topic My Credit Rebuilding Journey in Rebuilding Your Credit

My Credit Rebuilding Journey

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:49:11 GMT

Hello, I am just starting my journey towards rebuilding my credit. I started reading these boards the beginning of this month and requested all three of my three credit reports. I was a single mom through college and let a lot of bills go without realizing the reppercusions. I have a good job now and would like to purchase a home in a couple of years. My scores today: TU: 542, EX: 510, EQ 569.

Here's what my report is showing:

12 different student loan entries with varying pay statuses between the three listings. Lots of 60, 90, 120, and 180 lates spread throughout. All but one has been transferred and consolodated into one new loan that has been deferred until July 2013. The other lists as transferred with a claim filed with the government.

1 Auto loan in good standing, never late.

Collection accounts:

3 medical accounts from an out of state emergency surgery that have been sold to collections and were opened in 2006. I think these should fall off sometime this year, and so I don't know if I should PFD them, or just let them fall off?

RIVERCOL- a collection for an old townhome I used to live in that claimed I never had a damage deposit, even though I am positive I paid a deposit of $450 when I moved in. I refused to pay on the principle of it, and disputed with the credit report but it came back as valid. I just wrote them a letter explaining what happened, how I did have a deposit and asked that they consider removing from collections. No word back yet.

NRTHESTCRCOL (original creditor Paragon Contracting Serv Inc) for $743 opened on 9/19/12. I have NO idea what this is.

STELLAR REC- Comcast $197. Plan to PFD

WORLDWDE REC

Medical bill from 2008 for $606. PFD?

IC SYSTEM (Kinder care) I am currently in a payment plan with them of $100/mo. I didn't know about PFD when I arranged the plan. Should I attempt to PFD now?

Public records:

1 Judgement originally from US Bank for a charged off credit card that I opened when I was 18 and spent $500 on. They went to court about 5 years after serving me ( I was broke and in college when they served) and I had moved out of state and gotten a good job when they went to court. I had no notice of the court hearing. I am currently in a payment plan of $500/mo for a total of $3031 for this bill. I asked if they would sign a stipulation for the judgement to be vacated upon completion of payment and their response was that "they don't sign those but they have heard of others bringing the motions themselves after payment." This will be paid off in about 3 months, and it sounds like I will have to bring forth a motion to have it vacated at that point and hope for success.

Inquiries: SO MANY! 28 in total. 17 of them were in one day that I was trying to get approved for an auto loan. I hope they are only counting as 1 even though all 17 are listed? Two are set to fall off this month.

My Action Plan and What I've done so far:

I joined Sky Blue Credit Repair. I hadn't read these boards yet and did it on an impulse basically being desperate to start cleaning some of this up. I am going to see what happens over the first month. I joined two weeks ago and I just recieved two credit alerts yesterday on two of the student loans on EQ but all it says is "Account Information) To be determined when technical discussions with Equifax begins" I am really, really interested to know what these are and am assuming they are in response to letters that Sky Blue sent. I am crossing my fingers they are good updates especially since one of the counts is the one with the government claim.

I appled for a Capital One secured card and was approved with a $99 deposit. I paid the deposit yesterday and just have to wait for my card and information about my credit limit now. I am still confused about how to use it though. Let's say my limit will be $200. I keep hearing to keep the bill to 9% or lower. Does this mean I would want to spend around $20 on the card and then make the minumum payement every month? It says if the balance is less than $25 that your minimum payment will be the amount charged. Is it a good idea to pay off the $20 immediately, or let a minumum balance sit there?

Opted Out - I read somewhere to do this, so I did.

I am paying back so many bills right now that it is using up most of my expendable income, but in a few months I am going to start sending the PFD's for the collections on my account and see what happens.

Any advice on where to go from here? I am thinking I should open up another secured card, but have heard to wait a few months in between? I am thinking of trying for the Golden1 secured card next since I bank with them.

Thanks

Jane_Eyre

Re: My credit rebuilding journey

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:31:31 GMT

bump

Re: My credit rebuilding journey- Please help!

_jb_ — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 14:15:22 GMT

You didn't say anything wrong. It looks like you are off to a fairly good start. I am by no means an expert so won't offer much advice except to say get organized with what you are sending where (PFD, GW, etc.) so you can keep track of it all. I have heard bad things about credit repair companies, so I would maybe google the company and see what anyone else has to say about them as well.

I think I have heard that they get stuff removed which improves your credit, only for it to return at a later date (years down the road), but I don't know specifics.

As for credit cards, I think just hold onto the 1 card you have coming now, and give it 6 months to report. For utilization, use it as much as you want, but make sure you pay it down to between 1-9% before the statement cuts. Then the CCC will report your balance to the CRAs, showing that you are using your credit responsibly. Once the statement cuts, you can then pay the balance down to $0, and start over. Repeat each month. You should avoid interest this way as well.

That's all I can offer at the moment, but I hope this grabs the attention of the big wigs around here who have really been there, done that.

Re: My credit rebuilding journey- Please help!

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:34:43 GMT

Thank you so much for the response jb! I am really so new to all of this and am second guessing myself a lot since I have so much to learn about how to best tackle these items. In the small amount of research that I did before signing up for Sky Blue, I did see that they said they would refund my money in full after 90 days if I wasn't satisfied and that they have no complaints with the bbb, that was enough to make me feel comfortable at the time. I am just crossing my fiingers on this one and hoping for the best at this point.

Thank you so much for clearing up my confusion about the secured card! The last thing I want to do is screw anything up at this point. This card will be my only revolving account and I think finally having one reporting will help to diversify my credit. Six months for them to report seems like a long time! I know this is going to be a long, slow road and that I need to be patient. I just can't wait to finally own a home for my daughter and I...

Thanks again!

Jane_Eyre

Re: My credit rebuilding journey- Please help!

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 15:29:03 GMT

I would wait out another 2 weeks to see what Sky Blue does for you. From what I understand they seem to get results and don't sign you into a contract. When results come back, I would call them and see what they suggest the second round to be. Based on the conversation I would say its up to you to decide, either you like they're plan or you think you can just handle yourself. If you want to handle yourself I would suggest a simple plan to try and navigate through credit report:

1) I suggest organizing everything on your credit report and know exactly when things are due to fall off. There's a few excel worksheets if you search the threads here.

2) Would tackle any debt that is not yours and reporting on your credit report

3) Would PFD on accounts that are yours and showing a balance. I believe Blue Sky doesn't not help with this, its something you will have to do yourself either way.

4) GW any lates, paid, charged off or closed accounts.

5) I would not apply for anymore credit

6) Keep the secured card in good standing as suggested

I am defiantly no expert but after the endless hours of reading this and other forums I think its best to have a simple attack method without being over whelmed.

Good luck and let us know how it goes, don't hesitate to post any questions if you aren't sure about something. People here are very nice and seems all started at similar starting points.

Re: My credit rebuilding journey- Please help!

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 15:41:29 GMT

Thanks for the advice Demetri! I am glad to hear something good about Blue Sky from someone here, that makes me feel a little better. One thing I am curious about is why you and jb are suggesting that I only get one secured card? Blue Sky sent me an email and said I should open two secured cards immediately to achieve my credit goals. What are the pros and cons of opening one vs two?

Thanks, I am so glad that I found this board!

Jane_Eyre

Re: My credit rebuilding journey- Please help!

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:02:00 GMT

No problem, I actually read this quote here "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step"

Im not totally against opening another secure card but based on all the inquiries you have, it will most likely dip your score just a little more.

Based on your situation, 1 auto loan and 1 secure card is a good mix.

Not sure if the email Blue Sky sent you was personalized to your situation or just a standard email they send out to everyone but you do have 2 lines of credit as of now, which I think is what they are suggesting.

Keep in mind, these credit lines will help you once your report is cleared up.

You could have 5 secured cards but if the steps are never taken to clean up report it wont help your situation much until the negative accounts ultimately drop off based on age.

Instead of applying for another card, is there someone or a family member that can add you as an Authorized User to they're accounts?

It gives you another line of credit without taking a inquiry hit. Need to be careful with this, would defiantly want someone who has an excellent payment history on whatever account they add you on. On the other hand you also need to be very careful and keep account in very good standing as any negative activity on account will also reflect on theyre credit report.

Re: My credit rebuilding journey- Please help!

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:11:02 GMT

Ok, thanks for the clarification. My thoughts were that since my credit is already trashed now and that I won't be applying for anything for at least two years (mortgage), that I might as well get the inquiries in now so that they fall off that much sooner when I need my score to be as good as possible. I can't believe I never thought about the effect of all these inquiries! I am just kicking myself now for not realizing all of this sooner. But you are right, you have to start somewhere and I'm just glad I stumbled upon this board and all of this information. I actually feel like I can do something about this now!

Jane_Eyre

Re: My credit rebuilding journey- Please help!

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:27:17 GMT

Update: Well, I'm making baby steps. I've gotten one baddie removed from Equifax and three from Transunion. I've opened up two secured cards, a Cap1 and a Golden1 and am on my way to paying off my old debt. I expect to have all of the collections paid off within the next three months. Once my judgement is satisfied and vacated, the only thing holding me back will be all those lates on my student loans. I contacted the ombudsman for Direct Loans and they are going to see what they can do for my lates as I thought I was in deferred status for a lot of them. I haven't gotten any updated credit reports yet, but I'm hoping to see a bit of a bump from the removed collections. Credit Karma showed a 6 point boost from 542 to 548, and I got a freescore alert that said my Experian rose from 510 to 520.

I'm also hoping that the two secured cards will make for a nice bump once they report as they are the only revolving accounts I have on my report. I am starting to realize how long this may take and wish I would have started a long time ago. Only way to go from here is up though and the little bit of progress I've made is encouraging.

Re: My credit rebuilding journey- Please help!

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 20:55:19 GMT

You are doing great!! I just want to add that the length of your total credit history is important too. So just make sure if you have an old account even if it was reported negative, that if it is removed your scores could decrease. Because now the average years of your credit history would go down lowering your score. A rule of thumb is to have at least 3 revolving credit cards. Please also make sure that your secured cards aren't reporting on your reports as secured. There are secured credit cards out there that report to all three bureaus and don't report as secured. You just have to research them. If you know some one with a good credit score of 700+ that pays their credit card on time every month, if they add you as an authorize user your scores could dramatically increase dramatically. I have seen it increased by 80 points!!!!

Re: My credit rebuilding journey- Please help!

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 01:12:07 GMT

Hey tdfinley, thanks for your help. My oldest accounts are my negative student loans. The oldest is from 2004, so at least they are helping in some fashion. Both of my secured cards report as unsecured to all three bureaus also. As for the authorized user account, I just talked to my fiancee about adding me, it sounds like that could help me a lot! It would help my average age of accounts and increase my credit quite a bit and then it would show as I had three cards I gather?

Jane

Re: My Credit Rebuilding Journey

tlfinley — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:53:20 GMT

Correct Jane! I'm curious to know just how many points your score will increase to. That along can change your scores literally over night tremendously! Debt to ratio is so important as well, please keep your balances low. I wish you would have established opening up secured cards that doesn't show as secured. But that's ok your on time payments will help. If you are renting, rentreporters.com could report your on time rent payments for like 10 bucks a month. They really did help me. Btw, I do not represent that company in any way. You are so close to a good credit life!!! Good luck again!

Re: My Credit Rebuilding Journey

Anonymous — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 14:21:22 GMT

Hi tifinley, the cards that I opened report as regular unsecured credit cards, I researched here first before opening so I knew what to look for. This forum has already helped so much! I will continue updating my journey and report what types of bumps that I see in the future. Thanks for the tips

Jane

Re: My Credit Rebuilding Journey

germese1975 — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 12:38:14 GMT

Jane,

I'm curious.... How has Sky Blue been working out for you? I know everything they do, I could do for myself, but I'm just not in a position to do all of that right now. I have about 5 CO and 2 Midland accounts on my CRs that I want to try to get cleared up. I'm also going through a SS with a house I moved out of 3 years ago, so those are indicating lates. I'm hoping Wells Fargo will clear those off once the SS is complete.

Re: My Credit Rebuilding Journey

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 02:20:02 GMT

Hey guys,

So it's been a year since I posted here and I've accomplished a lot credit wise! I ended up paying off every single outstanding debt that I had including my judgement. SB ended up getting every single baddie taken off my report and I had quite a few. I used them for maybe 6 months and then cancelled and have to say I was very pleased with their service. I also had my fiance add me as an authorized user to his Capital One credit card with a limit of $5000. I used my two tiny secured cards each month for a year and made sure to pay them off in full or with a very small balance each month. All the FAKO sites were showing my scores increase into the low to mid 600's, so I decided to take the plunge and called Capital One a few days ago and applied to their unsecured platinum card and was instantly approved with a credit limit of $3000. I'm feeling really great about how much improvement I was able to make from one year of work!

I'm waiting for my new cap1 credit card in the mail and for it to report to my credit report to see if I get another bump. I just learned about the Navy Federal Credit Union and opened up a membership, but I don't know if I should go ahead and apply to one of their credit cards now or if I should wait a bit? I was thinking of trying for one with them and if approved, I would close both of my secured cards. Any advice?

This process really works guys, just keep at it!!

Jane