topic Re: Finally embracing my situation, and need a little help. in Rebuilding Your Credit

Finally embracing my situation, and need a little help.

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 22:36:30 GMT

Hey all.

A little background:

I'm 27 years old. This year was tough, for all of us. So here's my situation. Up until October 2020, my credit scores were all in the 700 range. As a student, I still carried a 20-30% balance based on my necessities and working unpaid internships. Fine.

What Happened:

In October 2020, I got a notification that two medical bills had been submitted to collections. My score dropped to 615-620 across all the bureaus. I was mortified. I have a 100% on-time payment history on all my credit cards. I thought this could be resolved. I spent over a month going back and forth with the debt collectors. What happened was I had an unpaid co-pay bill (started as $30??) that had gone into collections from years ago. They had been sending the follow-ups to an address I did not live at. I had attempted to prove this to them to no avail. In the end, the bills were totaling in the $300 range so I paid them (I didn't trust any agencies I found to get them removed). So here I am, with 700 scores from a Vantage Score 3.0 perspective, but 615, 616, 620 from a FICO perspective.

Moving Forward:

I am doing my best to save money while consistently paying off my debts. I have about 30% usage on my credit card right now that carried over from last month. I looked on the FICO score simulator, and it seemed to increase my score higher if I pay smaller amounts over time. But this feels like it's going to be tough moving forward, especially with trying to find apartments in New York that are willing to take a sub 700 credit score. Please help, I'm in the dumps. I've been paying off my credit card since this all happen and barely anything has changed.

Re: Finally embracing my situation, and need a little help.

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 00:40:26 GMT

First let me page @gdale6 as he has a saved text template with information on clearing medical collections that can help.

For the payments on your card, you can ignore score simulators. They simply don't have enough info to make accurate predictions. Utilization is a snapshot in time. Making small payments over a longer period simply increases the total you'll pay due to interest. Scoring factors that deal with balances are based on absolute numbers. Pay off your card to 5% over six months and you'll gain X points. Do it in one shot and you'll gain the same number but you'll pay less interest. You're at 30%. Pay that to no more than 27% and you'll likely gain 10-15 points since 29% usage is a scoring breakpoint. I say 27% so you have headroom for interest and can still stay under 29%.

It's hard in your situation, especially trying to save to live in NY. Just keep at it and definitely use the info that gdale6 can provide - if it works you'll be rid of that collection.

Welcome to the forums - stick around, read, ask questions, and you'll learn more than you ever imagined about how this wacky credit world works and you'll be all the better for it

Re: Finally embracing my situation, and need a little help.

gdale6 — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 01:14:50 GMT

Welcome to my Fico!

Medical collections are some of the easiest to get removed from your CRs, here are the steps that you should follow to address them:

1. Call the OC and see if insurance can be billed, (or-rebilled), collections ultimately paid by insurance get removed per new rules that came from CRAs settlement with 22 state AGs. If not then
2. see if you qualify for Charity Care, if not then
3. ask that they recall the collection in exchange for full payment
4. Send the reporting CA a PFD offer
5. Google the HIPAA Process and contact its creator for help, this process cannot be discussed in any forum of myFico.

Re: Finally embracing my situation, and need a little help.

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 02:38:48 GMT

@gdale6 @Anonymous thank you both for your swift and speedy replies! I can say it was a sigh of relief to speak with people who understand what I'm going through without judgment.

As for the steps you listed @gdale6 because I paid the debt to zero, they reported it as paid in full. The agency said they could not dispute or PFD because I had already paid it, they have continually told me there is nothing they can do to help.

Re: Finally embracing my situation, and need a little help.

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 02:52:03 GMT

@gdale6 further--can you submit a PFD after you've already paid the collecion debt?

Re: Finally embracing my situation, and need a little help.

gdale6 — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 03:17:59 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@gdale6 further--can you submit a PFD after you've already paid the collecion debt?

No, you would begin a goodwill letter campaign asking for removal of the TL

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/GW-letter-Q-amp-A-Examples-and-GW-Success-Stories/td-p/1573680

Re: Finally embracing my situation, and need a little help.

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 00:41:19 GMT

@gdale6 I wanted to say thank you! The GW letter worked!!!

Re: Finally embracing my situation, and need a little help.

AllZero — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 00:43:16 GMT

Congratulations on your GW success!

Re: Finally embracing my situation, and need a little help.

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 00:43:47 GMT

Congrsts and that was FAST!

Re: Finally embracing my situation, and need a little help.

M_Smart007 — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 02:34:22 GMT

Grats on the GW success!

Re: Finally embracing my situation, and need a little help.

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 03:02:42 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@gdale6 I wanted to say thank you! The GW letter worked!!!

Shazam! ⚡️💥💥 That's great! And super fast!

BTW, it's still worth going back to your insurance for at the time. More of it might be covered. Could be resubmitted. You might get some $ back. I have at least one like this, an OC which surfaced from 3 years ago. I nearly freaked out. I spent a long time on the phone to track it. Because I had maxed out that year, they were going to re submit and cover it 100%. Money 💰 back is a lovely thing. 😁 Congratulations on your GW letter working so quickly and well. Do let us know when the benefit to your scores comes into effect. 🙏🏻 Welcome to the forum.