topic Re: 609 Credit repair? in Rebuilding Your Credit

609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 03:44:49 GMT

Hello all!

New here so forgive me if I do anything "wrong". I am trying to get my husbands credit cleaned up as we desperately need to secure a car loan. One of our cars is on it's last leg and I don't think it will last much longer. We have spent the past year paying off debt (that wasn't past the statue of limitation) as I knew was no way we would be able to secure a loan with balance positive collection accounts. So we paid off all of the old collections (none of which would delete for payment). He has one card on there that is in MY name (he was a authorized user but the account isn't his). I know I am going to have to dispute in writing to get this account removed. I've been reading about the 609 disputing process and I think I'm going to give it a whirl, however after further review I'm a little nervous to use that. Everything on his account his paid (except the card that isn't his) but it would be really nice to just get the negative accounts removed entirely! He has 4-5 small collections (hospital bill, old cable bill, old cell phone bill) one BS (gr I still get mad when I think about how they screwed us!!) judgement from 2013, and one foreclosure from 2012. Any ideas on how we can get his report cleaned up? Is 609 a good tool to use? We desperately need a car loan and I am afraid that we won't qualify. We have one credit card that we opened 9/2015 that we have followed all of the "rules" with. That is our only revolving credit. I'm sure we could secure another card, but I want to be picky about the cards we open and want a better score to shop around a little on futurecards. Any advice is appreciated

Thanks so much!!

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 05:59:11 GMT

I don't recommend using any credit repair companies. They just do things you can do yourself for free, and from what I've heard, may do things improperly that can make situations worse, or have the negatives come right back.

Have you considered purchasing another used vehicle with your down payment? This would give you time to work on the credit repair and give you something to drive. If you held onto it for a year, you'd have plenty of time to work on your credit profiles, build positive histories with secured cards, and save an additional down payment on top of the trade-in.

I promise you do not want a sub-prime auto loan.

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 11:55:44 GMT

I also thought about the 609 disputing process. I purchased the 609 dispute information with letter templates. I just haven't gotten around to getting them notarized and sent out. If you try it, let us know how it works.

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 04:03:09 GMT

Thank you I was planning to do it myself. We have been through several cheap cars over the years and we are just ready to have something nice and reliable. At this point I think we would qualify for a loan (score is around 620ish) but I know it probably would not be the BEST loan. He has a handful of negative accounts, 1 positive revolving, and a handful of positive revolving that are closed. I was thinking if we could get rid of a few negatives before we go for a loan it would only boost our chances and rates even more so that's what I'm trying to do now. I am curious what you consider a sub-prime auto loan, though? I've never had a car payment in my life so this is a first for me and I will take all of the advice I can get. I certainly do not want to get into a crappy loan!

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 04:06:20 GMT

After not getting a reply last night I went for it, we have to get this loan moving I'm not sure our car will last much longer! I mailed off the first letter today. I didn't order a package or anything, just drafted a letter as best I could from Google (I read this is best anyways, if you use a predetermined template it is more likely to be flagged as spam, so if you do use the templates I would at least move or change some of the basic wording around, not the legal stuff). The only negative things I have read are just from people basically saying it's a waste of time, but has no personal experience. I haven't read anything from someone who has tried it with no luck. So fingers crossed it goes well. I will certainly keep you updated!

Re: 609 Credit repair?

stargazer25 — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 04:13:11 GMT

Can you tell us a little bit more about your negatives and positives? You could have some more improvements by having more positive accounts open. The scores you mentioned are they FICO or FAKOs (Credit Karma is FAKO)?

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 05:42:54 GMT

I only checked FICO once in Decemeber thus far, and it was 619 while I was pulling the credit. I try to stay away from FAKO! Here is a list of the negatives

1. Collection from Comcast

Date opened 8/2016

$0 balance

2. Hospital bill

Date opened 7/2014

$0 balance

3. AT&T

Date opened 2011

$0 balance

4. Sprint

Date opened 1/2015

$0 balance

5. Chase Mortgage

FORCLOSURE

Forclosure started in 1/2012

They sold the house for almost the full balance so they wrote the difference off (about 10k)

6.Judgement

Date opened 1/2014

$0 balance

7. Credit card collection

This is not his account, it's mine he was an authorized user on the account but it is not his.

Date opened 2011

$550 balance

Positives aren't a lot

We have one American express credit card that we opened 9/2015 it has a $800 credit limit and around a $100 balance

He has a car loan that he opened in either 2010 or 2011 which was fully satisifed and never late

He has 2 other car loans and a few credit cards that are also positive but they are very old, like over 7 yrs ago.

Main issue is we need to obtain a car loan ASAP. I don't think our other car is going to go much longer, we have spent the past year paying off all of his collection accounts and none of them would delete for pay. My credit isn't terrible, and I could open more cards and add him as a user but I don't want to go opening a bunch of cards because I know it's not great to close them so I want to be semi picky about any cards we open in the future.

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 00:10:41 GMT

Is it possible that you can get a car loan now? I was able to get one last year with a credit score less than your husband's. And yes, it was a high interest but I needed something that I knew would be reliable. After about 6 months, I was able to refinance through my credit union and lower the payment and interest. I have not regretted the purchase at all.

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 01:30:55 GMT

Try Capital One. We just purchased a vehicle through them a couple months ago at 6% which was better than the places the dealer tried. Husbands score was 565 at the time. I would suggest if you are going to buy or lease a new car that you ask around on Facebook and other places online if anyone works for the manufacturer of the vehicle you are looking at. They might be willing to give you a pin that is for friends and neighbors that will help get money off the vehicle.

Re: 609 Credit repair?

SunriseEarth — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 20:50:03 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hello all!
New here so forgive me if I do anything "wrong". I am trying to get my husbands credit cleaned up as we desperately need to secure a car loan. One of our cars is on it's last leg and I don't think it will last much longer. We have spent the past year paying off debt (that wasn't past the statue of limitation) as I knew was no way we would be able to secure a loan with balance positive collection accounts. So we paid off all of the old collections (none of which would delete for payment). He has one card on there that is in MY name (he was a authorized user but the account isn't his). I know I am going to have to dispute in writing to get this account removed. I've been reading about the 609 disputing process and I think I'm going to give it a whirl, however after further review I'm a little nervous to use that. Everything on his account his paid (except the card that isn't his) but it would be really nice to just get the negative accounts removed entirely! He has 4-5 small collections (hospital bill, old cable bill, old cell phone bill) one BS (gr I still get mad when I think about how they screwed us!!) judgement from 2013, and one foreclosure from 2012. Any ideas on how we can get his report cleaned up? Is 609 a good tool to use? We desperately need a car loan and I am afraid that we won't qualify. We have one credit card that we opened 9/2015 that we have followed all of the "rules" with. That is our only revolving credit. I'm sure we could secure another card, but I want to be picky about the cards we open and want a better score to shop around a little on futurecards. Any advice is appreciated
Thanks so much!!

Since you have already paid the collection accounts, I'd suggest sending GW letters to all of them requesting GW removal. You may need to do them on a monthly schedule until they agree to remove. There are lots of examples in the Forum of GW letters.

As for judgements and foreclosures, I don't have direct experience, so hopefully you can find information on the Forum that can help (or others can respond).

To help improve your credit, I'd recommend picking up another CC. With your current scores of ~620, you might be able to get something like Cap One's QS1; try their pre-qualifier to see. Then you'd want to optimize your UTIL to help.

Since you mentioned DH has positive auto loan histories, you may also want to consider lenders who use auto-enhanced scores. You should definitely look around the Auto Loan forum for info on that.

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 20:50:51 GMT

Just giving you all an update. So I mailed all 3 609 repair letters but I have only heard back from Experian thus far. I don't understand how they pick and choose what they delete and what they verify.

So I disputed 5 collections and 1 judgement with them.

The judgement was removed (I know for sure the courts had signatures and paper work on this so I was kind of surprised by that)

2 collections were removed

3 collections were verified.

And an old foreclosure (due to be removed 2018) was verified)

I don't understand the process of this. We had a collection with AT&T that is due to be removed next year that was verified, but a collection with Sprint that isn't due to be removed until 2022 that was deleted (both with the same collection company). The other collection that was deleted was from Comcast.

The 3 accounts that were verified were a hospital bill, the At&T collection, and then the one that really grinds my gears, an outstanding credit card that my hubby was only an authorized user on. This was the main one I wanted deleted because it hasn't been paid. Everything else has already been paid so getting them deleted was just icing, but I really needed this one removed. The account isn't his, he was only an authorized user on it, and they somehow verified it?!! It is due to be removed next year, and there is a $700 balance on it so I REALLY don't want to pay for it but we desperately need to get this car loan moving too so I'm not sure what I am going to do. I guess I'm going to have him call them in the morning and see what is up.

I also asked them to update all his addresses. There are like 20 addresses that are either 15+ years old, or not his at all and they didn't update any of them. So I'm going to have him call in the morning and see what can be done. I will keep ya'll updated as the letters start rolling in. If you have the letters I say go for it, so far I can say that it does work as some of those accounts would not have been removed otherwise (I've tried) but it takes awhile so be prepared to put some time into it!

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 21:15:19 GMT

Op, Did you ever try the cap 1 auto prequalifier like the other poster suggested? It doesnt affect your score and they can give you an estimate of the apr. if not what you expected you can always refinance later when your scores are much better. Good Luck best of wishes.

Re: 609 Credit repair?

rmduhon — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 00:41:28 GMT

Have hubby call the credit card company snd have himself removed as an AU.

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 02:27:08 GMT

I'm rebuilding and my highest fico is 624 (EQ). I had 2 COs with Cap 1. I paid them in full last month and did their auto prequalifier and was approved with a range of 3.9-9. I bought a 2017 CR-V Touring AWD and got 4.65. They also approved me for another play card. And I was surprised I was also approved for the Delta Amex

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 03:26:51 GMT

Thanks everyone for your suggestions! Will Cap 1 give you an auto loan with outstanding collections? We only have one credit card right now with a $1,000 limit and it is through Cap 1. We have been working hard paying everything off to get this loan. I really think once we get this last outstanding collection removed from his account we would be approved from a bank. I checked his score last month and it was 660. That was with the 3 things that have now been deleted still on there, and the unpaid collection.

I will have him call the original company tomorrow to see if he can remove his AU status. Then the collection agency, and Experian to see what can be done about getting this removed from his account.

Thanks for your help!

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 04:55:12 GMT

Check using the Cap one auto navigator. It was one of the easiest car buying experiences I've had.

Re: 609 Credit repair?

RobertEG — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 18:41:55 GMT

FCRA 609 is not a dispute process. Section 609 relates to the process for consumers to request information of record in their credit file.

It permits you, upon submitting proof of identity, the request info that may not be showing in your commercail credit report, such as the DOFD.

The FCRA dispute processes are under FCRA 611 (dispute through a CRA) pr FCRA 623(a)(8) (direct dispute with the furnisher).

The rules for disputing are set forth in those sections, and not under section 609.

It is not surprising that there is confusion as to "requirments" for a "609 dispute."

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 19:47:51 GMT

OP congrats on the great progress so far! I think ull be surprised at the rates you'll get with his in the 660s and yours being higher. To continue rebuilding the forums I've read on here say to have 3 CCs with two having a 0 balance and one reporting less than 10% monthly. If you all can manage that b4 or after the auto loan his scores should ride into the 700s shortly while you all garden and pay down the car note.

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Mon, 01 May 2017 15:46:11 GMT

may i ask where did you purchase your 609 packet and may i please have the information as i would like to persue a 609 as well. thank you

Re: 609 Credit repair?

Anonymous — Mon, 01 May 2017 18:45:53 GMT

Just sent off 609 letters to all 3 bureaus. I got mine from a link off youtube but customized the letters and changed a few things. Will see what the results are in about 28 days