topic Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?! in Rebuilding Your Credit

Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 20:46:54 GMT

Okay I've been reading for weeks but this is my first post so I apologize for any mistakes/not knowing the lingo very well. We are trying to repair my husband's credit to buy a home in the future. We recently sat down with a lender at a bank and she pulled his credit for us. She said his scores are 526, 527, 523. (Not sure which is which) We need to get to around 640 so this week he is putting a deposit on a capital one secured card, then soon we will open another secured card and hopefully qualify for a Kohls card within a couple of months. The real issue is his debt, though.
He has a judgement for $3562 (We somehow were not aware of this?)
Auto repossession from cosigning for a car several years ago (ugh) $3548
$1127 from breaking a lease (she said not to touch this and wait to see if it falls off in October which will be 7 years)
$159, and $86 for duke energy (electric bill)
$131 for Comcast
$3209, $1593, $1201, $1037, $100 all for Allied Collections (not sure where the individually came from but this is also where the judgement came from and she thinks most likely some of those amounts are actually part of the judgement)
$3305
$2072
$952
$335
$697
$138
Most likely most of the above 6 amounts are medical bills but she didn't give specifics for those...just the collections company and phone number are what we have. All of the debts have already gone to collections...
She suggested taking care of the judgement asap and coming back in 8 months to see where we are. But this is over $15k in debt and not sure where to start or who to call or what to say. Should we try to settle on some smaller amounts (or attempt to have them deleted for PIF?) should we set up payment plans? Does that even help? I know she said we should end up with no more than $3000 in medical bills if we want a home loan. Does that mean the rest have to paid? She also recommended going to hospital where many of our bills are from and asking about grants/forgiveness. Any advice is so appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 21:04:54 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Okay I've been reading for weeks but this is my first post so I apologize for any mistakes/not knowing the lingo very well. We are trying to repair my husband's credit to buy a home in the future. We recently sat down with a lender at a bank and she pulled his credit for us. She said his scores are 526, 527, 523. (Not sure which is which) We need to get to around 640 so this week he is putting a deposit on a capital one secured card, then soon we will open another secured card and hopefully qualify for a Kohls card within a couple of months. The real issue is his debt, though.
He has a judgement for $3562 (We somehow were not aware of this?)
Auto repossession from cosigning for a car several years ago (ugh) $3548
$1127 from breaking a lease (she said not to touch this and wait to see if it falls off in October which will be 7 years)
$159, and $86 for duke energy (electric bill)
$131 for Comcast
$3209, $1593, $1201, $1037, $100 all for Allied Collections (not sure where the individually came from but this is also where the judgement came from and she thinks most likely some of those amounts are actually part of the judgement)
$3305
$2072
$952
$335
$697
$138
Most likely most of the above 6 amounts are medical bills but she didn't give specifics for those...just the collections company and phone number are what we have. All of the debts have already gone to collections...
She suggested taking care of the judgement asap and coming back in 8 months to see where we are. But this is over $15k in debt and not sure where to start or who to call or what to say. Should we try to settle on some smaller amounts (or attempt to have them deleted for PIF?) should we set up payment plans? Does that even help? I know she said we should end up with no more than $3000 in medical bills if we want a home loan. Does that mean the rest have to paid? She also recommended going to hospital where many of our bills are from and asking about grants/forgiveness. Any advice is so appreciated! Thanks in advance.

First thing, opening more cards will add hard inquiries to your CR and will take a while to establish a long enough history to show improvement. The best thing to do is to get rid of the negative items. If there are any that will fall off soon, your best bet is to leave them alone.

1. The Cap1 card is good, but don't expect a huge improvement in your score anytime soon.

2. If you don't know where the judgement came from, you need to go to the courthouse in that county and ask to see the case file. There's really no advice to give until you know more about that situation. Some states have an online court records system, but they provide very little info - you'd be able to see the plaintiff's name.

3. Kohls card - store cards don't do a whole lot in the bigger picture.

4. The auto repo is stuck because you co-signed.

5. As far as the electric bils, comcast, etc, I'd suggest disputing with the collection agencies before you do any PFDs.

6. Medical bills - the last place you want to start is with the collection agency. Do you have a guess as to what hospital they came from? PM me about these if you want.

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 21:25:00 GMT

Thank you for answering! I think most of the medical bills would be from our local hospital.
The only reason we are trying to get credit cards is because she said we would need at least 12 months of history with three different accounts and since we don't have a car payment or anything...I wasn't sure what else to use.
I'm not sure what disputing means but I will look that up on here and see what to do!

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 05:06:46 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank you for answering! I think most of the medical bills would be from our local hospital.
The only reason we are trying to get credit cards is because she said we would need at least 12 months of history with three different accounts and since we don't have a car payment or anything...I wasn't sure what else to use.
I'm not sure what disputing means but I will look that up on here and see what to do!

I'd agree with the above poster regarding Kohls - better to just app for a couple of cap one unsecured cards, once the secured cards hit the reports. If you have no installment loans at all, you would benefit from a small ($300-$500) secured loan through SDFCU. You can do the secured loan, then put the loan proceeds back into the savings account and use that to get a secured visa from them.

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 18:00:16 GMT

yay someone i can help. i had a 530 credit score about 6 months ago and now it is 660. so you can easily increase his credit. what helped for me is a made an account on credit karma and applied for the recommended credit cards. they all said fair but i applied and got a non secured capital one card with 300 dollar credit limit. i spent 10$.....you dont want to use more then 30% percent of each cards limit or it will lower your score. my score jumped 37 points on each report just from the credit cards one time report to the bureaus. my utitlization was 12% which was 35$. then i noticed i had 3 collections which were hospital bills. i went to recommendations and saw they recommended lexington law (look them up). i called and they gave me the usual spill about how they could get stuff removed from my credit reports. i wasn't really buying it but decided to pay the 99$ for the first month and im glad i did. they got all three hospital bils removed. what they told me before i ordered was if the collections agency doesn't have proof of the bill or that they are authorized to collect on behalf of the party owed then they have to remove it from your collections. i only ordered cause i saw one of the bills was a duplicate in a year i did't go to the hospital. one was even determined to meet the fair credit reporting act and it was later removed. my score has risen exactly 100 points since i started using credit karma. it was 560 two months ago when i opened my credit karma account.

i just got approved for another card with a 500 dollar limit from capital one...unsecured. im execting my score to go up another 40 points from it. so i should have a 700. whats funny is i applied for a secured card through capital one 6 months ago when my score was 530 and they denied me. now im getting approved left and right. my moms score has also gone up over 100 points since she started using capital one 2 months ago.

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 18:21:40 GMT

on second thought use lexington law at your own discretion. i had good experiences with them as i stated. but other people on my thread in this forum have said they got played and that only one collection was removed. you might have the same luck i did or you might not.

edit: and i wouldn't use them for more then a few months. its 99 a month and they send out the challenge dispute letters in the first month. from there they can't do much else. i only used them for a month and got all 3 removed.

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 18:24:07 GMT

Ok I started 13 months ago with scores in the high 400s. Im mid 600's now creeping my way to 700 lol

1.You first need to pull your reports from free annual reports.

2.Pull Transunion and experian because they give you the dates that things fall off of your report, you'll know exactly what you owe and who you owe it to.

3.DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT GO DISPUTE CRAZY.

4.First look over the entire report carefully. Look at each account, are they yours? Are they reported correctly? are the dates correct? the amounts owed? do you have any documents to support the info being incorrect.

5.Next you need to dispute ANY incorrect or outdated personal info (name misspellings, incorrect s.s. #, old addresses and old jobs and phone numbers) the reason you get rid of this stuff is because that is the info the CA can use to validate the debt, which does NOT prove that it is yours. if they gonna prove it is yours they better be right!!!

6. Next goal is to get items removed not just paid. paid collections dont help you at all.

7. DO NOT appraoch any debt that you can still get sued for unless you have money to pay in full. its ok to settle for less than owed but if they dont offer anf you contact them you need to have the full amount ready to pay

8. DO NOT approach any debt and confirm that it is yours when you go to pay, or request a pay for delete

9. Try to do as much disputing or correspondance in writing BUT i can say after i researched my creditors i knew which ones will delete and which ones wont budge so DO YOUR RESEARCH FIRST

10. GOOD WILL letters for any late payments or old CA that you have pad to get them removed

11.. for the loveof god DO NOT PAY ANYTHING LATE

i hope this helps

OH ONE MORE THING while you are getting rid of the bad YOU HAVE TO ESTABLISH GOOD STUFF you can do both at the same time

** FOR MAX SCORES 3 bank credit cards, and an installment loan ( car or student loan)

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 19:16:09 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Ok I started 13 months ago with scores in the high 400s. Im mid 600's now creeping my way to 700 lol
1.You first need to pull your reports from free annual reports.
2.Pull Transunion and experian because they give you the dates that things fall off of your report, you'll know exactly what you owe and who you owe it to.
3.DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT GO DISPUTE CRAZY.
4.First look over the entire report carefully. Look at each account, are they yours? Are they reported correctly? are the dates correct? the amounts owed? do you have any documents to support the info being incorrect.
5.Next you need to dispute ANY incorrect or outdated personal info (name misspellings, incorrect s.s. #, old addresses and old jobs and phone numbers) the reason you get rid of this stuff is because that is the info the CA can use to validate the debt, which does NOT prove that it is yours. if they gonna prove it is yours they better be right!!!
6. Next goal is to get items removed not just paid. paid collections dont help you at all.
7. DO NOT appraoch any debt that you can still get sued for unless you have money to pay in full. its ok to settle for less than owed but if they dont offer anf you contact them you need to have the full amount ready to pay
8. DO NOT approach any debt and confirm that it is yours when you go to pay, or request a pay for delete
9. Try to do as much disputing or correspondance in writing BUT i can say after i researched my creditors i knew which ones will delete and which ones wont budge so DO YOUR RESEARCH FIRST
10. GOOD WILL letters for any late payments or old CA that you have pad to get them removed
11.. for the loveof god DO NOT PAY ANYTHING LATE
i hope this helps
OH ONE MORE THING while you are getting rid of the bad YOU HAVE TO ESTABLISH GOOD STUFF you can do both at the same time
** FOR MAX SCORES 3 bank credit cards, and an installment loan ( car or student loan)

That is incorrect. Paid collections are ALWAYS preferrable to unpaid, regardless of score effect. While paid collections do not score differently than unpaid, they do not update, so they age faster. Unpaid collection do not "age" if they are being updated regularly.

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 19:18:04 GMT

they dont HELP YOUR SCORE. which is what most people think thanks for pointing out my error.

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 19:25:01 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
they dont HELP YOUR SCORE. which is what most people think thanks for pointing out my error.

I always try to point out that its not "all about the score".

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 22:48:53 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank you for answering! I think most of the medical bills would be from our local hospital.
The only reason we are trying to get credit cards is because she said we would need at least 12 months of history with three different accounts and since we don't have a car payment or anything...I wasn't sure what else to use.
I'm not sure what disputing means but I will look that up on here and see what to do!

PM me about the med bills... I'll give you some tips on those if you'd like.

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 22:59:02 GMT

Thank you! I can't seem to figure out how to pm people on here... 🤔

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 15:38:15 GMT

Small update- I went to the hospital where I believe many of the collections originated- they said now that they have all gone to collections, it is too late for any grants/assistance and I have to work with the collections company. The company is Allied, if anyone has heard of them.

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 15:42:46 GMT

Also, I noticed there are some duplicate accounts on his report. (Same creditor and amount, different collection company) Is that hurting his score? Is there a way to get the duplicates removed or is this just normal?

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 15:52:47 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Also, I noticed there are some duplicate accounts on his report. (Same creditor and amount, different collection company) Is that hurting his score? Is there a way to get the duplicates removed or is this just normal?

It happens a lot. Dispute the ones with the earlier dates with the comment "Collector does not have collection authority for this account"

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 15:59:43 GMT

Thank you! Are the duplicates hurting my score?

Re: Starting to repair, tons of collections. Help?!

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 17:17:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank you! Are the duplicates hurting my score?

Every derog removal is a positive, whether you see much score improvement or not.