well as accounts that I had paid, but were showing as still open and unpaid. Far too many collection accounts with unpaid balances.

I called Target and made a payment arrangement with them, just to keep the card open and active, so that it could help me later on if I needed it to, as my sole source of revolving credit and good credit-building power.

The first thing I did was comb through the free credit reports I received (annualcreditreport.com), and mark any accounts I didn’t recognize as mine. Then I found any erroneous late pay notations. I disputed these sets of items right away, and several of these errors disappeared very quickly. Step one should always be getting rid of obvious errors – personal information, addresses you don’t recognize, accounts that don’t belong to you, duplicate reporting, etc.

But I think the most important thing I did to monitor my success was creating an Excel spreadsheet of all of the derogatory items on my credit reports. I had columns for:
• The name of the creditor
• The name of the original creditor (if the account on the report was a collection agency)
• The amount of the debt (even if it was zero – paid off/charge off)
• Date reported
• Expected date it would drop off my credit report (this takes some math and research at times)
• Which credit reporting agencies reported the debt (this was a small detail, but became very important as time went on)
I also made a similar chart that included all of this info for accounts that I had received correspondence about from collection agencies or creditors that had not yet appeared on any credit reports yet – this was to become my reporting prevention list.

These charts allowed me to track what I owed (totally and individually), and monitor when things would start to drop off (and how many). Ultimately, it was a hard look at the reality of my situation. But when I realized that, apart from the student loans – which were now in deferral or the process of being deferred, I only owed $12000 max, it made me realize that this was too low a number to consider bankruptcy.

I made a plan to set aside $100 per week in a savings account to use for credit repair – this amount has taken a bit of a beating because of a settlement with Ford I arranged, but that single settlement (if I paid them 50% of my deficiency amount remaining after the sale of the repo’d vehicle, they would consider it paid in full and remove the repo comments from my credit reports) has actually reduced my total bad credit debt to less than $5000 now! The $100 a week allows me to look at my chart and see what accounts might be paid off completely with $100-300; those accounts I attempt to Pay for Delete – See Tuscani’s sample Pay For Delete (PFD) and Goodwill (GW) letters; they will help you through hell and high water. I did the math, and if I continued my credit repair savings account, it would allow me to pay off between $2000-4000 a year, which meant that after the Ford settlement, I could get all of my bad credit accounts paid to zero (and work out PFD and/or GW plans) within a year and a half. Some sacrifices would have to be made, yes. And the collection agencies don’t like hearing me say this, but I do and I stick with it, “I have drafted a plan to get out of debt by the fall of 2008, and your account is included in that plan, but you’re not the account I am working on at the moment, so you will have to be patient, but you will get your money.”

Part of my plan also involved joining the credit union at my job. Many benefits, not the least of which was automatic overdraft protection for my checking account up to $500. USE WISELY!

I have also created an Excel spreadsheet and chart function that allows me to enter my daily TrueCredit scores as well as my FICO score updates, and it may not seem to be much of an increase daily, but it does continue to go up.

This is more detailed than it should be, and probably not as detailed as it could be, but this has been my journey so far, and hopefully it will be enough of a shock and build enough good fiscal habits that I can keep moving steadily towards fiscal solvency.

Hope this helps.

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

MidnightVoice — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:07:04 GMT

Yes Dear

I never really bothered about my credit, I knew I was paying bills on time and had only a store card and a gas card. I refinanced my house a couple of years ago and got a very good rate (long history with the company, cut length of mortgage dramatically, got a very low rate). I was a little surprised at how low my credit score was when I did it, so I thought I should get a credit card to have a real CC on my report, and I was turned down for one. This was a little bit of a wake up call, so I went and got a CC from my local Credit Union, and kept paying bills on time. Then last December it seemed as though I might move house, talked to my mortgage company and got pre-approved for a new mortgage and was horrified to find out that after 5 years of perfect payments I still had low credit scores.

I then started doing some of the right things (more by guesswork than good judgment) and started disputing that which was incorrect. Then this board was formed, and suddenly a wealth of information became available to me. I disputed more, discovered the importance of utilization (it was clobbering me despite the fact I PIFfed all the time), discovered that I hated Cingular, found out what cards I could get because I knew what scores they required and which CRs they pulled, and straightened things out

Results – 4 years of perfect payment, EQ FICO goes up about 50 points.

This board opens, and since then – EQ FICO goes up 94 points

December 06 – TU FICO 681

July 07 – TU FICO 803

EX hates me

My version of the secrets of high scores.

1 – fiscal responsibility. If you spend more than you earn you will never get there

2 – learn the rules. They are not always obvious (e.g., high util and PIF is bad, low util and carrying a balance better). Play the game, and if you follow (1) above, it is a game.

3 – watch those inqs, and never get a new cell phone

4 – TIME is your friend

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:10:45 GMT

MidnightVoice wrote:
Yes Dear

This board opens, and since then – EQ FICO goes up 94 points

December 06 – TU FICO 681
July 07 – TU FICO 803

EX hates me

My version of the secrets of high scores.
1 – fiscal responsibility. If you spend more than you earn you will never get there
2 – learn the rules. They are not always obvious (e.g., high util and PIF is bad, low util and carrying a balance better). Play the game, and if you follow (1) above, it is a game.
3 – watch those inqs, and never get a new cell phone
4 – TIME is your friend

I know this board is supposed to be about encouragement but 803??!!! I'm officially jealous!

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

MidnightVoice — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:34:54 GMT

trinigal wrote:

I know this board is supposed to be about encouragement but 803??!!! I'm officially jealous!

I blame this place for it. Without this place I have no idea what my scores would be

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:42:52 GMT

MidnightVoice wrote:

trinigal wrote:

I know this board is supposed to be about encouragement but 803??!!! I'm officially jealous!

I blame this place for it. Without this place I have no idea what my scores would be

I was looking for " don't hate, CONGRATULATE! "

But this answer works as well.

I agree, I would not even know what my scores were, or that I have some power to fix them.

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

Tuscani — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:34:24 GMT

BUMP!

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

MidnightVoice — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 19:49:44 GMT

Tuscani wrote:
BUMP!

Bumpity Bump

FICos trending up wards, need 6 more months for EX to improve.

FAKOs stuck in stone.

Cingular inq drops of Wednesday !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 05:19:14 GMT

First of all a big THANK YOU to everyone that contributes here. I wouldn't be making this post if it weren't for all of you and your knowledge. I wanted to share with everyone the results I've had repairing DH's CR. We began pulling his CRs in February of this year. The only thing I knew was it was BAD but I didn't have a clue as to where to begin to correct the problem ~ until I found this site! Here is a quick breakdown of what has happend in just a few months:

Homecoming Financial ~ FC as of April 04. Reporting balance of 92k in Feb07 on all 3 reports. As of today the balance has been wiped out. It is being reported correctly on EX but EQ and TU still show pay status as 120 days late instead of foreclosure. Disputing that at this time.

HSBC Auto ~ CO/REPO as of June 04. Disputed as belonging to his exwife and EQ deleted account. Disputing again thru EX and TU and have also sent a GW.

Bank One/Chase Home Finance ~ GW letter sent to remove 3 30 day lates. They wrote back asking for more info as they couldn't find the account # in their system. Sent them what they asked for last week still waiting to hear back.

Midland Credit Management ~ $233 balance OC SWB. Disputed thru CRA's verified. Sent DV last week. Got the green card back today. Hopefully they'll just delete them.

IC Systems ~ OC Mann Eye Center $190 balance. Disputed thru CRA's verified. Sent DV last week. Haven't received green card back but account was deleted from EQ last week and today from EX. Hopefully TU will follow suit soon!

Hilco Receivables (CA for Toyota Repo) DELETED

Thornton Financial Services (Dodge Repo) DELETED

Encore Receivables (Duplicate SWB acct) DELETED

NCO Medclear (Medical CA) DELETED

NCO-Medclear (Medical CA)DELETED

MidSouth CB (UNK) DELETED

TX ENT (Medical CA) DELETED

TOYOTA (REPO) DELETED

Postive TL's

Ford Motor Credit ~ paid/closed never late

CCCU- $500

Home Depot $500

AFCU $1000

Here's hoping that we continue to have such good luck in the rest of this process. DH's FACOs tonight were TU 584 EX 525 EQ 550. His FICOs from 8/17 were TU 587 EX 620 EQ 584. I'm hoping that next month when I pull FICO we will see a good size jump in scores. Also plan on paying down the CCCU and HD cards to 10% and applying for a couple more good CCs.

Anywho...thanks again everyone!! Sometimes when I get frustrated with the process I have to stop and look at all we've accomplished in such a very short time frame. Y'all are wonderful and this is such a great place for support!

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:55:41 GMT

I haven't been on this board too long, but I've had amazing results. I was a person who never thought my credit could be cleaned up. I had given up trying to clean it up. I figured I'd just wait the seven or ten years until information fell off my report and try to start over again. Due to some medical problems in my life and some other issues my credit report tended to look like something I never wanted to see or deal with.

So, I found this board and read everything I could find that I thought could help me. I decided to try two strategies so I started disputing debts and writing goodwill letters. Since doing that (and again, it hasn't been that long). I've had two Providian accounts deleted from my credit report, two judgements deleted from my credit report, and a Capital One account deleted. I really never thought something like that was possible.

In studying all the information here it was like a huge door opened up for me. One thing I learned is to not keep my credit cards charged up to the limits. I'm famous for doing that. If they credit is there, why not spend it? Well, now I KNOW why not to spend it.<g> I never knew that spending so much on a credit card could affect the credit score. Little things like that can mean a LOT!

So, my short time here has been so productive, and I plan on staying on this board for a long time to come.

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

Tavares — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:56:27 GMT

Good Afternoon Everyone,

I am here today to share my progress during my stay here. I started sad, depressed, lost...I could go on easily but i wont. I now know enough to guide others all thank you every single one of you on this board. I have some favorites but i wont list them as it my stir some jealousy .

I have managed to get rid of 5 baddies(2 CO, 2 Collection, 1 Public Record), and neatly organized my reports one by one patiently. I only have one late payment on a closed account with providian which they wont remove. But its a nearly 6 years old late.

Begining early 2006 i could not even get a secured Credit Card. Not because i did not make enough money, but because my credit was so ugly, so bad, they almost called the security guard to escort me out every time. I started with GW letters and tried to reopen some old accounts at fauld and managed to ged baddies deleted and account broughto current status. Today I am offered credit lines that I turn down too high for my liking.

My Cards:
American Epress Plutinum Charge Card
American Express Blue Cash $10,000.00
Bank Of America Visa Signature $18,000.00

Carnival Sea Miles MC $15,000.00
Citi Devident MC - Approved, Don't know the limit yet

Dicover More - Approved, Don't know limit yet
*Working on a few others and got rid of my Started capital one.

I got married this past Januarry, was able to get a good Mortgage with Chase withing 2 - 3 months following the various advice on this board. I am working on my Utilization (50% right now). Hopefully my scores Fico scores will hit 700 jut like my facos, all in the 700's.

Lessons Learned:
1. Be patient, very patient and be nice
2. Don't be afraid of trying a GW Letters or other suggested methods here.
3. Read anything that "Tuscani","Brammy" and a few others post. Even if its bad hahaha. just read it Because it will probably increse your score just from doing so.
4. Join "The Sleigh Center" if you can't stop applying. I never needed it, but I love being there.

Thank you:

I would like to tank everyone for all their help.

Below are my EQ Fico Scores over time.

9/13/2007 666 <--- Whats with this number?
9/6/2007 671
8/26/2007 653
7/12/2007 658
6/14/2007 665
6/7/2007 680
4/29/2007 673
4/25/2007 672
4/18/2007 671
4/17/2007 687
3/30/2007 681
3/12/2007 671
3/4/2007 658
2/15/2007 638
2/9/2007 661
2/4/2007 664
1/25/2007 672
1/12/2007 675
1/7/2007 672
1/2/2007 669
9/9/2006 644
7/23/2006 595

Good Luck to all,

Tavares

Re: Thank you myFiCO!!!

Anonymous — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:40:48 GMT

The advice/opinions offered in all of these threads in the forum, WORK! I pulled a TU cr(dtd 9/18/07), and was horrified to see an old Sam's Club account balance of $16 was charged off wayyyyy back in Jan.2005. (Sam's Club handled by GEMb...yeah I know the reputation they have). I FINALLY got a good telephone # and called them and FINALLY got a live person to talk to...explained the situation to her. After 15 min. of research, and confusion on her part she said "you were not given credit of $11.00, and I'll delete the balance of $5.00 because of the age......PLUS.....I will delete the 'collection item' from your credit reports!" Hey! the system works! and I learned it all here at myFiCO forums! THANK YOU myFiCO! Today...TU: 649...by December, hopefully 700! yayyyyy. Thought you all would want to know. Sylvia

Re: Thank you myFiCO!!! Afterthought

Anonymous — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:45:10 GMT

As an afterthought as to how much this forum has helped me....in march of this year...TU:521.........as of Sept. 18, 2007.....TU: 649! (and rising to 700 quickly!) Folks, work the program as set forth in these threads, read both the horror AND success stories, listen to the opinions/advice and what ever you seek shall be yours!

Should have posted this here :)

George2037 — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:48:31 GMT

This is the progress I have made using a combo of TU and MyFico since 05/07. One AFNI removed (falsely re-ageing account), double listed Judgement removed, outdated Judgement removed, outdated collection removed, one PFD w/ Comcast, $15,000 in new TL added lowering UTL%, corrected Suffix on Name, and corrected past addresses. One loophole I found is if an old account that is not being updated by OC or CA and they have your name wrong or the address they are using is incorrect the TL will be deleted if you have those corrected before you dispute the TL. If I had it to do all over again I would make sure all names and addresses are correct before disputing TL's. Once they are corrected check your CR and go from there. You have to pull the report directly from CRA to get all listed adresses and names.

5/07 10/07

TU 560 636

EQ 630 694

EX 530 624

One small step...

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:25:41 GMT

I am in the beginning stages of rebuilding my credit but I want to share the experience I have had so far...

I signed up on MyFico on 9/5/07 and got to work right away. I disputed some unauthorized inquiries (deleted: raised my score 8 pts), sent out GW letters to Cap1 and several paid collections (pre-myfico.com) and disputed an old unpaid collection on EQ.

Cap1 responded with a standard denial of my GW, Falls Collection Services sent me an itemized list of my payments in response to GW (wth??) and EQ verified my unpaid collection, changed the status to "Paid" but did not delete (this was a joint account with two roommates, someone else must have paid it...I will be doing a MOV when I get my updated EQ report in the mail...). After all of this I was getting pretty discouraged--no positive results for my hard work! Then, yesterday in the mail I received a letter from Certified Services Inc regarding TWO (2) paid collections I have with them. Here is their response to my GW:

" Accts: xxxxxx amd xxxxx will both be removed from the credit bureaus. This process take a few weeks so please be patient. The check for $1 will not be cashed."

WOO HOO! While I know the "few weeks" line is b.s., I am so glad to be finally making some progress! TWO collections about to be deleted! Thank you MyFico! I will not give up on the rest of the COs, I am going to GW them like they have never been GW'd before!

BTW, the $1 check is in reference to some interest I still had left to pay on one of the collections. Months ago I sent a check for the remaining balance and thought I had paid it in full. The Certified Services listed the CO as "Legally settled for less than the full balance". I know I took a gamble sending them the check for $1 but I wanted to prove to them I want to pay my debts! It worked and they sent the check back!

Message Edited by MeganML84 on 10-02-2007 12:25 PM

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 03:31:50 GMT

Thanks to this forum I got a big boost.

$5000 Hooters - 18.2% APR
$6000 Kay Jewelers - some ridiculous store credit APR (sock drawer card)
$1000 Juniper - 8.99% APR (applied right before I came to the forums but it was my call after that got an underwriter to approve me. I got 5 of my chargeoffs removed or dropped since then and the last one comes off in January so they just got a recon letter with proof of the chargeoffs being gone.)

Was approved for $2000 NASA but they won't give me the card because I'm self employed and my P&L is negative due to my business writeoffs.

$5000 BOA Business - Prime + 10.99% (applied before the forum but sent a recon with the same proof of chargeoffs being dropped)

Transferred Orchard Bank, WAMU and Wells Financial balances to Hoots and BOA card.

Rejected by Exxon for my business, Officemax for my business, Lowes for my business. I wish Equifax and Experian were as efficient as TU with removals. They all got recon letters so I may get one or two changed.

Rejected by GEICO though it's Merrick like Hoots. Don't need it anyway.

Also got a new car at 11% and traded in my Wells Financial 21% loan. Will refi with NASA as soon as I get these unnecessary warranties removed from the loan amount.

The forum changed my way of looking at things and gave me more options that I never knew existed like Hooters, Kay and NASA. And I never sent a recon letter before, always disputes.

My new credit should offset the drop in score since it gives me a lot more available credit. 3 accounts have shown of the 5 and I only lost 1 point Equifax as of Sunday but I just received an alert that I gained 8 points.

And to add to the triumph as I call it. I called Hooters to see the limit increase policy and they said they review every month but while on that call they asked my salary and verified my social and gave me a $1250 increase and the account is only 2 weeks old.

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

skysthelimit — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:08:10 GMT

Can you please direct me on hoy you had judgements removed?

Did you pay off chargeoffs or anything older than 5yrs?

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

Anonymous — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 04:19:08 GMT

In Dec 06 I had an Amex Gold Rewards card that I used to the tune of 2500 per month. They decided to pull my credit score when I was coming off a couple very rough months, and what they got back was a dismal 498 tu score (ack - wake up call to Carol!). Despite never being late with my payments to them, they cancelled my card (at Christmas too :-( ).

Now, 10 short months later - and with a lot of valuable information garnered from this site, my scores are ex 702, eq 712, tu 714 (yes, CLU is VERY VERY IMPORTANT). When my score was 498 (TU), I was utilizing right around the 97% mark and had several recent 30-day lates - no other type of "baddie." I have brought my util down to 0 but continue to use the cards and have removed many of the lates. The most recent lates, of course, are the hardest to remove, but time will pass on those too.

from 498 to 714 in 10 months. I would never thought it possible. Pay down those balances priority number 1!!!

I've just received my new Amex Blue (3500 cl)

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

Anonymous — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 05:10:42 GMT

No, I didn't pay anything off. My original debts were in my bankruptcy, but the judgments were already on the bankruptcy. So the least the credit reporting agencies had to do was put "Listed In Bankruptcy" next to the judgment information. So I'm glad they were removed. Here's an outline of the letter I sent. The reasons I gave were some major health problems I had that lead to a financial hardship. I based this on a letter I saw here.

_________________________

Name of the Creditor/Collection Agency/Credit Reporting Agency
SS#: xxx-xx-xxxx
Account Number:
Judgment Case #: (if applicable)
Case #: (if applicable)
Original Creditor Name: (if applicable)
Any Other Information You May Want Go Give Concerning The Debt

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to see if you will make a goodwill adjustment in your reporting to my _____________ (Equifax, TransUnion, Experian) credit report. Due to some hardships in my life, I was unable to meet my responsibilities to my creditors. Over time, this negatively impacted my credit report.

(Explain the hardships and how they made it unable for you to meet your financial responsibilities)

(Explain how you are now in a better place in your life and are trying to clean up your credit, pay your debts, etc…

(Explain what you want this creditor/credit reporting agency to do for you. Be SPECIFIC about what you want them to do to your credit file)

(Give them praise. Do they have great customer service? Have they ever helped you before? Etc…

I hope you will consider my request to ____________________________ I appreciate you taking the time to help me.

Sincerely,

                                                                                    (Type Your Name, I didn't sign mine)
                                                                                    Your name
                                                                                    Address
                                                                                   Telephone Number

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

Anonymous — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 17:38:52 GMT

Oh man, oh man, I'm so excited. I just recently started checking out my CR and I've been fretting over all the errors. I decided to go ahead and dispute online. All the while feeling sick to my stomach. I've disputed with equifax and experian so far. I just got an alert saying that my fico went up 23 points. Woo Hoo. And as far as I know, that is just for ONE of the many accounts that are not reporting correctly. I'm finding myself more and more eager to get this ball rolling now. Hope I don't get addicted to my credit reports (as I seem to always fret over money stuffs). LOL

Sorry, just had to share. Thanks to everyone on this board. I've been reading ALL DAY all the different posts and have gotten so much good advice just from everyone posting here. Thank You!

(There seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel now... and it's not sounding like a train)..... yet..lol

Re: Success Stories and Encouragement

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 20:34:43 GMT

I won't bore you all with the gory details, but with hard work we can all get into the 700's.

I just received the latest alert that my score jumped 61 points (I sh*t you not). Over the past 18 months my FICO scores have consistently gone up to my current score of 735/724/724, respectively. This latest jump is AFTER I opened a department store credit card. You know the ones that tout, "open an account today and save 10% on today's purchase"). Well, I held out until they offered 25%. Yep, 25% off! Needless to say I couldn't resist. Anyway, I'm about sharing the wealth so this is my take on why I believe my scores have improved so well and what I have done that has truly benefited me. For the record, I make 48K, have two auto loans, seven credit cards and a Chapter 13 Bankrupthy from a few years back.

First, we all know that payment history accounts for nearly 35% of your score. To prevent me from EVER being late, I set up ACH debits with all my creditors. What this means is that the credit card companies and auto loans automatically deduct the minimum amount due from my checking account on the due date. Therefore, I am always on time with my payments. This protects me if the mail is slow, the statements never makes it to my mail box, or I'm on an extended vacation to Baghdad. When I pull my credit reports they always say, "PAYS AS AGREED, NEVER LATE". It's the easiest, most fool-proof way to stay on top of the game...and you're never late. If you want to make a larger payment than the minimum, just go online and make an additional payment with the creditor.

Secondly, we know that nearly 30% of your score is usage. I created an excell spreadsheet with all my accounts. Across the top of the page I have the following fields: Account name, year account opened, last used, minimum due, APR, credit limit, ideal available credit, max balance, available credit and the last column is balance due. Each month I update the spreadsheet so at any given time I have a snapshot of my financial debt. One of the things that I watch the most is making sure my credit usage doesn't exceed a self-imposed limit of 20% of my credit limit (not 30% as suggested). If I go over, I make sure I bring it within the acceptable threshold as soon as possible.

Lastly, every six months or so I use a credit card for a small purchase such as gas to keep my accounts active. I know it's suggested to have a zero balance, but this works for me because I don't want one of my longest cards to be summarily cancelled for inactivity so this just keeps me in good graces with the credit crad companies.

Anyway, this is some of the things I do to stay ahead of the game and it seems to be working well for me. I gladly welcome any and all comments or suggestions.

Best wishes-