topic Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice in Rebuilding Your Credit

[Update JUN 28] Rebuilding and on my way!

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 19:52:42 GMT

Hi all,

Longtime lurker, first post so bear with me. So far the advice here has helped a lot but now that I am ready to take more serious steps to improve my scores.

I started last year around September in the low 500s.

I applied for the First Premier Bank and was approved at $400 and still carry this limit.

In October, I applied for Credit one with a SL of $400 and was increased to $600.

2 days ago I applied for the Cap One QS and got a SL of $1000.

I have an open student loan with no lates and a lease through Infiniti with no lates as well.

I have 5 collection accounts then which are still open. I am looking now to take steps to remove them as my scores are hovering around the 585 mark. I would like to go about deleting if possible as I recently tried to apply for a card through Chase (Starbucks) and was denied based on derogatory items.

The collections are:

Portfolio Recover for $987 from an old Cap One from 2015

CCS for $124 for Progressive Ins

AWA Collections for a medical expense $153

Convergent for Cox $377

First Collection for utilities $147

I was going to attempt to call and get pay for delete but from what I have read, Portfolio is awful to deal with and that is my biggest concern. Any advice on the best way to go about this?? Thanks in advance! Lots of good help here.

Where I am now (June 28, 2019):

Current Cards:

Getting rid of:

Credit One: $800 limit

First Premier: $600 limit

First Premier: $1000 limit

Keeping:

Avant Card: $750 limit

Capital One Platinum: $1000 limit

Capital One Quicksilver One: $1500 limit

NFCU CashRewards: $700 limit

Discover IT Cash Back: $1000 limit (daily use card)

NFCU Platinum: $15,000 limit (balance transferring about 3k to this card for 0% for a year SUB)

Amazon Store Card: $400 limit

Authorized user: Credit One $1350

Income:

75k

Installment accounts:

Lease through Infiniti Finance (16k remaining started in July 2018)

Lease through Honda Finance (not reporting yet, just picked up a 2019 Accord for a commuter car )

Collections and negative marks:

Convergent (Closed as paid but they agreed to remove so need to call and find out whats going on)

Verizon unpaid $1,396

5 Nelnet Student loan accounts showing closed but reporting lates

Westlake Financial - Closed but reporting redeemed repo on TU, close in positive standing on EQ and EX

Current Scores:

See signature

Plan for future:

10/19 - request CLI for Cash Rewards or app 3rd NFCU card

1/20 - App 3rd NFCU card(if not done) or CLI for existing NFCU card

GARDEN MODE UNTIL 7/21

Hunt for good mortgage as hopefully credit file will be decent at this point (700+)

Lease on car will be up 10/21, residual (buy price) of 26K so as long nothing happened to the car before then hoping to get a good rate to buy it through NFCU auto loan or just lease another one

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

Medic981 — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 19:31:14 GMT

Welcome to the myFICO forums!

@Anonymous wrote:
Hi all,

Longtime lurker, first post so bear with me. So far the advice here has helped a lot but now that I am ready to take more serious steps to improve my scores.

I started last year around September in the low 500s.
I applied for the First Premier Bank and was approved at $400 and still carry this limit.
In October, I applied for Credit one with a SL of $400 and was increased to $600.
2 days ago I applied for the Cap One QS and got a SL of $1000.
I have an open student loan with no lates and a lease through Infiniti with no lates as well.

I have 5 collection accounts then which are still open. I am looking now to take steps to remove them as my scores are hovering around the 585 mark. I would like to go about deleting if possible as I recently tried to apply for a card through Chase (Starbucks) and was denied based on derogatory items.

The collections are:
Portfolio Recover for $987 from an old Cap One from 2015
CCS for $124 for Progressive Ins
AWA Collections for a medical expense $153
Convergent for Cox $377
First Collection for utilities $147

I was going to attempt to call and get pay for delete but from what I have read, Portfolio is awful to deal with and that is my biggest concern. Any advice on the best way to go about this?? Thanks in advance! Lots of good help here.

Portfolio can delete the collection but not the derogatory Capital One tradeline. I see you have an open tradeline with Cap1 at present. What I would suggest is that you contact Cap1 and ask them if they would be willing to recall the debt from portfolio if you were willing to PIF for a PFD of the derogatory tradeline.

The other route would be to PFD the collection with Portfolio and then attempt a GW adjustment with Cap1.

I would do the same with the other collections and contact the original creditors and see if they will recall the debt and PFD. Once the OC has recalled the debt from the CA. The collection account should be removed.

Perhaps other MFers will have other suggestions to add.

Good luck!!!

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 19:55:37 GMT

wrote:
Welcome to the myFICO forums!
Portfolio can delete the collection but not the derogatory Capital One tradeline. I see you have an open tradeline with Cap1 at present. What I would suggest is that you contact Cap1 and ask them if they would be willing to recall the debt from portfolio if you were willing to PIF for a PFD of the derogatory tradeline.

The other route would be to PFD the collection with Portfolio and then attempt a GW adjustment with Cap1.

I would do the same with the other collections and contact the original creditors and see if they will recall the debt and PFD. Once the OC has recalled the debt from the CA. The collection account should be removed.

Perhaps other MFers will have other suggestions to add.

Good luck!!!

Thanks for the tip. The old Cap One isn't reporting at all (at least from what I can see), just the Portfolio collection.

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

Brooklyn2018 — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 20:00:49 GMT

IMOE, I had a Progressive with CCS as CA. I contacted Progressive and PIF the amount owed. They automatically contacted CCS to pull their collection authority and the account was deleted from all 3 CRAs. According to CCS they delete once account is PIF. Just be sure and ask for PFD when you call Progressive...you shouldn’t have a problem having it deleted. YMMV

Hope that helps?

Good Luck and keep us posted for this account and other accounts so others can get feedback from your experiences.😉 Thanks.

😊

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

Brooklyn2018 — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 16:15:29 GMT

Just to UPDATE on CCS...

I asked that they send me a deletion letter in case I had issues with the CRAS.

They DID INDEED sent a deletion letter. Received it today in the mail.😀 The account has since been deleted but, it was nice to know they were helpful.

Again, Good Luck!!👍

😊

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

Rf32222 — Tue, 23 Oct 2018 07:09:24 GMT

PRA does do pfd as of 10/17/18

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Apr 2019 22:30:52 GMT

@Brooklyn2018 wrote:
IMOE, I had a Progressive with CCS as CA. I contacted Progressive and PIF the amount owed. They automatically contacted CCS to pull their collection authority and the account was deleted from all 3 CRAs. According to CCS they delete once account is PIF. Just be sure and ask for PFD when you call Progressive...you shouldn’t have a problem having it deleted. YMMV

Hope that helps?

Good Luck and keep us posted for this account and other accounts so others can get feedback from your experiences.😉 Thanks.

😊

Update: Successfully got a letter confirming PFD. Settled at 70% of what was owed (the amount didn't really matter to me as I just want it off my report). Should be removed from my report by end of the month.

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 18:35:11 GMT

Updates since original post just to clean everything up:

Current Cards:

Credit One: $800 limit/$-1.97 balance

Credit One: $800 limit/$268 balance (will be paid this month to report 0)

First Premier: $600 limit/$400 balance (will be paid this month to report 0)

First Premier: $1000 limit/$0 balance

Avant Card: $750 limit/$0 balance

Capital One Platinum: $1000 limit/$0 balance

Capital One Quicksilver One: $1000 limit/balance varies as this is my daily use card for the 1.5% cash back. Always PIF.

NFCU CashRewards: $700 limit/$0 balance

Authorized user: Credit One $1350/$0 balance

Installment accounts:

Lease through Infiniti Finance (22k started in July 2018)

Collections:

PRA (PFD completed will be removed within 30 days)

Convergent (PFD via original creditor will be removed within 30 days)

Neighborhood Healthcare (only reporting EQ and EX) (Not sure even what this is but will probably call for PFD just to get rid of it)

Negative Marks:

5 Nelnet Student loan accounts showing closed but reporting lates

Westlake Financial - Closed but reporting redeemed repo, called to ask for removal of tradeline, pending response

Current Scores:

See signature

Plan for future:

Now that I am in with NFCU, I plan to build out those accounts (hopefully with decent limits) to close my sub-primes in the next 2 years (all 5 of them, will probably keep the cap ones for a while).

3/19 - NFCU approval

7/19 - App second NFCU card, hope for 10k plus limit since all collections should be gone

10/19 - request CLI for Cash Rewards or app 3rd NFCU card

1/20 - App 3rd NFCU card(if not done) or CLI for existing NFCU card

GARDEN MODE UNTIL 7/21

Hunt for good mortgage as hopefully credit file will be decent at this point (700+)

Lease on car will be up 10/21, residual (buy price) of 26K so as long nothing happened to the car before then hoping to get a good rate to buy it through NFCU auto loan or just lease another one

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 22:43:10 GMT

Update 4/12

Convergent Outsourcing updated to paid and closed in Equifax report and CK. Vantage score went up 13 points TU and 14 points EQ. Waiting for FICOs to refresh on myfico app to see if it had any impact. Will need to confirm they are deleting this one as unfortunately I didn't get a PFD letter as I paid the original creditor.

PRA updated to show a "payment" of the settlement amount but still reports the balane as a collection. I have PFD letter so will give them the 30 days for this to go away.

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

FireMedic1 — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 23:16:55 GMT

Remember to have at least one revolver report a balance. All cards at zero balance you can lose 15-20 points. Just PIF after staement cuts. Good Luck on the other derogs!

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

simplegirl — Sat, 13 Apr 2019 00:04:15 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Update 4/12

Convergent Outsourcing updated to paid and closed in Equifax report and CK. Vantage score went up 13 points TU and 14 points EQ. Waiting for FICOs to refresh on myfico app to see if it had any impact. Will need to confirm they are deleting this one as unfortunately I didn't get a PFD letter as I paid the original creditor.

PRA updated to show a "payment" of the settlement amount but still reports the balane as a collection. I have PFD letter so will give them the 30 days for this to go away.

PRA will delete they first update to amount paid then to zero and then they finally delete it. They did it for me so thats one less to worry about.

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 23:34:00 GMT

Sooooo CK updated PRA has closed and moved balance to zero.

TU dropped 57 points

EQ dropped 54 points

MyFICO hasn't updated yet so I hope my FICOs dont take a dive like this. Was a little alarming. We shall see when it is completely deleted I suppose.

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

Anonymous — Mon, 13 May 2019 07:49:15 GMT

Update 13 MAY 2019

FICOs updated in sig.

Changes:

PRA has fallen off completely. I am down to one paid collection which I had a verbal agreement to remove so I will be calling them to follow up as it has been 45 days almost.

As per previous drop my scores went back up after removal in CK but not to where they were.

The change also doesn't seem to have impacted my FICO 8s at all. I've gained points but mostly from utilization becoming 2% from 20%.

My "repo" has been removed from two of the three bureaus. The only bureau still reporting it is Transunion so I call that a win.

Down to 2% utilization.

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

GSP_1 — Mon, 13 May 2019 20:44:12 GMT

Congrats on your progress so far!

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 19:51:13 GMT

Updates since original post just to clean everything up:

Current Cards:

Getting rid of:

Credit One: $800 limit

First Premier: $600 limit

First Premier: $1000 limit

Keeping:

Avant Card: $750 limit

Capital One Platinum: $1000 limit

Capital One Quicksilver One: $1500 limit

NFCU CashRewards: $700 limit

Discover IT Cash Back: $1000 limit (daily use card)

NFCU Platinum: $15,000 limit (balance transferring about 3k to this card for 0% for a year SUB)

Amazon Store Card: $400 limit

Authorized user: Credit One $1350

Income:

75k

Installment accounts:

Lease through Infiniti Finance (16k remaining started in July 2018)

Lease through Honda Finance (not reporting yet, just picked up a 2019 Accord for a commuter car )

Collections and negative marks:

Convergent (Closed as paid but they agreed to remove so need to call and find out whats going on)

Verizon unpaid $1,396

5 Nelnet Student loan accounts showing closed but reporting lates

Westlake Financial - Closed but reporting redeemed repo on TU, close in positive standing on EQ and EX

Current Scores:

See signature

Plan for future:

10/19 - request CLI for Cash Rewards or app 3rd NFCU card

1/20 - App 3rd NFCU card(if not done) or CLI for existing NFCU card

GARDEN MODE UNTIL 7/21

Hunt for good mortgage as hopefully credit file will be decent at this point (700+)

Lease on car will be up 10/21, residual (buy price) of 26K so as long nothing happened to the car before then hoping to get a good rate to buy it through NFCU auto loan or just lease another one

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jul 2019 19:05:26 GMT

I love to see progress like this. Thanks for sharing and Congrats

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jul 2019 19:59:10 GMT

I had to deal with PRA not to long ago. On their website it states that they do PFDs automatically. Mine was off my CRs roughly at the 45-50 day mark

Re: Rebuilding and on my way... could use a little advice

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jul 2019 20:35:58 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I had to deal with PRA not to long ago. On their website it states that they do PFDs automatically. Mine was off my CRs roughly at the 45-50 day mark

Yep. Found this out in April. It has since been removed from all of my CRs.